Risk Communication: Risky Business in a Risk Society
Text analysis and attitude research to the risk communication between local
government and citizens
Nienke van Beek
Studentnummer 1849883
Masterthesis Communicatie- en Informatiewetenschap Faculteit Letteren, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
H.R. Holstlaan 22, 4385 KJ Vlissingen Tel: 0610778404 e-mail: nienke.vanbeek@gmail.com Mentor: Dr. E.H. Klein Informatiekunde
P
REFACE
We live in a risk society. Risks are important in the Western world. Our high standard of living, increases the need of limiting any risk that could possibly affect our lives. Consequences of risks are discussed almost daily in the news, ranging from earthquakes in Haiti, to floods in Australia or chemical spills in The Netherlands. Increasingly, there is a greater awareness that communities need to be prepared for such disasters and need to know about the risks in their environment.Indeed, citizens have the right to know to which risks they are exposed. And it is the task of municipalities to communicate these risks to their communities. Yet, it is a complicated process. Many municipalities struggle with the question: how. How do we communicate with the community in such a way whereby we involve the community, enabling them to be self reliant in times of disaster? Risk communication is complicated, challenging and risky business. In this research I focused on this problem, from both a municipality and a community perspective.
The past few months have been an extremely educational period for me. During the process of preparation, literature examination, practical examination and the final writing of the thesis, I encountered a number of obstacles. But it was whilst tackling these obstacles that I learned the most. The research I did in Richmond (Canada, BC), to me was the most interesting. Working with emergency programs, distributing the surveys on the streets, talking with the community, was all a very interesting experience. Not only did I learn an incredible amount of new things, I also met a great team of people.
I would like to thank the people who supported me, listened to me or helped me out in difficult times. Firstly I would like to thank Henny Klein, my mentor from the RUG, for her time and advice during the process. I also would like to thank Dr. A. Oussaïd for his advice. Secondly I would like to thank the City of Richmond, in particular Deborah Proctor for giving me the opportunity to do my research in Richmond, for giving me useful advices from a Canadian perspective and for ‘adopting’ me during those months. Also Amy, Deanna and Leanne, thank you for all the help you gave me. Many thanks also go to the volunteers for giving me a bit of their time for the interviews, as well as all the respondents of the survey.
S
UMMARY
Motivation and objectiveThis thesis research was performed during an internship with the City of Richmond. During my internship the problem was that they appeared to be unsuccessful communicating emergency preparedness within the community. After literature research it was apparent that in general the communication between government and citizen is difficult. Therefore, the objective of this research was to obtain more insight into the gap between the communication of the local government (in this case the City of Richmond) and the communication needs of the residents. Based on this research, recommendations were given to enhance the risk communication process, by involving the communication needs of the community. This is necessary in a time where communication technologies are changing rapidly and, accordingly, communication needs change. Through communication, the gap between citizen and government should be diminished in order to communicate risks in a risky world more effectively.
Literature
Risk communication has changed over the past few years. It changed from a technical approach in which the risks calculated by experts were the norm, to a democratic view in which perceptions of the public are important in determining risks (Beck, 1997: 51) . The risk communication process is interactional, visualized like a common communication model (Oomkes, 2000: 5). Therefore, also in risk communication the information needs of the public should be taken into account. There are differences between experts and citizens in their communication needs, it is important to understand these differences (Cook, Pieri, Robins 2004: 438). Communication needs of residents have changed due to technological developments in the last decade. There is more online media in addition to traditional media. This means a shift in communication preferences in society. Interaction is increasingly important, which means a change in participation of the public in the communication, policies and risk organization. As Arnstein (1969: 219) pointed out with the ladder of participation, we move from giving information to cooperation.
Method
Results and conclusion
Through text analysis and attitude research the risk communication of the City was examined. The results pointed out that the currently used communication materials of the City only partially correspond with the communication needs of the community. Strong elements of the current materials were the several possibilities for interaction and the formulation of the information. Limitations were the minimal distribution of the materials (materials are mainly available on request) and the lack of intelligibility of the information by content, structure and presentation of the information. It appeared that there was a difference in media preferences of the residents and the media that are offered by the City. Especially community centers, newspaper and online media were missing in the communication. In general, respondents indicated to have an interest in more interactivity. Although there is already a good start, ways for interacting through the preferred media by the respondents should be improved. This will improve the perceived openness of the City as well.
Recommendations
Based on the results the following recommendations were given:
Enhance materials by a user focused approach: Improve intelligibility by simplifying content, structure and formulation. Support content with illustrations
Broad distribution of materials: Increase range by creating permanent distribution points for the materials
Engage the community: use input from community and cooperate with the residents Choose appropriate media for interactivity: Use preferred channels of community to
communicate with total target group. Give through media opportunity for input.
