Risk Communication Perspective Research Articles

Rage against the machine? Framing societal threat and efficacy in YouTube videos about artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a part of the mainstream public discourse beyond expert communities about its risks, benefits, and need for regulation. In particular, since 2014, the news media have intensified their coverage of this emerging technology and its potential impact on most domains of society. Although many studies have analyzed traditional media coverage of AI, analyses of social media, especially video-sharing platforms, are rare. In addition, research from a risk communication perspective remains scarce, despite the widely recognized potential threats to society from many AI applications. This study aims to detect recurring patterns of societal threat/efficacy in YouTube videos, analyze their main sources, and compare detected frames in terms of reach and response. Using a theoretical framework combining framing and risk communication, the study analyzed the societal threat/efficacy attributed to AI in easily accessible YouTube videos published in a year when public attention to AI temporarily peaked (2018). Four dominant AI frames were identified: the balanced frame, the high-efficacy frame, the high-threat frame, and the no-threat frame. The balanced and no-threat frames were the most prevalent, with predominantly positive and neutral AI narratives that neither adequately address the risks nor the necessary societal response from a normative risk communication perspective. The results revealed the specific risks and benefits of AI that are most frequently addressed. Video views and user engagement with AI videos were analyzed. Recommendations for effective AI risk communication and implications for risk governance were derived from the results.

Public health agencies outreach through Instagram during the COVID-19 pandemic: Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication perspective

BackgroundGovernmental and non-governmental institutions increasingly use social media as a strategic tool for public outreach. Global spread, promptness, and dialogic potentials make these platforms ideal for public health monitoring and emergency communication in crises such as COVID-19. ObjectiveDrawing on the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication framework, we sought to examine how leading health organizations use Instagram for communicating and engaging during the COVID-19 pandemic. MethodsWe manually retrieved Instagram posts together with relevant metadata of four health organizations (WHO, CDC, IFRC, and NHS) shared between January 1, 2020, and April 30, 2020. Two coders manually coded the analytical sample of 269 posts related to COVID-19 on dimensions including content theme, gender depiction, person portrayal, and image type. We further analyzed engagement indices associated with the coded dimensions. ResultsThe CDC and WHO were the most active of all the assessed organizations with respect to the number of posts, reach, and engagement indices. Most of the posts were about personal preventive measures and mitigation, general advisory and vigilance, and showing gratitude and resilience. An overwhelming level of engagement was observed for posts representing celebrity, clarification, and infographics. ConclusionsInstagram can be an effective tool for health organizations to convey their messages during crisis communication, notably through celebrity involvement, clarification posts, and the use of infographics. There is much opportunity to strengthen the role of health organizations in countering misinformation on social media by providing accurate information, directing users to credible sources, and serving as a fact-check for false information.

Kitchen Hygiene in the Spotlight: How Cooking Shows Influence Viewers' Hygiene Practices.

Poor hygiene when handling food is a major cause of foodborne illness. To investigate whether hygiene practices visible in television cooking shows influence viewers' kitchen hygiene, a study on the adoption of demonstrated hygiene behavior was conducted under controlled, experimental conditions. In a study ostensibly on cooking by following recipes participants (n = 65) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions, in which they watched a cooking video that differed only with regard to the hygiene behavior of the chef. In condition 1, the chef engaged in poor hygiene practices while preparing the dish, in condition 2 the chef's hygiene behavior was exemplary and in condition 3, the chef's hygiene behavior was not visible (control condition). After watching the video, participants were instructed to cook the recipe individually in the fully equipped laboratory kitchen. Cooking sessions were videotaped and experimenters blind to condition coded hygiene lapses committed by participants. The level of kitchen hygiene displayed in the cooking video significantly affected hygiene practices of participants cooking the recipe. Participants who had watched the cooking video with correct hygiene practices committed significantly fewer hygiene lapses than those who had watched the video with poor hygiene practices. From a risk communication perspective, TV cooking shows are well placed to convey knowledge of essential hygiene practices during food preparation to a broad audience. To facilitate behavioral change toward safer food-handling practices among viewers, visibly performing correct hygiene practices in cooking shows is a promising strategy.

