Physical and Managed Risk of Nuclear Waste

The authors describe their work on the perceived risk of nuclear waste in Sweden. Three levels of waste were studied, and comparisons between the perceptions of the public, politicians and nuclear experts are made

Perceived Control, Voluntariness and Emotional Reactions in Relocated Areas of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus

[Excerpt] The Chernobyl accident occurred at a time of considerable social and economic changes in the former Soviet Union. The contamination due to the accident still covers parts of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Some areas were considered too contaminated to suit long-term human settlement and a considerable number of people were therefore moved from their homes and resettled in other areas. Resettlement policies often differed between the states. Some variations in state policy included the duration before implementation of the decision to resettle people from certain areas, the swiftness of the transition, and the acceptance of personal initiatives in the process. The policy of considering bonds between people who were to resettle also differed between states, and the social networks were more or less severely strained in the process

Varied Definitions of Risk Related to Sensation Seeking Trait

[Excerpt] Risk judgments seem related to which definitions of risk a person uses. Earlier studies suggest that people who use a probability definition of risk give different, and somewhat lower, subjective estimates of risk than those who instead prefer a consequence definition. In addition, an optimistic bias often can be found, and subjects usually evaluate personal risk systematically lower than risk for people in general

“Of Gods and Men” : selected print media coverage of natural disasters and industrial failures in three Westminster countries

This article examines selected print media coverage of a domestic natural disaster and domestic industrial failure in each of three Westminster countries: Australia, Canada, and the UK. It studies this coverage from several perspectives: the volume of coverage; the rate at which the articles were published; the tone of the headlines; and a content analysis of the perceived performance of key public and private institutions during and following the events. Its initial findings reveal that the natural disasters received more coverage than the industrial failures in each of the newspapers considered. There was also no significant difference in the publication rate across event type or newspaper. In each case, government was assessed at least as frequently and negatively as non-government actors, particularly during and following industrial failures. The manner in which government and non-government actors were assessed following these events suggests that, contrary to government claims that owners and operators of critical infrastructure (CI) are responsible for its successful operation, government in fact is “in the frame” as frequently as the industry owners and operators are. In addition, the negative assessments of governments following industrial failures in particular may prompt over-reaction by policy makers to industrial failures and under-reaction to natural disasters. This inconsistency is indeed ironic because the latter occur more often and cost more, both financially and socially. We reviewed 340 newspaper articles from three different newspapers: The Australian’s coverage of the Canberra bushfires and the Waterfall train accident, The Globe and Mail’s (Canada) coverage of Hurricane Juan and the de la Concorde overpass collapse, and The Daily Telegraph’s (UK) coverage of the 2007 floods and the Potters Bar train wreck. Our sample size is small; our ability to compare across newspapers and countries limited. Further research is warranted

Session 5: Nutrition communication: The challenge of effective food risk communication

A chronology of food scares combined with a rapid, unchecked, rise in lifestyle-related diseases such as obesity highlights the need for a focus on effective food risk communication. However, food risk communication is highly complex. Many factors will affect its success, including the demeanour and conduct of the source, its transparency, interaction with the public, acknowledgement of risks and timely disclosure. How the message is developed is also important in terms of language, style and pretesting with target audiences, as is the choice of appropriate channels for reaching target audiences. Finally, there are many personal factors that may affect risk perception such as previous experience, knowledge, attitudes and beliefs, personality, psychological factors and socio-demographic factors, many of which remain unexplored. While there is evidence that campaigns that communicate health risk have been associated with behaviour change in relation to major public health and safety issues in the past, it is unknown at this stage whether targeting risk information based on risk-perception segmentation can increase the effectiveness of the messages

"Har du stånd?" : En studie av pedagogers förhållningssätt till sexualundervisning i grundsärskolan.

The quality of sex education in Swedish elementary schools is poor. It is unclear how sex education is presented in elementary schools with a special education profile. The purpose of this study is to examine the reasoning concerning the sex education content and methods of one group of educators, employed in a special education elementary school in Northern Sweden. The empirical data for the study was collected by separate qualitative interviews. Two of the four educators interviewed believe that sex education is conducted while the other two believe it is not. The most common method for conducting sex education in this particular school is by spontaneous dialogs from questions posed by students. Therefore the content of sex education is based on students’ questions. The two educators who believe that sex education is conducted justify their reasoning by the existing government regulation documents for elementary schools with special education profile. Meanwhile, the two educators who argued that sex education is not conducted, state that it is not possible to justify by any government regulation document.Validerat; 20120816 (anonymous