C
ONTENTS
PrefaceSummary
1.Introduction ... 1
1.1 Risk society ... 1
1.2 Motivation for this research ... 3
1.3 Key questions and objective ... 5
2. Literature ... 6
2.1 General ... 6
2.2 Risk communication... 6
2.3 The risk communication process ... 10
2.4 Functional Text analysis ... 14
2.5 Attitude Research ... 17
2.6 citizen participation ... 19
2.7 Communication Needs... 21
3. Method ... 26
3.1 Introduction ... 26
3.2 Design and procedure... 26
3.4 Attitude research... 35
3.5Measurement instruments ... 36
3.6 Determinants of risk perception ... 36
3.7 Determinants of communication needs ... 37
3.8 Determinants of institutional trust... 37
3.9 Interview ... 37
4. Results ... 40
4.1 Text analysis ... 40
4.2 Attitude research... 48
4.3 Risk perception and risk communication ... 52
4.4 Attitude towards the City ... 55
4.5 Results Interviews ... 56
5. Conclusion ... 60
5.1 Conclusion Text analysis ... 60
5.3 Conclusions text analysis related to attitude research... 62 6. Discussion ... 65 7. Recommendations ... 67 7.1 General recommendations ... 67 Bibliography ... 69 Appendices ... 73
Appendix I Text analysis ... 73
Appendix II Public Survey Questions ... 80
1
1.I
NTRODUCTION
1.1
R
ISK SOCIETYRisk communication between government and citizen is a complex process and since the last decade, subject to change. Whereas in the past, governments were leading authorities, sender of information and citizen simply the compliant receiver, nowadays this has changed. The process of increased individualization in Western societies, caused a general trend of decreased appreciation of governmental interference in the personal life (Regtvoort and Siepel, 2007: 38). Thus, this decreased appreciation of governmental interference, complicated the risk communication process. Currently there is a gap in risk communication between government and citizen, which complicates effective communication. Therefore risk communication needs a different approach in which the needs of citizens play a key role. There are several causes for the societal changes. An interesting view on societal change in relation to risks, is described by Beck (1992) (in Hajer and Schwarz, 1997: 32). The essence of his theory lies in the unrecognized consequences of industrial society. The growth and prosperity achieved within the industrial society, creates a certain standard of life, and expectations of society to maintain and increase this standard. The values of modern society that determine ‘a good life’ have changed. Health, prosperity, education, are perceived as normal, and have changed the acceptability of risks attached to the industrial development and technological progression, like ecological consequences. Modern society built a network of institutions and regulation for the distribution of prosperity and growth, but until now did not consider the consequences and risks it creates. Governments are increasingly held responsible for failures. Beck calls this the risk society. The impotence of controlling the continuously generated risks of modern society, is a result of the conventional organizations and social institutions. The absence of consensus, political as well as scientific, in giving a societal satisfying answer to risk questions, creates a shift in responsibilities and societal relationships. According to Beck the biggest risk in a risk society is not the physical risk of explosion but the ‘societal explosivity’, as a result of the loss of trust in existing social institutions. The uncontrollability of developments is growing, same as the question ‘who is responsible’? (Hajer and Schwarz, 1997: 32)
2
that instead of controlling everything with general risk regulations, experiences and perspectives of different levels should be incorporated in policies. He views the risk society as a new framework that enables a different view on questions of responsibility and decision making, which stimulates new coalitions within society (Hajer en Schwarz, 1997: 32-34).
As the quote illustrates, another cause for the societal changes is the development of new communication technologies. By the variety of new ways of communicating with each other, the communication changes between businesses, governments, institutions and organizations on the one hand and citizens and customers on the other hand. Openness, accessibility and transparency that these new communication technologies create, change the expectations and requirements of customers and citizens (Krimsky, 2007: 163). The communication needs of the contemporary human being and the role of the individual in the communication process have changed. The monopoly on information by political institutions is lost, which results in developments that are emerging outside of the political domain, as Beck described. Individuals are capable through new technologies to collect information themselves, question it and distribute it on a broad scale. Krimsky (2007:157) illustrates this:
The previous means that not only the roles of the citizens and institutions have changed with respect to each other, it also implicates that traditional models and presuppositions, composed by authorities are no longer valid. With the new communication needs the (post) modern citizens do not fit these models anymore. Institutions will have to let go of their institutional realities, ideology and norm and focus on the realities of the (internet) citizens. People have an increasing need for freedom of choice and responsibility. There is an ongoing process of denationalization and socialization (Van Dinten in Regtvoort and Siepel, 2007: 39).
With these societal developments, and changing communication needs and processes, also in the field of risk communication there is an ongoing debate how to adapt to these changes. For institutions responsible for risk communication it is essential to establish a good communication with the public, to be able to maintain the public safety by cooperating with the public before and during emergencies. Thus, for these institutions there is a need for an innovative approach, with a focus on communication needs of the public.
An important part of the risk communication process are the communication media. The multiplicity of communication instruments that organizations possess to communicate with
The openness, accessibility, and transparency of the Internet will allow consumers to weigh conflicts of interest in risk communication, question authority, and build networks of trust among affinity groups that may or may not be concordant with the perspectives of technical
decision analysts. (Krimsky, 2007: 163)
3
the public nowadays, results in the necessity for a selection in tools, to enhance the communication process. Not only the choice for adequate communication tools is important, also the specific qualities of every tool require a different design of the message. It is important to examine this in relation to the communication needs of the public, to achieve effective risk communication between citizens and government. Therefore, in this research the focus is on examining the risk communication process from a governmental as well as public perspective.
1.2 MOTIVATION FOR THIS RESEARCH 1.2.1 THESIS PLACEMENT
For this research the City of Richmond was used as a case study. During a period of four months the thesis research was performed. Through the City, access to many resources became possible, which made the research feasible. To get a clear understanding of the situation and background of this research, in this section characteristics of Richmond will be briefly explained, concerning the emergency management practices from the City and current risks in Richmond.
Richmond
The City of Richmond is located on Canada's Pacific Coast in the province of British Columbia and is comprised of a series of islands in the mouth of the Fraser River. It has a population of 188, 100 people. In figure 1 the locality of Richmond is presented to give an impression of the City.
FIGURE 1. LOCALITY OF RICHMOND
4
important part in emergency programs is risk communication with the citizens. The objective of the risk communication is to have residents prepared for disasters, in a way that they can be self reliant for at least 72hrs. The current message is in the first place the various risks which are a reality in the Richmond area. Secondly, how people can prepare themselves to be self-reliant, what they need, what should be included in their plan and how they could become more involved within emergency preparedness.
1.2.2 MOTIVATION
Based on the previously discussed literature, the following problem will be central to this research. The public communication needs do not correspond with the currently used risk communication from the government. The government can no longer function merely as a sender. Communication has become a participatory process of all parties that are sender and receiver at the same time and aim for a shared meaning. This research, therefore, will focus on the examination of the supposed communication gap between citizen and local government, using the City of Richmond as case study.
The research is two folded. On the one hand risk communication documents from the City will be researched through text analysis, on the other hand attitude research will be performed to capture the public perspective. Firstly theory about functional text analysis will be discussed, because by performing a functional text analysis, the current risk communication materials could be analyzed and judged. Later on these results could be compared to the results of the attitude research. The main theories that constitute the basis for this analysis are the CCC-(website) model (Renkema, 1996: 318, Van Driel, 2005: 161), HOMERUN model (Nielsen, 2001: 410), theory of total integration (Oussaïd, 2008; 40-41), which will be further discussed in the section literature.
In the attitude research various aspects will play a key-role, that will be further discussed in the next sections. Risk perception because this is an essential condition in the first place to have a need for communication about risks, from a citizen point of view. Communication needs, the changing preferences for communication of citizens. Within this internet and social media play key roles because these are the catalyst of a changing communication need of the citizen (Van Dinten in Regtvoort and Siepel, 2007: 38). Institutional trust, will be discussed since trust is an essential element in any kind of communication. Because of a changing communication need and a failure of meeting these needs by the government, there is a growing gap between government and citizens and a general decrease of trust.
