Speaking of Risk: Matters of Context

The risk communication (RC) field is dominated by the practical and normative socio-technical aim of improving communication on risk (CR), especially from the viewpoint of regulatory agencies and government administrations. Despite some change of scope and orientation over the past 30 years, two theoretical ideas have persisted: the subjective–objective risk dichotomy and the transmission (also known as code) model of communication. This theoretical legacy makes context a blind spot in RC. The study of CR themes should consider (1) the socially constructed nature of risk and (2) communication as a situated social practice of information sharing. Results of a case study of public participation in a controversial railway tunnel project in the south of Sweden, offer lessons for future research pointing to crucial contextual dimensions of CR. It is argued that the variable ontology of risk, the constitutive nature of power relationships and the practical rationality of actors must be taken into account in research on the social CR.

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