Confronting the Millennium: Beck, Risk and Y2K

Abstract

The concepts of risk, risk awareness and risk society have become some of the most widely debated in social theory in recent years, making the name of their leading proponent, Ulrich Beck, well known outside his native Germany. However Beck's theoretical efforts and empirical claims remain largely untested. In this paper, we examine the social reception of the Y2K phenomenon, taking it as a laboratory for exploring Beck's ideas on the salience of risk consciousness in contemporary society. Media discourses concerning the arrival of the new millennium provide prima facie support for a Beckian perspective. These focused on the so-called Y2K bug and the consequent invisible dangers, and incalculable uncertainties, of an impending calendar change within a technologically dependent society. However, discourses on the millennium as a celebration or religious event existed in competition with this. The article reports on a regional (SE Queensland) survey testing the relevance of Beck's concept of risk consciousness within this pluralistic cultural field. The results provide only mixed support for Beck's position, with the risk frame being endorsed by a minority of respondents. As Beck predicts, information-seeking on Y2K fuelled a risk consciousness. However correlations with age, education and class anticipated in his writings were not supported by the data. Further empirical studies are required to evaluate Beck's provocative but rather sweeping theory.