1.2.3 RELEVANCE Societal relevance
5
prepare themselves for disasters and how to act during disasters. Therefore, optimal risk communication between local government and residents is essential. This research will attempt to contribute to the enhancement of this communication.
Scientific relevance
A lot of research has been done to risk communication. However, not much is known about risk communication from a citizen perspective, concerning the communication needs of the residents themselves. Especially not in terms of the use of online media for risk communication. This research will make a start in exploring these communication needs in the case in Richmond.
1.3 KEY QUESTIONS AND OBJECTIVE
Based on the introduction and problem description, the following objective and questions will be central to this research.
Objective
The objective of this research is on the one hand to describe the risk communication between citizen and local government, on the other hand to describe the communication needs of citizens, in order to formulate recommendations for enhancement of the risk communication.
Key question
To what degree does the the City’s current risk communication correspond with the needs of the residents?
Sub questions
1. In which way is currently communicated by the City?
2. What is the attitude of the residents towards the communication of the City and the City as an institution?
6
2.
L
ITERATURE
2.1 GENERAL
In this section the background theory of the two elements in this research will be further discussed. Firstly, theories about the general process of risk communication will be addressed, since this process is central to this research. Secondly, the theoretical backgrounds of functional text analysis and various theories which constitute the basis of the text analysis, will be covered. Finally, I will discuss theory about the attitude research, the change in public communication preferences, citizen participation and new communication media.
2.2 RISK COMMUNICATION
This part will elaborate further on risk communication in general, since this is the communicational process central to this research. Several perspectives on risks, the definition and the different phases through which it developed will be discussed. Secondly, the relevance of risk perception from a citizen point of view will be explained.
2.2.1 RISK COMMUNICATION: DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES ON RISKS
This quote illustrates the ongoing change in risk communication over the past decades. From a top down approach, risk communication moves to a bottom-up approach in which public inclusion and transparency play a key role. Beck (1992) describes this in more detail in his theory. In the risk society as Beck (1992:51) named it, in which risks became very important, as well as controlling them, there are two perspectives that could be distinguished: the technical view and democratic view. In this section these perspectives will be discussed.
In 1970 and 1980 the technical view on risks was very popular. The formula for calculating the risk was ‘risk= chance x effect’. The calculated risk was considered to be objective in this way. However in many cases it is impossible to have statistical information available about certain risks (RMNO, 2004:12). It became also evident in the last decade that the risks were judged by citizens in a different way than based on statistical information. People often judge risks on a basis of unconscious considerations and not solely on facts and numbers. Therefore it is important to consider the perception of risks. This is the democratic view.
2.2.2 TYPES OF RISKS
There are different kinds of risks ranging in nature and size. For instance environmental risks, health risks, external safety risks and technological risks. The Dutch government uses a classification of different emergency types, presented in table 1.
Inclusion, transparency and democracy are widespread values in Western society. And if – at least partially- these are institutionalized in society through legislation, there may be no alternative to public inclusion and transparency in risk management and new approaches to risk
communication (Gouldson, A. et al., 2007:11)
7
TABLE 1. SEVENTEEN DISASTER TYPES. SOURCE: LEIDRAAD MAATRAMP (BZK, 2000: 10)
Disaster types
1. Airplane crash 2. Accident on water 3. Traffic accident on land
4. Accident with explosive substance
5. Accident with toxic substance 6. Nuclear accident
7. Threat of public safety 8. Pandemic 9. Accidents in tunnel 10. Fire in buildings 11. Collapse of buildings (earthquake) 12. Power outage 13. Panic in crowds 14. Large scale Public
disturbance 15. Flood 16. Forest Fire 17. Extreme weather
With risks it is not only about possible disasters, risks are also situations that could have a long term effect. These are ‘silent’ risks, like inhalation of particulates, low doses radiation exposure (e.g. doctors), pesticides in food or chemical releases of industry in air and drinking water. The City of Richmond to which this research accrues, uses a comparable classification as the ministry of BZK, however focuses as well on natural disasters like earthquakes and floods. The Richmond hazard classification is marked gray in table 1.
2.2.3 DEFINITION
The literature describes different definitions of risk communication, for example the Dutch ministry of foreign affairs (2003: 13) employs the following definition: “risk communication is communication about existing and future risks that could affect people before a disaster or crisis appears”. However, this definition does not describe the term communication itself, which is of great relevance for this research. Therefore, the following definition of Leiss (1996) will be used.
This definition aligns with the latest views in risk communication literature. Changing views on risk communication have recently triggered a new era of risk communication approaches that move beyond alerting or informing citizens about potential hazards. This era focuses on stimulating interest in risk issues, increasing public knowledge, and addressing the public’s beliefs, opinions and feelings towards potential hazards and (local) government. Risk communication efforts should be aimed at assisting people in the acquisition of the information. They need to make informed choices about the risks they face, and involve people actively in the processes connected to risk information acquisition (Ter huurne, 2008: 9).
The interactional stream of information and risk-evaluation between experts,
8
2.2.4 EXPERTS VERSUS NON-EXPERTS
Risk communication as a field of study has a twenty year history. It initially originates from research to risk perception, done by Fischhoff, Slovic and others on technological hazards in the 1970’s (Lofstedt, 2003:417). The study field evolved through the examination of cases in which controversies about environmental issues occurred, for instance between residents of a certain community and the constructor of a chemical plant nearby that community. Later on risk communication developed further. Over the years Leiss (1996: 89) defined three stages in risk communication, which will be discussed below.
Communicating risks to the general public in the past was driven by perceptions of experts about the public’s information needs (Griffin, Dunwoody, Neuwirth, 1999: 16). A general assumption is that people in general do not possess enough knowledge to be capable of judging risks and understand scientific information. The public is seen as a group that judges risks differently than experts, namely on the basis of emotions and irrationality (Cook, Pieri, Robbins, 2004; 437). The differences in perceptions between the public and experts have always been viewed as ‘public misperception’, and the result of public stupidity and ignorance (Cook, Pieri, Robbins, 2004: 438).
