Self-study
P1
To many developers of technologies that affect public health or the environment, "risk communication" means persuading the public that the potential risks of such technologies are small and should be ignored. █████ ███ ███████████ █████ ██ ████ ███ ████ ██ ███████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ██████████ ███ ██████ ██████ ██ █████████████ █████ ███ ████ ███ ████
Intro topic ·
Risk communication
People who communicate risks to the public think lay people often ignore mundane dangers, but fear exotic dangers that are highly unlikely to materialize.
P2
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Author's perspective ·
Need clear understanding about how public perceives risk
Lay people's definition of risk ·
Involves subject ethical concerns
Example: small risk to children is more important than large risk to consenting adults.
Lay people's assessment of risk ·
Generally accurate, when not considering ethical matters
Lay people provide reasonably accurate ranks of hazards by annual number of deaths. A study showed that they can understand specific risks of electromagnetic fields.
P3
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Author's perspective ·
Risk communicators should understand what their audience knows and believes about risk
This will increase the chance that risk communicators' message is understood accurately.
Example supporting author ·
Recent study showed effectiveness of risk-communication based on understanding the public
Brochure on risks of radon was developed based on interviews and questionnaires of the public. People who read this brochure understood the risks of radon better than people who had read a different brochure that didn't involve interviews or questionnaires of the public.
Passage Style
Critique or debate
Problem-analysis
2.
The authors of the passage █████ ██ ████ ██████ ██ █████ ████ ███ ███████ ███████ ██ ████ █████████████ ██████ ██ ██
a
explain rather than ██ ████████
Strongly supported. In P1, the author explains that some people see the role of risk communication as just an attempt to persuade people not to worry about certain risks. She then clarifies in P2 that the purpose
b
promote rather than ██ ███████
Unsupported. The concepts of promoting and justifying don’t come up in the passage. Perhaps we could say that the author wants risk communication to “promote” people’s ability to
c
influence experts rather ████ ██ █████████ ███ ██████
Unsupported. Lay people are the intended audience of risk communication. The author never suggests experts as an audience.
d
allay people's fears █████ ███████ ███████ ██████ ████ █████ ██████ ███████
Misdirection. The risk communicators mentioned in P1 want to allay people’s fears about exotic hazards. The author argues against that view, but she doesn’t suggest that they should just allay people’s fears about mundane hazards instead. She’s against the whole idea that risk communication should be about allaying fears or persuading people. She thinks it should be about educating people instead.
e
foster public acceptance ██ ███ ████████████ ██████ ████ ██ ███████████ ████████ ███████ ████████
Anti-supported. This says the purpose of risk communication should be to persuade people to accept new technologies, not to address people’s ethical concerns. But the author is against that view on both counts. She says at the top of P2 that instead of focusing on persuasion, risk communication should be about educating people. And she recommends in P3 that risk communicators need to recognize and understand people’s beliefs about ethical issues.