The Media and Risk Communication

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Voltaire

Introduction

Dr. Eric Abbott, from ISU's Greenlee School of Journalism and Communications, conducts research on the risk communication cycle, public views of technology, and communication strategies for presenting controversial technologies to the public. Dr. Abbott uses the example of food safety to describe how the mass media views public concern about technology and how the media and scientists can best present controversial topics to the public.

Compass

Key Questions

Examples

The Media and Risk Communication

Dr. Abbott poses three questions he considers central to understanding the role of the media in public evaluations of technology perceived as being high risk:

What determines how the media covers high risk technology?
What effect does media coverage have on public opinion?
What kind of communication strategies are most effective in increasing public understanding of high risk technology?

How Does the Media Cover High Risk Technology?

The Natural History Model

Dr. Abbott points out that the mass media is a key source of information about risk issues. Risk information presented to the public, however, does not occur randomly. The Natural History Explanation presented by Anthony Downs posits that risk communication occurs in four stages:

In the pre-problem stage the technology is available for public use, but the public is largely unaware of it because of little media coverage.
The second stage is characterized by alarmed discovery as the media present the problem to the public. Typically in this stage, experts (relying upon Enlightenment philosophical approaches to technology and risk) argue that the problems can be solved through more and better science.
In the third stage the public becomes aware of the costs of the technological fix offered by experts.
As the topic becomes more complex, media coverage declines until, in the fourth stage, public interest declines in mass media coverage of the technology and its risks.

The Public Arena Model

This model posits that risk issues must compete with other newsworthy items for mass media exposure. Risks associated with complex and controversial technologies might be covered in the media, but their length of coverage and degree of exposure (e.g., placement in a newspaper), depends upon other topics of the day. Coverage of highly controversial technology might get pushed to the back page during a period when news with greater mass appeal occurs at the same time. Or, technology that might otherwise not raise a great amount of controversy might receive much media coverage during a slow news day.

The Hoopla Effect

Dr. Abbott has developed a perspective on risk communication that emphasizes how media coverage can lead to a heightened perception of risk. When a risk issue comes to the attention of the media and is presented to the public, individuals and organizations that have a vested interest in the issue take the opportunity to provide the media with more information, which then is presented to the public. This cycle of activity can create a heightened sense of awareness about the risk issue that does not necessarily coincide with reality. News about crime, for example, is easy and inexpensive for the media to present; so, the media are inclined to present much information about crime. This over-coverage of crime can give the public a sense that crime is a bigger risk than it actually is. The result is the hoopla effect.

This graph shows the hoopla effect for newspaper articles on genetically modified foods from 1997-2000:

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It should be kept in mind that the hoopla effect is a natural occurrence of reporting about controversial technology because of the polarization of opinion that occurs through social interaction. That is, when people begin talking about a controversial topic, their feelings about it become intensified.

Reporting about controversial technology places the journalist in a difficult position because reporting of the controversy, itself, can stimulate a hoopla effect. Yet the journalist is entitled, even obligated, to report about controversial technology. Journalists sometimes are blamed unnecessarily for increasing controversy, when, in fact, they are doing the job we expect of them: reporting controversy surrounding complex technology.

To the extent that the public is responsive to the hoopla effect, their evaluation of technology can reflect the coverage of the risk as it is presented in the media. Presentation by the media, and access to the media by vested interest groups, therefore, can affect public evaluations of technology.

Research shows that negative media information carries disproportionate weight in influencing initial public opinions of technology. As Dr. Abbott points out, negative information is fast and effective while positive information is slow, difficult, and expensive to convey to the public. Traditionally, it has been thought that mass media messages are most effective at the awareness stage of a diffusion program and interpersonal channels are most effective at the decision stage.

What are some appropriate ways that the media can present risk information to the public?

One approach is to define a risk vs. no-risk situation. One might define the risk of smoking cigarettes, for example, with respect to the lowered risk of not smoking cigarettes.
A second approach is to present a risk in comparison with a related risk. For example, presenting the risks associated with chemical food preservatives as compared with the risk of contracting botulism (a potentially fatal illness resulting from eating spoiled food).
A third approach is to compare a risk with some benefit. One might compare the risks associated with agricultural pesticide use, for example, with the benefits of lower food prices.

What happens when public perceptions of risk differ from the viewpoint of scientists? Previously, we pointed out the pitfalls of approaching risk decisions from the perspective that the scientific view is "actual" risk and the public view is "perceived" (and therefore, incorrect) risk. It will be important for us to keep this false dichotomy in mind as we review the literature on risk communication. For now, we consider the strengths and limitations of three approaches to media communications with the public about complex and controversial technologies:

One strategy for communicating to the public about risk would be to cater to public fears about technology. Dr. Abbott states that this approach is used often, but is not conducive to good public evaluation of technology because it tends to make scientific evaluations irrelevant to the process.
A second strategy is to define away the problem (e.g., "America has the safest food supply in the world"). As pointed out by Andrew Webster, taking this approach most likely will result in lowering public confidence in science because technologies inevitably will fail.
A third strategy is to facilitate dialogue between scientists and the public. This strategy emphasizes the importance of explaining difficult terms and processes in everyday language. It also stresses the importance of legitimizing fears and presenting the technology as an alternative to other risks. Unfortunately, sometimes when proponents of a technology claim they want to facilitate dialogue what they really mean is they want to facilitate dialogue in the form of "educating the public."

Application in Context

How Effective are Different Approaches to Communicating with the Public?

What can the mass media do to better present technology to the public?

Because journalists (like the rest of us) typically are ignorant of how advanced technology actually works and lack adequate space to educated the public about the technology, they must be careful about how they frame a story. Also, the mass media needs to pay careful attention to emphasizing key points in a story to help the public follow a story about a controversial technology.