The problem with this type of approach is the top-down focus on educating the mass. This approach neglects the role of the receiver, and therefore will never function properly (Cook et al., 2004: 439). Later on the risk communication process will be discussed and that it is essential to involve the perceptions of the receiver to achieve effective communication. The consequence of neglecting the public’s perceptions is that citizens are often frustrated and disappointed by the risk information provided by governments (Covello, McCallum, Pavlova, 1989: 384). Hence, this technical perspective on risk communication creates more problems than solving the problems where it was intended for in the first place.
2.2.5 PHASES IN RISK COMMUNICATION Phase I (1975-84)
9
information and the ignorant public receiving the information. As a consequence, the public became very skeptical of the motives of scientists and other ‘experts’ (Cook et al, 2004: 438). Phase II (1985-94)
A clear first attempt to shift in focus is visible in this phase. Instead of focusing purely on sending the message, in this phase the focus was rather on successful communication. The radical difference between the first two phases was the realization that statements about risk situations ought to be regarded as acts of persuasive communication. Messages should intend to persuade a listener of the correctness of the information (Leiss, 1996:89). Social amplification theory by Kasperson (1992: 102) was the dominant framework for studying how risk events became interpreted, exaggerated, and integrated into public mind. This theory emphasizes influences of other factors in the communication chain like individuals, groups, media, surroundings that can have an impact on one’s understanding of certain risks (Krimsky, 2007: 161). Therefore, the characteristics of the audience itself and the legitimacy of the audience’s perception of the situation were important factors (Leiss, 1996:84).
Phase III (1995-currently)
This is the current phase in which the idea that the lack of trust in government plays a pivotal role in risk issues. Central in this idea is that risk communication should not focus merely on pursuing the ‘public’ with the corresponding necessary instrumental techniques like in phase two, but should rather focus more on social context, the social interrelations between the government and the public (Leiss, 1996: 90).
10
2.3 THE RISK COMMUNICATION PROCESS
FIGURE 2: COMMUNICATION PROCESS MODEL (OOMKES, 2000: 5)
In every communication process certain factors are essential, also in risk communication. Therefore in this section the process model (figure 2) of communication will be discussed (Oomkes, 2000: 5).
An important aspect in communication is that both parties are sender and receiver at the same time, because the process is interactional. This means that communicating is a shared process, in which various aspects play important roles if the communication has to succeed. One aspect is the environment; the culture, situation, who, and which bystanders are involved. Another important aspect is the frame of the both parties; who is the person or group and which knowledge, perceptions, experiences, values, prejudices do they have? The two parties communicate through channels and during the transfer of messages, sensory aspects play their roles in encoding messages as well. It is important to know the information needs of the receiver and the goal of the sender. Namely, the content of the message is also dependent on the goal of the sender. The feedback of the receiver is a new message and changes the roles of sender and receiver. Thus both parties are sender and receiver at the same time in the process.
If we project this process model on risk communication between government and citizen, another important aspect emerges. This is the strategy used to transfer the message. This
Channels: - Seeing - Hearing - Touching - Smelling - Tasting Channel disturbance A Knowledge experience values perceptions norms prejudices B Encoding Sender Encoding receiver Encoding sender Encoding receiver Knowledge Experience Values Perception Norms Prejudices Situation: where, when, culture, bystanders
Messages: with and
11
consists of elements like: the attitude towards citizens, the phase in which citizens are engaged and the degree to which citizens are engaged (Peeters, 2006: 29). The strategy also consists of the used communication tools like:
Personal tools (group meetings, workshops, expert meeting) Written communication (brochures, newsletters, local newspapers) Mass communication (advertisements, radio, TV, internet)
Digital communication (internet, social media, forums, websites, sms)
From the process model for communication can be derived that effective communication is always an interactional process. This is why it is important for risk communication between governments and citizens, to acknowledge the interactional element in communication. Without interaction, there will be no knowledge about the experience, perception, attitude, values of both parties: government and citizen.
2.3.1 LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS
It is the official task of (local) governments in The Netherlands and in Canada to communicate with citizens about the risks in their environment. Risk communication is needed to prepare citizens for risks and possible consequences of these risks in their environment, so that they know what to do if disaster strikes (Franssen & Reichard, 2009: 17).
Though it is the official task of (local) governments to inform citizens about risks, there are also other unofficial institutions that provide risk communication. These institutions often play a major role in communities, but their role is seldomly acknowledged by local governments. Senders like these could be opinion leaders, experts from other communities, NGO’s concerned with unacknowledged health consequences of certain risks (like chemical plants and their emissions causing health issues), media, but also friends, family and neighbors. These senders of risk information often address the worries and issues that citizens experience, and provide different information than that of (local) government. This makes these institutions often more credible to citizens, than local governments and can cause confusion.
As a consequence many NGO websites have become more trustworthy to the public than official government sites. An example of a website is that of The Environmental Working Group (EWG). They publish studies on specific toxic substances that one cannot find in the information of government agencies. For example toxic substances in Teflon used in many cooking pans is one of their cases that had a lot of attention in the past few years (Krimsky, 2007:160).
2.3.2 THE MESSAGE
Because there are always various senders of information, there are different messages about risks. There are ‘intended’ and ‘unintended’ messages, that are spread verbally as well as non-verbally. Both these messages influence the way messages are interpreted by the public (Roestenberg, 2008: 20).
12
doing to prepare for this and very important strategies for citizens to prepare themselves in case disaster strikes.
Unintended messages are accompanying messages with the intended information that is controversial to the intended information. These conflicting messages often are created by non-verbal messages. Institutions often do not realize that it is not only about what they exactly say, but that it is also very much about how they act. For instance inactivity is also a message, that is interpreted by the receiver in a certain way. An example of this could be found in the Moerdijk case, which was a fire in a chemical plant in Moerdijk in the Netherlands (January 2011). It took days after the emergency for the officials to tell the community if the public health was at risk. This created a lot of discomfort among residents and media and residents started to draw their own conclusions.
2.3.3 ‘THE RECEIVER’ AND RISK PERCEPTION
From the description of the communication process in the previous section could be seen that perception of the receiver plays an important role. Earlier the phases in risk communication were described, illustrating changing approaches in risk communication towards risk perception, in the last decade.
It is irreversible that risk perception plays a vital role in risk communication. If citizens indeed acknowledge worries about certain risks, hence actually perceive one or more risks in their surroundings, it creates the condition for communication about these risks between citizens and their government. The perceptions have a direct impact on how citizens respond to risk management activities (Frewer, 2004: 391).
