ABSTRACT
This chapter positions the book within the field of risk communication and builds the theoretical and analytical frameworks needed for interpreting global risks as value-laden and discursive. It involves four main areas of investigation. It provides a critical overview of ‘canonical’ theories of risk, unpacking the understanding of risk in this book as discursively produced and value-laden. It situates this book within the developmental arc of the field of risk communication, underlining the timeliness of its contributions to the field. To grasp how the global risks of the pandemic and climate change may be value-laden, it presents and reviews (super) wicked problem theories, post-normal science theory and world risk society theory. Finally, it presents two approaches to the qualitative analysis of discourse, Foucauldian discourse analysis and framing analysis, that will be used to identify risk-related values and responsibilising elements in empirical analyses of risk messages about the pandemic and climate change in Chapters 4 and 5.
