Risk Communication and Government: Theory and Application for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Research has shown that public perceptions of risk are constantly changing and evolving as the dynamics of public opinion shift in response to the environment in which we all live.

Chartier, Jean and Sandra Gabler. Canadian Food Inspection Agency (2001). Books>Risk Communication>Government>Canada

Risk Communication Bibliography

A collection of books and articles that address issues in risk communication.

Depoe, Steve. University of Cincinnati (1995). Resources>Bibliographies>Risk Communication

Risk Communication in Print and on the Web: A Critical Guide to Manuals and Internet Resources on Risk Communication and Issues Managment

A bibliography of resources, both in print and online, in risk communication.

Gray, Philip C.R. and Peter M. Wiedemann. Forschungszentrum Julich (2000). Resources>Bibliographies>Risk Communication

Risk Communication in the Context of Consumer Perceptions of Risks

One goal of risk communication on food safety issues (among many) is communication between risk assessors and risk managers and the average citizen. This dimension includes both communication with the citizenry as a whole, through the mass media and other widely disseminated information, and communication with consumer organizations that participate in the risk analysis/risk management process.

Groth, Edward III. Consumers Union (1992). Articles>Risk Communication>Biomedical

Risk Communication Specialty Group

The Risk Communication Specialty Group (RCSG) focuses on the communication of risk information between technical and lay audiences and is open to all members of the Society for Risk Analysis. Our membership represents a variety of theoretical and practical perspectives on risk communication. Members' interest areas include the perception of risk, public participation, mass media coverage of risk, trust and credibility, social influence, and evaluation related to risk communication activities.

Society for Risk Analysis. Organizations>Communication>Risk Communication

Risk Communication Websites

A collection of links to dozens of organizations in risk assessment and hazards communication.

Bryant, Mary. RiskWorld (2000). Resources>Directories>Risk Communication

Risk Communication—Lessons from Communication Science  

This article explores risk communication from the communication science perspective, discusses three theoretical risk communication models: theory of reasoned action, extended parallel processing model, and dialectical discourse model; explores the complexities of risk communication messages; suggests guidance for risk communicators; and provides a working bibliography of recent risk communication literature.

Zimmerman, Donald E. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Risk Communication

Risk Communication: A Critical Component in Every Crisis

Having been deployed as a crisis communicator to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, immediately after the New Orleans levees failed last year, I am frequently asked to talk about the experience and my opinion of why so much went wrong so quickly in the aftermath. My quick response is "Too little too late."

Alvey, Robert J. Communication World Bulletin (2006). Articles>Risk Communication>Crisis Communication

Risk Communication: A Guide to Regulatory Practice  

Risk communication is central to making decisions. It enables people to participate in deciding how risks should be managed.

Health and Safety Executive (2004). Articles>Risk Communication>Government>United Kingdom

Risk Communication: A Neglected Tool in Protecting Public Health  

A June 2003 publication from the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis.

Harvard University (2003). Articles>Risk Communication

Risk Communication: Navy Health, Operational And Environmental Issues

ommunicating health and environmental information is often challenging for any number of reasons ranging from a general distrust of the government to a lack of scientific understanding.  NEHC’s Environmental Programs Directorate has been the Navy's subject matter experts for Risk Communication since it's inception in 1991. The purpose of this web site is to provide risk communication resources and guidance.

U.S. Navy (2002). Resources>Directories>Risk Communication>Environmental

Risk Communication: Working With Individuals and Communities To Weigh the Odds

Risk communication is a complex, multidisciplinary, multidimensional, and evolving process of increasing importance in protecting the public's health. Public health officials use RC to give citizens necessary and appropriate information and to involve them in making decisions that affect them-such as where to build waste disposal facilities.

Prevention Report (1995). Articles>Risk Communication

Safety Risks in Mechanical Engineering

The cause for the careless handling of possible dangers is not so much unwillingness, but rather the lack of know-how. There are no standardised and well-documented processes that are simple to implement and use.

Walther, Andreas. TC-FORUM (2002). Articles>Risk Communication>Engineering

Seeing Clearly    

On the morning of 29 August, Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama with winds clocked at 140 miles (225 km) per hour and more than a foot (30 cm) of rain. Although the hurricane spared New Orleans, the major population center of the area, a direct blow, the storm surge caused several of the cityï¿s levees to fail, flooding 80% of the city with up to 20 feet (6 m) of water fouled by sewage, oil, and other pollutants. It will be many years before the coastal areas of southeast Asia and the U.S. Gulf Coast have rebuilt and recovered from this year's disasters. Likewise, it will take time for us to create better disaster plans and disseminate them to the public, and for the value of those plans to be perceived. Neither of these facts makes the rebuilding, recovery, and planning any less necessary. We must do all we can to ensure that they happen as quickly as possible. We should see clearly that we can't afford to do any less.