13
TABLE 2. FACOTRS INFLUENCING RISK PERCEPTION COMBINED FROM: GUTTELING (1996: 15), TER HUURNE (2008:104), PEETERS (2006: 21)
Factors risk perception
Analytical system Effect:
chances and effect of risk visibility of risk
knowledge of risk and possible effects severity of consequences
probability to happen Cause:
Risk caused by man or nature (Un) controllability of risk (un) Voluntary exposure Experiential system
Fear, worry, anxiety, perceived danger Trust in authorities
Insecure
Degree of societal attention to the risk
Who and how many are exposed to the risk (family, friends, others)
Risk perceptions are created socially. Therefore societal risk perceptions may be different from those identified by experts. People perceive some risks differently than others (Lofstedt, 2003: 417). It is very important to involve the knowledge about societal priorities in risk communication.
As Frewer points out and is illustrated through the explanation of the communication process, integrating the perspective of the public, opinions, attitudes concerning risk perception is very important. If this element is neglected, according to the literature it could limit the effectiveness of the total risk communication process.
14
2.3.4 DEFINITION
To maintain a clear understanding of the concept of risk perception, the following definition will be used for this research.
Based on previous research from Ter huurne (2008: 40), Sjoberg, Moen, Rundmo (2004: 26), Horst, Kuttschreuter, Gutteling (2007: 1842), the determinants to determine risk perception, that will be used for this research are knowledge, worry, anxiety, perceived danger, severity of consequences and perceived probability to happen.
2.4 FUNCTIONAL TEXT ANALYSIS
Because a major part of this research will focus on the current communication of the City of Richmond, a text analysis will be performed. Therefore in this section background theory about text analysis will be discussed.
2.4.1 THE TEXT ANALYSIS PROCESS
What is text analysis? To answer this, the explanation of Pander Maat (2002: 11) will be used. He states that to understand text analysis, it is important to look at the definition of analysis in general, as posed by Drop (1983).
Thus text analysis is an intended process of decomposing a text into elements, name these element and defining the relationships between the elements. The aim of this process is to come to a justified judgment of content, structure and style (Pander Maat, 2002: 11, Karreman and Steehouder, 2008:5). In this research a functional text analysis will be performed. The functional text analysis focuses on the functions the text fulfills. In this case is looked at target groups, objectives and alignment of intelligibility of the text to the target groups and goals. The result of a functional analysis, is an assessment of the text, possibly with recommendations that enhance the chance of achieving the goal of the text (Karreman and Steehouder, 2002: 5).
There are three phases in the functional text analysis (Karreman and Steehouder, 2008: 5) In the first phase the target and target groups are determined of the text as a whole.
For this, elements of the text itself are used, as well as knowledge about the context: the situation in which the text was written, the author or organization behind the text. In the second phase is determined what the function is of the elements of the text as a
whole. How do they contribute to the objective of the text. The third phase is about judging the functionality of the text.
Risk perception is the subjective assessment of the probability of a specified type of accident happening and how concerned we are with the consequences (Sjoberg, 2004:8)
15
2.4.2 THEORY ABOUT THE FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS
The fundament for the functional analysis is the speech act theory of Austin and Searle (1962) (in Evers-Vermeul, 2005: 9). In this theory they tried to connect the meaning of utterances with the function of the communication. According to this theory, every utterance is an act. Thus, saying something means in this theory, doing something. For example asking someone where the train to Amsterdam leaves, is in fact a request for information and therefore an act. Other examples of speech acts are promising, requesting, congratulating. These verbs indicate the act of the speaker, this is the illocutionary purpose of the act. The effect of the speech acts on the receiver are called perlocutionary act. For example a promise implicates an obligation to the speaker. The limitation of the speech act theory is that the theory only focuses on spoken language, not on written language. Another limitation is that it does not focus on the analysis of complete texts, but on separate utterances.
A second basis for the functional analysis is the research to text quality. Important in this is what exactly makes a text a good text. First researchers were interested in the intelligibility or persuasiveness of text, until Wright wrote in 1980 that the quality of text is strongly depended on the function of text. In some cases it is mostly about intelligibility, sometimes about persuasiveness, or about the usability with performing a task. Lentz and Pander Maat (1993), called this research for the first time functional analysis (Karreman and Steehouder 2002: 9). After this they have played a very important role in the development of the method. They published more articles about functional analysis and the problems that arose with the method. They also have proven that functional analysis is in the first place a method for analyzing existing texts but could also be used to write the text (Karreman and Steehouder, 2002: 8)
2.4.3 GLOBAL LEVEL
For the analysis of the texts in this research, firstly the following questions will be determined as presented in table 3. The general target of the text is very important. The writer or organization wants to achieve that knowledge, opinion, intentions, and feelings of a group (the target group) about a certain subject are influenced in a way. These are the communicative goals. This influence could possibly have an effect on the behavior of the target group, which are called the consecutive goals. The final goal of the writer or organization; is the organizational goal (Karreman and Schellens, 2008: 12)
TABLE 3 OBJECTIVES (KARREMAN AND SCHELLENS, 2008:12)
Objectives
What are the organizational goals, target (group) and consecutive goals?
16
2.4.4 LOCAL LEVEL
The functional text analysis in this research makes use of the following models, that will be elaborated further on below.
CCC-model Three criteria
Renkema (1996: 317) developed the CCC-model to summarize theory about functional text analysis into a workable model, that could be used for text analysis. He distinguished three criteria to test a text; correspondence, consistence and correctness. In this criterion it is questioned to what degree there is correspondence between the organization and target group. The organization has a certain objective with the text, the target group has certain expectations. The second is consistence. A document needs to be consistent, and deviation in consistency should be substantiated. If this is not the case, there is inconsistency. This will confuse the reader. The third criterion is correctness. In written communication that means correspondence with general rules for language use. The digital conventions are still under development, but also within the digital society there are already conventions created for digital texts.
Five levels
Besides the three criteria, Renkema distinguishes also five levels to which the criteria apply like: content, structure, presentation, formulation and type of document. Content could be audiovisual as well as textual. Structure is the elements of text and the connections between these elements. The fourth is formulation; this also contains the tone, textual and visual. The fifth level is type of text. This has relation with the communicative goals of the organization. An example of the model could be found in section 3.3 of the next chapter.