How consumers’ perception and information processing affect their acceptance of genetically modified foods in China: A risk communication perspective

This study aims to explore the roles of consumers’ risk and benefit perception and food information processes in predicting their acceptance of genetically modified food. We integrate the protective action decision and heuristic systematic models to develop a conceptual model to predict customers’ purchase intention. We conducted a survey questionnaire with measures adapted from existing Likert scales. We used a sample of 573 respondents from Shandong Province, China, comprising people who had ever purchased genetically modified products. We tested our hypotheses using a structural equation model. Results suggest that perceived risk is a negative determinant of purchase intention, while perceived benefit is a positive factor of purchase intention. Moreover, perceived benefit is an important predictor of purchase intention. Perceived risk significantly affects information need, information seeking, and systematic processing. Perceived benefit has a positive relationship with information need and systematic processing. Information seeking is stimulated by information need and further predicts systematic processing. Our results suggest the effectiveness of the protective action decision and heuristic systematic models in predicting people’s intention to purchase genetically modified food and highlight the importance of risk communications in this context.

Zika reveals India's risk communication challenges and needs.

India's approach to disseminating information about the first three cases of the Zika virus was criticised nationally and internationally after the issue came to light in May 2017 through a World Health Organization news release. We analyse the incident from a risk communication perspective. This commentary recaps the events and synthesises key arguments put forth by the news media and public health stakeholders. We use Peter Sandman's risk = hazard + outrage framework - also adopted by India's risk communication planners - to analyse India's risk communication response and contextualise it against the mandate of the National Risk Communication Plan and Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme. We conclude with recommendations for India's risk communication policymakers, including the need to develop capacity for risk communication research and scholarship in the country.

Effective risk communication and CCS: the road to success in Europe

Over the past ten years or so, there have been multiple attempts to site and build carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities in Europe, North America and elsewhere. To date, most of those attempts have not been successful. In Europe, for example, there are currently no commercial CCS facilities in operation. There are a number of reasons for this, ranging from lack of political will, the collapsing price of CO2, lack of commercial drivers to capture and store CO2, and public opposition to the proposed facilities. There have been several case studies examining the communication challenges associated with the siting of CCS facilities. Up till now, most of this research has been carried out by climate change or carbon policy experts as well as social researchers rather than scientists representing the wider risk communication community, aside from some notable exceptions. This study does the opposite by examining CCS from a broader risk communication perspective. It provides a brief overview of risk communication theory in order to situate some of the findings of the CCS communication research, and then, it makes some recommendations on how the siting of CCS facilities could be improved including the importance of trust, proactive communication and early stakeholder involvement. In conclusion, this study notes that if the science associated with the technology is communicated in the correct manner and if the key risk communication recommendations are adhered to, then the siting of future CCS facilities should be successful.

Issues Mapping: A problem structuring method for addressing science and technology conflicts

There are new opportunities for the application of problem structuring methods to address science and technology risk conflicts through stakeholder dialogue. Most previous approaches to addressing risk conflicts have been developed from a traditional risk communication perspective, which tends to construct engagement between stakeholders based on the assumption that scientists evaluate technologies using facts, and lay participants do so based on their values. ‘Understanding the facts’ is generally privileged, so the value framings of experts often remain unexposed, and the perspectives of lay participants are marginalized. When this happens, risk communication methodologies fail to achieve authentic dialogue and can exacerbate conflict. This paper introduces ‘Issues Mapping’, a problem structuring method that enables dialogue by using visual modelling techniques to clarify issues and develop mutual understanding between stakeholders. A case study of the first application of Issues Mapping is presented, which engaged science and community protagonists in the genetic engineering debate in New Zealand. Participant and researcher evaluations suggest that Issues Mapping helped to break down stereotypes of both scientists and environmental activists; increased mutual understanding; reduced conflict; identified common ground; started building trust; and supported the emergence of policy options that all stakeholders in the room could live with. The paper ends with some reflections and priorities for further research.