Hayhoe, George F. Technical Communication Online (2005). Articles>TC>Risk Communication>Southern US

Siting a Hazardous Waste Facility: The Tangled Web of Risk Communication

Risk communication is a relatively new field of study which has been concerned with the problems arising from the communication of scientific and technical assessments of risk to various sections of the public. These problems have largely been construed as technical ones: how to transfer difficult material from 'experts' to 'people' with the maximum effectiveness and the minimum loss of accuracy and content. Perhaps because technical or practical concerns have dominated, debates which have occurred in the literature of risk analysis have apparently had little impact on the field of risk communication.

Beder, Sharon and Michael Shortland. University of Wollongong (1992). Articles>Risk Communication>Government>Policies and Procedures

Smoldering Crises: Controlling Risk Through Prevention

The recent Sago Mine and Firestone tire debacles, while different in nature, were both smoldering crises. Good risk management would have likely prevented both from destroying lives, damaging reputations and costing companies millions of dollars. The Institute for Crisis Management (ICM) defines a smoldering crisis as a problem or issue that starts out small and often internally, and that is ignored or not recognized until it blows up into a public crisis.

Smith, Larry. Communication World Bulletin (2006). Articles>Risk Communication

Streamlining the Phases of Disaster Recovery

All too often, companies either rely upon personal knowledge and skill to recover from emergency situations, or they write a multi-volume encyclopedia of recovery procedures. When disaster strikes, neither approach lends itself to rapid response.

D'Amico, Vin. Writing Assistance (2006). Articles>Management>Planning>Risk Communication

Taking the Lead in Crisis Planning

If your crisis communication mantra is "What, Me Worry?" you are not alone. In fact, a third of IABC members who took the IABC Research Foundation crisis communication survey last December said they had no formal crisis communication plan in place prior to last year's many natural disasters and organizational crises.

Guthridge, Liz. Communication World Bulletin (2006). Articles>Business Communication>Risk Communication>Crisis Communication

Testing the Role of Technical Information in Public Risk Perception  

Through experiments with simulated news stories about hazardous materials release, this study finds that providing technical detail about health effects may be less useful than keeping citizens current on the agency's strategies for dealing with problems and other behaviors by officials.

Johnson, Branden B., Peter M. Sandman and Paul Miller. Franklin Pierce Law Center (1992). Articles>Risk Communication>Technical Writing

Toward a Critical Rhetoric of Risk Communication: Producing Citizens and the Role of Technical Communicators      

In this article, we build on arguments in risk communication that the predominant linear risk communication models are problematic for their failure to consider audience and additional contextual issues. The 'failure' of these risk communication models has led, some scholars argue, to a number of ethical and communicative problems. We seek to extend the critique, arguing that 'risk' is socially constructed. The claim for the social construction of risk has significant implications for both risk communication and the roles of technical communicators in risk situations. We frame these implications as a 'critical rhetoric' of risk communication that (1) dissolves the separation of risk assessment from risk communication to locate epistemology within communicative processes; (2) foregrounds power in risk communication as a way to frame ethical audience involvement; (3) argues for the technical communicator as one possessing the research and writing skills necessary for the complex processes of constructing and communicating risk.

Grabill, Jeffrey T. and W. Michele Simmons. Technical Communication Quarterly (1998). Articles>Communication>Risk Communication

Toward a Synthesis Model for Crisis Communication in the Public Sector: An Initial Investigation    

This article explores approaches to crisis communication and the application of those approaches by organizations responding to a disaster. The authors conducted a survey of 107 state government agencies to learn about government efforts in situations requiringcrisis communication. Generally, the survey results suggest that although state agenciesenjoy a positive relationship with the media, they have little proactive communicationwith the media, and less than half have a written crisis communication plan. Significantassociations were found between the variables under study, including size of the organization,roles in crisis situations, media relationships, and preparation of a crisis communicationplan. Case studies and additional evaluations of communication resources areneeded to help determine the ability of the public sector to respond effectively to crises.This article considers the needs of state agencies and proposes a conceptual approach thatsynthesizes a crisis communication process designed for the public sector.

Horsley, J. Suzanne and Randolph T. Barker. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>Risk Communication>Government>Crisis Communication

Understanding Failures in Organizational Discourse: The Accident at Three Mile Island and the Shuttle Challenger Disaster  

Both the Challenger and Three Mile Island disasters involved failures of communication among ordinary professional people, mistakes committed in the course of routine work on the job, small mishaps with grotesque conseqences.

Herndl, Carl G., Barbara A. Fennell and Carolyn R. Miller. WAC Clearinghouse (1991). Articles>Risk Communication>Engineering