Rethinking Risk Communication

Critique, Narratives and Imaginaries
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-981-9250-81-3
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan

Buch, Englisch, 388 Seiten, Format (B × H): 148 mm x 210 mm

Reihe: Critical Studies in Risk and Uncertainty

This open access edited volume provides a unique interdisciplinary study of risk communication, presenting both innovative conceptual frameworks and new empirical data. Risk communication cannot be fully understood without considering not only scientific knowledge and values but also cultural imaginaries, embodied experiences, and power relations. This book therefore sheds light on risk communication as a complex social process involving a wide range of individual and organized actors including political decision-makers, journalists, writers, NGOs, profit organizations and people in everyday life, who interact across various settings. 

With contributions by scholars in sociology, human geography, philosophy, literary studies, science and technology studies, social theory, security studies, and health studies, this volume demonstrates how risks are framed, negotiated, and contested in society. Exploring emerging challenges, it presents strategies to address national security risks, the difficulties of predicting extreme weather events, and the politics surrounding public engagement. This book also addresses previously underrepresented issues—such as the role of literature in shaping collective imaginaries, the limitations of citizen science, the strategic use of rhetoric by institutional actors, and the interaction between media discourses and political or economic interests. The intended audience includes both students and scholars in sociology of risk and uncertainty, risk studies, risk communication and STS, as well as practitioners (such as those in disaster prevention) and policymakers interested in the broader social aspects of risk.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Zinn, Jens O.

Fachgebiete

• Geowissenschaften Geographie | Raumplanung Humangeographie
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Management
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Forschung und Information Risikobewertung, Risikotheorie
• Sozialwissenschaften Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften Medienwissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction: Rethinking Risk Communication: Critique, Narratives and Imaginaries.- 2. Epistemological Considerations for a Societal Theory of Risk Communication.- 3. When the Stakes are High: Professionals’ Sensemaking and Communication about Risk in a Security Context.- 4. From Hazard to Impact: The Need for New Practices of Anticipation in Weather Warnings.- 5. Citizen Science as Risk Communication? Re-thinking infrastructural change in the case of the energy transition.- 6. Fiction as Environmental Risk Communication: Climate Change, Imagination, and the Relevance of Narrative.- 7. Narrating Riskscapes: Petrofiction and Risk Communication.- 8. Aestheticising Risk Communication: Visual Strategies and Warning Methods.- 9. Bodies, Risks, and Ethics: Communicating Body Donation to Science through Comics.- 10. The Epistemological Delirium of the Risk Society 2.0: The Emergence of Hyperstitions as Regulatory Devices for Securing Interests through Securitization.- 11. The Communication of Migration Risks: Risk-Making and Risk-Taking in Public Discourse.- 12. Disinformation Online: Platform Imaginaries and Risks.- 13. Narratives of Certainty: Securing the Future in Times of Crisis.- 14. Risk-Figures as Magical and Monstrous: Theorising Disputed Cultural Phenomena and Miscommunication around Them.- 15. Conclusion: Towards a Broader Concept of Societal Risk Communication.

Über Autor(innen)

Jens O. Zinn is T.R. Ashworth Professor in Sociology at the University of Melbourne, Australia, internationally recognised for his expertise in risk, uncertainty, and trust in contemporary societies. His research has advanced sociological understandings of how individuals and institutions navigate the complexities of risk, particularly in relation to communication, governance, and everyday life.