ABSTRACT

Broadcast media has a particular fascination with stories that involve risk and health crisis events-disease outbreaks, terrorist acts, and natural disasters-contexts where risk and health communication play a critical role. An evolving media landscape introduces both challenges and opportunities for using communication to manage extreme events and hazardous contexts. Risk and Health Communication in an Evolving Media Environment addresses issues of risk and health communication with a collection of chapters that reflect state-of-the-art discussion by top scholars in the field. The authors in this volume develop unique and insightful perspectives by employing the best available research on topics such as brand awareness in healthcare communication, occupational safety, climate change communication, local broadcasts of weather emergencies, terrorism, and the Ebola outbreak, among many other areas. It features analysis of new and traditional media that connects disasters, crises, risks, and public policy issues into a coherent fabric. This book bridges a substantial, but sometimes disconnected body of literature, and by doing so asks how contexts related to risk and health communication are best approached, how researchers balance scientific findings with cultural issues, and how scholars study an increasingly media-savvy society with traditional research methods.

part I|94 pages

Advances in Health Communication Research

chapter 1|9 pages

Prelude

Advancing Media Research in Risk and Health Communication Contexts

chapter 3|28 pages

College Students and Legalized Marijuana

Knowledge Gaps and Belief Gaps Regarding the Law and Health Effects

chapter 4|23 pages

Out of Sight, Out of Mind?

Addressing Unconscious Brand Awareness in Healthcare Communication

chapter 5|17 pages

Communicating Health-Related Risk and Crisis in China

State of the Field and Ways Forward

part II|94 pages

Communicating and Educating the Public and Media About Risk and Science

chapter 6|26 pages

Risk Communication in Occupational Safety and Health

Reaching Diverse Audiences in an Evolving Communication Environment

chapter 8|20 pages

News Coverage of Cancer Research

Does Disclosure of Scientific Uncertainty Enhance Credibility?

part III|89 pages

Situating Theory in Risk and Health Communication Contexts

part IV|56 pages

Exploring Messages and Media During Extreme Events

chapter 14|19 pages

First Alert Weather

Local Broadcasters’ Communication During Weather Emergencies

chapter 15|16 pages

It’s Not Preventable, Yet You Are Responsible

Media’s Risk and Attribution Assessment of the 2012 West Nile Outbreak