Theory of Integrated communication
The various levels of communication of an organization need to be integrated with each other, as a requirement to create excellent communication (Oussaïd, 2008: 36-37). This could be done on several levels: macro, meso and micro level. In this case will be focused on the latter, which is the alignment of various communication utterances of an organization. The documents should all contribute to the communication objectives of the organization. Important is the integration of content and design of the various messages, to present a coherent message to the public (Oussaid, 2008: 39)
HOMERUN model
The HOMERUN model (Nielsen, 2001: 409-413) is specifically designed for websites. It is a user based model that focuses on seven main pillars:
17
Often updated: A website needs frequent updates to keep users interested in the content, and giving them a reason to return to the website. This is depended on the type of website and goals of the organization behind the website. A news sender needs to update all day, but a bank just needs to update whenever they need to inform users about new policies, or actions.
Minimal download time: The website should be easily downloaded, not taking much of the users time
Ease of use: The website needs an easy structure to keep it simple to user to navigate and read the offered text
Relevant to users’ needs: the website will serve a certain target group. The information available on the website should match the target group/users needs when visiting the website.
Unique to the online medium: On websites tools could be used that are unique to the online medium for instance movies, real time chat, interactive games. It should not be used the same as print.
Net-centric corporate culture: the corporate culture should be focused on incorporating the website in their work; information updates on the website, or online interactivity needs a corporate culture that is open to this.
These pillars are requirements for users to revisit a website and form the basis for good web design. Therefore elements of this model were used in the functional analysis of the website.
2.5
A
TTITUDER
ESEARCHEarlier was mentioned that the research is two folded. In previous sections the general process of risk communication, risk perception and the functional text analysis were discussed. In this section the elements of the attitude research will be further addressed, except for risk perception. However risk perception is an element of the attitude research, this was already discussed in relation to the risk communication process, therefore will not be repeated. In this section, the importance of institutional trust will be discussed in relation to risk communication, as well as communication needs, citizen participation, and the role of online media as effective tools for risk communication.
2.5.1 TRUST AND RISK COMMUNICATION
18
profitable dialogue between stakeholders’ (De Marchi, 2000: 258). Therefore in this research trust will be examined.
Decline in trust
Notwithstanding that trust is something important, it is also a fact that trust in institutions that traditionally ensured safety, such as science and government, has diminished over de the past
decade (Cook, Pieri and Robbins, 2004: 441)
As previously described in the phases of risk communication, the role of authorities as the sender of information and the public as receivers of information has changed. In phase three it became more important to take public perceptions serious and make it an essential part within risk communication. Whereas the public used to accept a top down approach from governments, nowadays the public expects more from their governments than merely acting like a sender. They feel that they need to be engaged, as it is normal in communication processes to take two parties into account. The rising expectations could be attributed to economic development; citizens began to expect more material comfort in their lives and greater material security from their governments. There is a growing ‘culture of rights’ in North America and Europe, that is responsible for the changing public mentality. Naturally, if expectations rise and are not matched by improved performance, it will bring down the public’s evaluation of the government. This is what caused a decline in trust of American citizens in their government, over the past thirty years (Parent et al., 2004:1). The same developments could be seen in Europe and other Western countries.
Another important factor for a decline of trust, is the change in communication technologies. Internet for example offers the public a stage for discussion, creates different sources of information and stimulates to look for alternatives and to question authority. People no longer simply accept scientific results, they question experiments, alternative hypotheses, bias, possible scientific misconduct and the influence of money on scientific outcome). These gaps in government communication where they fail to offer similar ways of information as the NGO’s and the wide range of different information sources, are a cause for distrust (Krimsky, 2007: 162)
Definition
From the previous paragraph emerged that institutional trust determines the willingness to accept the institution as a credible source for information and thus as a valuable partner for risk communication. This is confirmed by the institutional trust approach, which proposes that public responses to risk communication depend heavily on the amount of trust put into managing agencies (Huurne, Ter, 2008: 66).
19
Characteristics of institutional trust that will be used in this research to explore the concept of trust are the following as defined by Poortinga & Pidgeon, (2003: 969): ‘the perceived organizations’ ability to care, their perceived commitment to resolving the risk, the perceived competence or expertise of the organization to deal with the risk and the perceived openness and honesty of the organization’.
2.5.2 FRAGILITY OF TRUST
Once lost trust is very hard to regain. Ter Huurne (2008) describes this according to the institutional trust approach. She mentions the aspect of the institutional trust approach, which is called the asymmetry principle, that refers to the fragility of trust. Trust is hard to create or earn and can easily be destroyed (Slovic, 1993; Walker et al., 1999 in Ter Huurne 2008: 116). Research has found indications that the way trust and distrust are created and maintained differs. Namely, negative information associated with a distrusted organization reinforces the public’s distrust, while positive information is discounted. Fortunately, the contrary is also true: If people trust an organization, positive information will reinforce that trust and negative information will be discounted (Cvetkovich, Siegrist, Murray, 2002: 362). This is interesting to keep in mind when developing risk management strategies, because it shows how important the element of trust is in risk communication. It is something that needs continuously attention to maintain the trust.
2.5.3 HOW TO DEAL WITH A DECLINE IN TRUST
Having determined the decline, relevance and fragility of trust, the question rises how to deal with this. It is inevitable to look for strategies to improve and maintain trust. In this section the pros and cons from the literature for public involvement – as an often mentioned tool - will be briefly discussed.
One view is to decrease public involvement, with the argument that the public already has too much influence on risk regulation, resulting in wrong problems to be prioritized and inefficient decision making (Coglianese, 2001: 95). Others argue that only by increasing public participation, from as early as possible, the trust could be increased, leading to less opposition and higher compliance with regulatory measures put in place (Lofstedt, 2003: 420, Parent et al, 2004: 1). Ter Huurne describes the corresponding process in more detail: ‘Increased effort of government to interact with citizens and increased information disclosure by government to citizens can enhance the level of exchange between citizens and government and thereby increase process-based trust’(Huurne Ter, 2008: 16). Because this research aims to develop effective strategies for risk communication, and public participation seems to play an important role in this, citizen participation will be briefly discussed in the next section.
