The Social Amplification of Risk

Edited by Nick Pidgeon, Roger E. Kasperson and Paul Slovic

From the back cover:

The management of and communication about risk has become a major question of public policy and intellectual debate in the modern world. The social amplification of risk framework describes how both social and individual factors act to amplify or dampen perceptions of risk and through this create secondary effects such as stigmatization of technologies, economic losses or regulatory impacts. This volume, edited by three of the world’s leading analysts of risk and its communication, brings together contributions from a group of international experts working in the field of risk perception and risk communication. Key conceptual issues are discussed as well as a range of recent case studies (spanning BSE and food safety, AIDS/HIV, nuclear power, child protection, Y2K, electromagnetic fields and waste incineration) that take forward the state-of-the-art in risk amplification theory. The volume also draws attention to lessons for public policy, risk management and risk communication practice.

Available from the publisher, Cambridge University Press.

Reference: Pidgeon, N., Kasperson, R., & Slovic, P. (Eds.). (2003). The social amplification of risk. London: Cambridge University Press.