ABSTRACT
The field of risk communication has evolved significantly in the last few decades. Early approaches to risk assessment and risk management generally considered communication to be the final stage of risk management, after the technical risk assessment and selection of risk management options had been completed. Risk communication usually took the form of a one-way message from experts and/or agencies to the public consisting of technical and scientific information, with the primary purpose of persuading people to accept a decision that had already been made. This approach (which is presumed to be based on the original ‘message transmission’ model of communication of Shannon and Weaver 1949) proved to be frequently unsuccessful, often resulting in conflict and frustration on all sides (Jardine 2008).