How can we make cancer survival statistics more useful for patients and clinicians: An illustration using localized prostate cancer in Sweden

Studies of cancer patient survival typically report relative survival or cause-specific survival using data from patients diagnosed many years in the past. From a risk-communication perspective, such measures are suboptimal for several reasons; their interpretation is not transparent for non-specialists, competing causes of death are ignored and the estimates are unsuitable to predict the outcome of newly diagnosed patients. In this paper, we discuss the relative merits of recently developed alternatives to traditionally reported measures of cancer patient survival. In a relative survival framework, using a period approach, we estimated probabilities of death in the presence of competing risks. To illustrate the methods, we present estimates of survival among 23,353 initially untreated, or hormonally treated men with intermediate- or high-risk localized prostate cancer using Swedish population-based data. Among all groups of newly diagnosed patients, the probability of dying from prostate cancer, accounting for competing risks, was lower compared to the corresponding estimates where competing risks were ignored. Accounting for competing deaths was particularly important for patients aged more than 70years at diagnosis in order to avoid overestimating the risk of dying from prostate cancer. We argue that period estimates of survival, accounting for competing risks, provide the tools to communicate the actual risk that cancer patients, diagnosed today, face to die from their disease. Such measures should offer a more useful basis for risk communication between patients and clinicians and we advocate their use as means to answer prognostic questions.

Transparency and the Food and Drug Administration—A Quantitative Study

In Europe and North America, there is increasing political pressure being put on health regulatory agencies to become more transparent. To date, however, there has been little academic evaluation—let alone analysis—of these transparency initiatives from a risk communication perspective. This review examines whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Adverse Event Reporting System quarterly signal postings, put in place after the passage of the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act 2007, will assist patients and doctors in their decision-making processes, on the basis of results of a quantitative Internet survey of 433 physicians and 1,000 American adults. The results indicate that there is significant disagreement between physicians and the public about when medical safety issues should be communicated in the first place, with physicians opposed to early signal postings while the public in general is in favor. In addition the findings show that if the public were to find their drugs listed on the Adverse Event Reporting System signals web postings, more than a quarter would stop taking their medicine. Going forward, the Food and Drug Administration needs to work to a greater degree with social scientists in developing scientific-based communication strategies, rather than developing transparency initiatives on the basis of stakeholder consultations.

Academic analysis of the Institute of Medicine report: The Future of Drug Safety

This paper analyzes the influential September 2006 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report entitled The Future of Drug Safety. It also analyzes the US FDA’s and the politicians’ FDA Amendments Act (FDAAA) response to it from a risk-communication perspective. This article begins with an extensive background discussion as to why the IOM report was commissioned. Then, it outlines and analyzes, from a risk-communication perspective, a number of the IOM’s suggested recommendations. In the third section, a number of overarching critiques of the IOM report are provided and, in the final section, a similar analysis is provided for the FDA’s and politicians’ (FDAAA) responses to the IOM report. Overall, the IOM’s report is an intelligent, well-structured document that provides a number of very useful recommendations. That said, the report is comparatively weak with regard to its recommendations associated with risk communication. Medical and drug risk communication is currently in its infancy.

Risk communication, the West Nile virus epidemic, and bioterrorism: responding to the communication challenges posed by the intentional or unintentional release of a pathogen in an urban setting.

The intentional or unintentional introduction of a pathogen in an urban setting presents severe communication challenges. Risk communication--a science-based approach for communicating effectively in high-concern situations--provides a set of principles and tools for meeting those challenges. A brief overview of the risk communication theoretical perspective and basic risk communication models is presented here, and the risk communication perspective is applied to the West Nile virus epidemic in New York City in 1999 and 2000 and to a possible bioterrorist event. The purpose is to provide practical information on how perceptions of the risks associated with a disease outbreak might be perceived and how communications would be best managed.