The Social Amplification of Risk

Edited by three well-known analysts of risk and its communication, this volume brings together contributions from a group of international experts in risk perception and risk communication. Key conceptual issues are discussed as well as a range of recent case studies that span BSE and food safety, AIDS/HIV, nuclear power, child protection, Y2K, electromagnetic fields, and waste incineration. The volume also draws attention to issues in public policy, risk management and risk communication practice.

Nick Pidgeon is Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, and Director of the Centre for Environmental Risk. He has written extensively on risk communication and perception issues, including a major contribution to the UK Royal Society Report on Risk (1992), as well as on causes of organisational accidents. He is the author of Man-Made Disasters (1997).

Roger E. Kasperson is Director of the Stockholm Environment Institute. He is the leading geographer in the field of risk and risk communication over the last thirty years. His publications include Communicating Risks to the Public (with J. Stallen, 1991), Nuclear Risks in Comparative Perspective (1987), Acceptable Evidence: Science and Values in Hazard Management (with J. X. Kasperson, 1991), and Regions at Risk (with J. X. Kasperson and B. L. Turner, 1995).

Paul Slovic is President of Decision Research and Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon. He is the leading psychologist in the field of risk perception and behavioral decision making over the past thirty years. His publications include Acceptable Risk with B. Fischhoff, S. Lichtenstein, R. Keeney and P. Derby (Cambridge, 1981), Judgement under Uncertainty with D. Kahneman and A. Tversky, 2nd edition, Cambridge, 2002), The Perception of Risk (2000), and Risk Media and Stigma with J. Flynn and H. Kunreuther (2001).