ABSTRACT
Early research on risk communication draws on the key psychological finding that lay people's understanding of risk is cognitively biased. A conventional understanding was established in the risk research community that people tend to over- or underestimate risk, owing to qualitative framing in terms of parameters such as perceived control, voluntariness, understood dreadfulness of consequences, and benefits. Risk scholars and risk professionals came to the conclusion that risk decisions needed to be more closely coupled to risk assessment (Kahneman, Slovic & Tversky, 1982; Slovic, 2000). They also made it a mission to create better risk communication for informing the public about qualities of risk, such as probabilities and consequences, enabling rational and well-informed choices about which risks to take or not (Fischhoff, 1995; Leiss, 1996). Conventional risk communication sides with experts, policymakers, and regulators: it gives a paradigmatic status to the ‘rational actor’ (Árvai, 2007), and it adopts a normative agenda to promote safety, good governance, and human well-being, while paying respect to individual freedom and choice.
