Communicating Risk: Reconfiguring Expert-Lay Relations

Abstract

In contemporary culture, risk has become a ubiquitous issue, casting its spectre over a wide range of practices and experiences. Despite such omnipresence, the meaning of risk is inherently uncertain and contestable. Since the Enlightenment period, prevalent social bodies have sought to accumulate information about the nature of risk. Without doubt, this process has facilitated heightened risk awareness within institutions and improved risk consciousness amongst individuals. In contemporary society, risk issues such as food safety, biotechnology and international terrorism are currently being debated by politicians, scientists, academics and the general public. Nonetheless, the growing public debate about risk and the advancement of scientific knowledge have not led to public perceptions of a safe and secure environment [Pidgeon 2000]. Somewhat paradoxically, as the `answers’ to risk dilemmas are uncovered, more complex questions are generated. Thus, it would appear that the Faustian bargain for knowledge about risk is an increase in uncertainty within everyday life. In this climate of widespread indeterminacy, the issue of how risks are communicated has become a focal concern. In Britain, academic, media and public interest in risk has been accentuated by a series of high-profile governmental communication failures.’ At a structural level, acute deficiencies in information presentation and a lack of attention to the hermeneutic process have highlighted the absence of coherent communications strategies within several risk regulating institutions.