ABSTRACT
This chapter addressing the public values and priorities, accommodating divergent social interests and concerns, aiming for trust and transparency and acknowledging the inherent uncertainties in risk assessments are the major goals of contemporary risk communication. It focuses on the distortion of 'risk signals' in society due to various socially induced attenuations. Transmitters of information such as the mass media, institutions or organisations can amplify or attenuate risk by exaggerating or ignoring/underplaying information. Based on the case study, three principal dimensions crucial to the communication of risk are apparent: the variable ontology of risk, intentionality and the practical rationality of communication and power asymmetry and the dimension of conflict. As outlined here, a pragmatic perspective on the communication of risk has the strength of demanding that scholars consider communication as a complex social process of the creation and interpretation of meaning, situated in real life.
