IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/riskan/v15y1995i6p685-692.html

“Down and Dirty:” The Use and Abuse of Public Trust in Risk Communication

Author

Listed:
  • William Leiss

Abstract

Many recent contributions to risk communication research stress the importance of the element of “trust” in the process of successful communication. This paper uses that theme in considering risk communication within the context of seeking consensus on matters of health and environmental risk controversies through stakeholder negotiation. It suggests that there are very good reasons, based on historical experience, for the parties to mistrust each other deeply in such settings. For example there is abundant evidence involving episodes in which risk promoters have concealed or ignored relevant risk data or simply have sought to advance their own interests by selective use of such data. These well‐established practices compound the difficulties other stakeholders face, in all such negotiation, by virtue of the inescapable uncertainties (as well as absence of needed data) inherent in risk assessments. These factors encourage the participants to treat such negotiations as poker games in which bluffing, raising the ante, and calling the perceived bluffs of others are matters of survival. In the end we should recognize the genuine dilemmas that citizens face in trying to figure out who and what to believe in making sensible decisions among the range of risks, benefits, and tradeoffs that confront us.

Suggested Citation

  • William Leiss, 1995. "“Down and Dirty:” The Use and Abuse of Public Trust in Risk Communication," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(6), pages 685-692, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:15:y:1995:i:6:p:685-692
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.1995.tb01340.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1995.tb01340.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1995.tb01340.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nancy Kraus & Torbjörn Malmfors & Paul Slovic, 1992. "Intuitive Toxicology: Expert and Lay Judgments of Chemical Risks," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(2), pages 215-232, June.
    2. Ralph L. Keeney & Timothy L. McDaniels, 1992. "Value-Focused Thinking about Strategic Decisions at BC Hydro," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 22(6), pages 94-109, December.
    3. James Flynn & Paul Slovic & C. K. Mertz, 1993. "The Nevada Initiative: A Risk Communication Fiasco," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(5), pages 497-502, October.
    4. Rabin, R., 1989. "Warnings unheeded: A history of child lead poisoning," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 79(12), pages 1668-1674.
    5. Lilienfeld, D.E., 1991. "The silence: The asbestos industry and early occupational cancer research - A case study," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 81(6), pages 791-800.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. William Leiss, 1996. "Three Phases in the Evolution of Risk Communication Practice," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 545(1), pages 85-94, May.
    2. Brad Love & Michael Mackert & Kami Silk, 2013. "Consumer Trust in Information Sources," SAGE Open, , vol. 3(2), pages 21582440134, June.
    3. George Chryssochoidis & Anna Strada & Athanasios Krystallis, 2009. "Public trust in institutions and information sources regarding risk management and communication: towards integrating extant knowledge," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 137-185, March.
    4. Josephine Adekola & Moira Fischbacher-Smith & Denis Fischbacher-Smith & Olalekan Adekola, 2017. "Health risks from environmental degradation in the Niger Delta, Nigeria," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 35(2), pages 334-354, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Donald G. MacGregor & Paul Slovic & Torbjorn Malmfors, 1999. "“How Exposed Is Exposed Enough?” Lay Inferences About Chemical Exposure," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(4), pages 649-659, August.
    2. Madson Bruno da Silva Monte & Danielle Costa Morais, 2019. "A Decision Model for Identifying and Solving Problems in an Urban Water Supply System," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 33(14), pages 4835-4848, November.
    3. Francis, Royce & Bekera, Behailu, 2014. "A metric and frameworks for resilience analysis of engineered and infrastructure systems," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 90-103.
    4. Paul Slovic & James Flynn & Robin Gregory, 1994. "Stigma Happens: Social Problems in the Siting of Nuclear Waste Facilities," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(5), pages 773-777, October.
    5. Hobbs, Benjamin F & Horn, Graham TF, 1997. "Building public confidence in energy planning: a multimethod MCDM approach to demand-side planning at BC gas," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 357-375, February.
    6. Dimitrios Gouglas & Kendall Hoyt & Elizabeth Peacocke & Aristidis Kaloudis & Trygve Ottersen & John-Arne Røttingen, 2019. "Setting Strategic Objectives for the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations: An Exploratory Decision Analysis Process," Service Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(6), pages 430-446, November.
    7. Morioka, Rika, 2014. "Gender difference in the health risk perception of radiation from Fukushima in Japan: The role of hegemonic masculinity," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 105-112.
    8. Angela Bearth & Gulbanu Kaptan & Sabrina Heike Kessler, 2022. "Genome-edited versus genetically-modified tomatoes: an experiment on people’s perceptions and acceptance of food biotechnology in the UK and Switzerland," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 39(3), pages 1117-1131, September.
    9. Charles E. Button, 2008. "Soil lead contamination at child day care centers in the greater Cincinnati area," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 69-75, June.
    10. Vern R. Walker, 1995. "Direct Inference, Probability, and a Conceptual Gulf in Risk Communication," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(5), pages 603-609, October.
    11. Badami, Madhav G., 2004. "Environmental policy-making in a difficult context: motorized two-wheeled vehicle emissions in India," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(16), pages 1861-1877, November.
    12. Branden B. Johnson & Adam M. Finkel, 2016. "Public Perceptions of Regulatory Costs, Their Uncertainty and Interindividual Distribution," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(6), pages 1148-1170, June.
    13. Bernd Kowall & Jürgen Breckenkamp & Kristina Heyer & Gabriele Berg-Beckhoff, 2010. "German wide cross sectional survey on health impacts of electromagnetic fields in the view of general practitioners," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 55(5), pages 507-512, October.
    14. C-C Chang & R-S Chen, 2007. "Project advancement and its applications to multi-air-route quality budget allocation," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 58(8), pages 1008-1020, August.
    15. Meredith Frances Dobbie & Rebekah Ruth Brown, 2014. "A Framework for Understanding Risk Perception, Explored from the Perspective of the Water Practitioner," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(2), pages 294-308, February.
    16. R L Keeney & R M Oliver, 2005. "Designing win-win financial loan products for consumers and businesses," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 56(9), pages 1030-1040, September.
    17. Regina Schoell & Claudia R. Binder, 2009. "System Perspectives of Experts and Farmers Regarding the Role of Livelihood Assets in Risk Perception: Results from the Structured Mental Model Approach," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(2), pages 205-222, February.
    18. Patrick Koval, 2018. "Toxic Effects of Lead Disposal in Water: An Analysis of TRI Facility Releases," Working Papers 1809, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    19. Martin Jaffe & Odeh Al-Jayyousi, 2002. "Planning Models for Sustainable Water Resource Development," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(3), pages 309-322.
    20. Aliakbar Kamari & Stefan Jensen & Maria Leonhard Christensen & Steffen Petersen & Poul Henning Kirkegaard, 2018. "A hybrid Decision Support System for Generation of Holistic Renovation Scenarios—Cases of Energy Consumption, Investment Cost, and Thermal Indoor Comfort," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-23, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:15:y:1995:i:6:p:685-692. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1539-6924 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.