2.6 CITIZEN PARTICIPATION
20
Many literature describes the essential role of public participation in enhancing institutional trust. The reason that public participation may be an effective way to increase trust is that it enhances the citizens’ sense that they can have an impact on political developments and the perception of the responsiveness of the government to these public inputs (Parent et al, 2004: 2).
In this section the methods for public participation will be discussed further, as well as the deliberative democracy ideal that is the foundation for the idea of public participation.
2.6.1 DEFINITION
In this research the following definition of public participation will be used: Public participation may be defined at a general level as ‘the practice of consulting and involving members of the public in the agenda-setting, decision making, and policy-forming activities of organizations or institutions responsible for policy development’ (Rowe and Frewer, 2004: 512).
2.6.2 PUBLIC PARTICIPATION TECHNIQUES
The development of interactive risk communication techniques was welcomed by industry and regulators, especially in the United States. Local and federal government regulators, with the problem of positioning plants, were keen on gaining information on the affected citizens’ preferences by having the citizens directly involved in the policy making process. The strategy as described previously in the phase three of risk communication (Lofstedt, 2003: 423).
There a different levels of participation of the public. Arnstein (1969: 219) formulated six levels of public participation. In the following table (table 4) these will be presented, as well as the consequences and meaning of the participation for risk communication.
TABLE 4 LADDER OF ARNSTEIN, FROM PEETERS (2006: 34)
Public participation ‘ladder of Arnstein’
Risk communication approach Examples
Empowerment Development of local community. Facilitating of local communities to be self-reliant
Offering materials and facilitating of the local community
Cooperation Education of local community. Problem solving on the level of the local community. Two sided communication
Advice panel, that give advice about relevant developments
Consultation Education of local community. Problem solving on the level of local community. Two sided communication
Offering courses, training, workshops, demonstrations,
presentations Information Risk consciousness:
One sided communication
21
Manipulation/therapy Social marketing: One sided communication focused on influencing
Advertisement campaign
Non-participation Emergency message: one sided communication, mandatory respond
Warning (sirens, weather alarm)
The last three levels (non-participation, manipulation/therapy, information) are forms that have barely interaction or participation. These approaches do not fit the democratic view on risk communication in which participation of citizens is important.
As was demonstrated before in the phases of risk communication, in phase 2 and 3 the idea of involving public gains ground. Central in this idea is that risk communication should not focus merely on pursuing the ‘public’ with the corresponding necessary instrumental techniques like in phase one, but should rather focus on social context, the social interrelations between the government and the public. This is visible in the upper three levels of the ladder of Arnstein (Peeters, 2006:27). Consultation, cooperation and empowerment.
Working with the levels of public participation, it always starts with knowing what the public thinks, knows, experiences and feels. Interesting is the idea proposed by Lofstedt (2003: 420), to determine public attitude by trust in the government. He describes a way of breaking down the concept trust into multiple pieces while doing research to it: ‘Establish firstly whether the public trust the authorities, and secondly address the reasons why, if the public does not trust the authorities’ (Lofstedt, 2003: 428). Researchers and practitioners could break down trust into multiple components, as was done in this research by using the characteristics of institutional trust: the perceived organizations’ ability to care, their perceived commitment to resolving the risk, the perceived competence or expertise of the organization to deal with the risk and the perceived openness of the organization (Poortinga & Pidgeon, 2003: 969).
2.7 COMMUNICATION NEEDS
As described in the introduction, an important reason for the mentality change and communication needs of the public, are technological developments. In this section will be elaborated more on the technological developments that created the prevailing communication needs. This change will be firstly explained from a philosophical perspective relating to Habermas’ (1989) public sphere. Secondly will be elaborated further on theory about the changing communication needs and role of online media in particular, the change and opportunities it creates within communication between institutions and the public.
2.7.1 MEDIA AS A NEW PUBLIC COMMUNICATION SPACE
22
This theoretical understanding of the internet as a new public communication space is based on two things. The first is that the internet stimulates the participatory nature of the ideal public sphere as described by Habermas (1989). It encourages participation in debate and offers chances to ‘talk back’ to the media, which creates dialogue instead of passivity. The second characteristic is that the internet as a medium and new public sphere is capable of representing new subjectivities (Lister, Dovey, Giddings, Grant, Kelly, 2003: 176-179). Which means that within this public sphere new and different ideas and views (subjectivities) could be developed in addition to the traditional media, that rather imposed a certain point of view on the public without leaving any possibility for different ideas and views. The following quote describes this well:
This quote summarizes the new trend in communication within western societies. Everyone with a computer and internet service can participate in discussion. With these developments the need for participation within society is growing. Especially with the rise of social media, that brought the opportunity to share information, movies, pictures easily on a large scale. This creates the need within society of effectuating interactivity with institutions.
2.7.2 MENTALITY CHANGE; INTEGRATING THE WISDOM OF THE CROWDS
As the last sentence of the quote suggests, the role of the consumer in the communication process changed. The public is no longer a passive consumer of information but participates actively and even creates media content themselves. The role of the consumer is dominant, the consumer plays a key role and actively participates in the creation of content. This process where independent individuals take decisions and are regarded and respected as ‘expert’ is also referred to as ‘the wisdom of the crowds’. This term originally was used by James Surowiecki (2004) (in Reynaert et al, 2009: 104 ).
Jenkins (1992: 53) described the culture that slowly arose with the increase of new media that stimulated participation. He described it as the ‘participatory culture’. It mentions the disappearing boundaries between production and consumption and the change of the power relations between producers and consumer. Consumers actively participate to the creation, circulation and interpretation of the media. Raessens (2005:376-378) distinguished three characteristics of participation; interpretation, reconfiguration and construction (or co-creation). Interpretation means that the public is actively involved in the creation of meaning of certain cultural expressions. Some concepts will be interpreted differently by the public than intended. Secondly he mentions reconfiguration, which is the option for the user to create certain online environments actively. These environments could be used to talk about alternative interpretations, that are not dependent on traditional media. Examples are
23
configuring a weblog, or uploading videos on Youtube. Construction or co creation is adding complete new elements, this is done for example in open source software in which users program together to improve the system (Reynaerd et al, 2009: 106)
The participants that have the characteristics of the participatory culture, and have an increased demand for openness, transparency and interactivity are the so called ‘Generation C’. This generation C, publish information on the internet, are involved in discussions on forums and weblogs. The human is a social being who likes to share experiences and information with others. The internet makes this increasingly possible. The majority of generation C is young, can generate content and share with friends (Reynaerd et al, 2009:108). Nevertheless, the mentality of this generation C is not only confined to this specific group, it spreads rapidly as the use of new technologies increases also among older generations. Thus, the former implicates a general mentality change of people, and underlines the changing communication needs of the Western technology driven contemporary societies.
