ABSTRACT
People experience risks in a wide variety of ways – through direct experience, media, reports in time, conversations with friends and neighbours, and grass-roots groups and organizations. With an issue such as the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, in the US, for most people, including those of the nearby community of Caliente and Lincoln County, this experience will be largely indirect, through the depiction and interpretation of unfolding events associated with the repository. The amount, duration and character of media coverage may, in particular situations, influence public perceptions of the repository, the types of concerns that arise, and the extent to which interested people who will be affected by the repository are informed.