Crowd sourcing
Involving the wisdom of the crowds is also called open innovation or crowd sourcing and is not only in favor of the public but beneficial to institutions as well. Open innovation is based on the idea that institutions cannot rely solely on their internal knowledge and ideas, but should cooperate with, buy or license processes or inventions from other institutions (Chesbrough, 2003:35-39.) Central to open innovation is the involvement of consumers in the product development, to mobilize ideas from outside the organization. A more developed form of this open innovation that integrates new communication technologies and the public, is ‘crowd sourcing’. This term was introduced by Jeff Howe (2009: 23), to illustrate the option that tasks that are normally performed by individuals could be expended to a larger group of people in the form of an online message. Howe makes clear that most of the knowledge and ideas are not present within the own organization. Especially not when it concerns a problem regarding the communication between government and public, namely the public itself. The idea behind crowd sourcing is using the knowledge, ideas and creativity that are present in the community, to solve problems. Through internet, the problem or question could easily be presented and discussed. A possibility for public engagement in risk communication.
Applying these developments to risk communication it is obvious that governments need to engage the public but also the new ways of communicating with the public. Governments should focus on engaging public both online and offline (Parent et al., 2004: 7). Not much is written about the preferences of the citizens concerning online participation and the use of online media as communication tools. This research aims to make a start in describing this. In the following sections general, recent theories about online participation and social media will be explained.
2.7.3 SOCIAL MEDIA
24
sound (Reynaert, 2009: 110). Wikipedia as a product of web 2.0 in itself wields the following definition:
A big part of the western world has access to the internet and are very skilled in the use of the net. This is the basis for user generated content, where users add value to online websites, platforms, communities or networks. The more users the better the quality of the online service (van Berlo, 2010: 21) This development results in the fact that also governments and businesses need to adapt; listen to and cooperate with each other and the consumer (Reynaert et al, 2009: 111). Another important development is that consumers rather trust ‘a person like me’ where they can relate to from the internet, instead of experts. There is for instance a growing number of websites with reviews of various products and services, where people can base their judgments on before buying the product (van Berlo, 2010: 19) To this development also belong NGO websites, that present alternative (risk) information to that what is offered by governments and institutions. People are more willing to adapt this because they feel they can relate more to those institutions than to governments.
Types of social media
There are many different forms of social media like internet forums, weblogs, wiki’s, podcasts, RSS, social networks and music download sites. But also messenger programs and e-mail belong to social media. Some well-known examples are: Wikipedia, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Google, Youtube, Ning (Reynaert et al, 2009:111). Of these social networks the most interesting for this research are Facebook, Twitter, weblogs and other community sites (forums) like Ning. These are the most commonly used and also serve the requirements of participation media that suit the purpose of risk communication between government and citizen. Requirements for risk communication participation media are that the medium creates a digital space, a platform, where everyone from the community with an internet connection can gather, which is interactive in the sense that people can ask questions, share ideas, enquire information, talk to the local government but also to other community members. Facebook, weblogs and Ning (online community) offer these online spaces, Twitter is an easy, fast way to receive information and react to it directly if needed.
Characteristics web 2.0
Key elements of social media (web 2.0), that are different than traditional media forms are ‘cooperation’ and ‘information sharing’. Traditional media like newspapers, television, books and radio are much more one-way traffic from sender to receiver, whereas social media exists because of the interaction between people (Reynaert, 2009: 122). People are sharing, trading, and collaborating. The following movie about web 2.0 illustrates this with examples of sharing,
A group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological
25
trading and collaborating (Wesch, 10 september 20101). Articles in social media are never finished because people continue to work on it and change it.
In addition to the key elements ‘ccoperation’ and ‘information sharing’, there are several specific characteristics of social media described by Raessens, (2005: 374): multimediality, virtuality, interactivity and connectivity. Multimediality of social media concerns the combination of word, image and sound. New media form combinations of old digital media forms like print, radio and television. Virtuality is the possibility of creating virtual worlds, that seem to be real but do not exist in the real world. Users experience a proximity with other users that distance-wise cannot exist in the real world. They are created through software. For example Facebook, where friends from overseas seem to be as close as neighbors. It is easy to chat, share pictures or videos (Reynaert, 2009: 116) Also connectivity is a special characteristic, which describes the connectedness of the different technological tools, used by media users. For example the i-phone that connects with a notebook. Finally and very important, interactivity is a special characteristic of social media “The degree to which users can cooperate in the change of form and content, of an intermediary controlled environment” (Steuer,1992 in Reyneart 2009: 116). There is a an existence of multidirectional trafficking, not only one way communication. The mentality of people nowadays demands more interactivity that offers possibilities for direct involvement, an active participation for citizens. Openness, transparency, social and user centralized, play a pivotal role in this (Van Berlo, 2010: 27). It is evident that the developments of the new communication technologies create a different need in society for risk communication. It is important for institutions to take this in account and integrate the needs of the crowd, to make effective risk communication possible. In the next chapter the design of the research to the risk communication in the City of Richmond will be discussed, in which the correspondence between the offered materials and communication needs of residents will play a pivotal role.
26
3.
M
ETHOD
3.1 INTRODUCTION
In this section the various phases in the research method will be described, as well as the choices concerning the methodology and used research techniques.
3.2 DESIGN AND PROCEDURE
The following topics will be discussed: research design, the justification of the choice of case study, the functional text analysis and the questionnaire. Figure 3 presents the visual overview of the research design.
3.2.1 THE DESIGN
As described before, the objective of the research is on the one hand to describe the current situation of risk communication materials of the City, on the other hand to describe the attitudes of the citizens towards the communication and the City as institution. The examinations compared, will result in possible recommendations to enhance the risk communication. To research these aspects, it was chosen to use a case study to describe this process of risk communication between citizen and the City in Richmond. With a case study insight is obtained in the way certain processes solemnize, why it occurs in a certain way (Verschuren and Doorewaard, 1998: 181).
