The bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) saga has made painfully evident the limitations of risk communication as a one-way avenue, where information to the public about the risks they face comes after critical policy decisions have already been made. In fact, communication has even been identified as one of the key elements of what went wrong and generated the loss of trust in government discourse and in beef in Europe. This book deals with risk communication as an evolving and interactive process between decision-makers and their publics and underlines the critical importance of creating mechanisms for interaction between policy-makers and stakeholders at all stages of policy-making, in order for risk communication to be effective. The book – the result of a research project carried out in four countries (Italy, Finland, Germany, Great Britain) by an international team of researchers in 2000-2002, supported by the European Commission DG Research and led by the World Health Organization – reports on research into the strategies used by different actors to communicate about BSE and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in four European countries between 1985 and 2000. These actors include the mass media, health information systems, and political actors. The research also assessed the way people construct their perceptions about risk, who they listen to and how they make decisions on risk avoidance. A range of qualitative and quantitative methods used to describe what was said as well as was the perspectives and framework assumptions espoused by those different actors. This specific chapter reviews key issues in understanding public perceptions and behaviours, how they are constructed and influenced by beliefs and social interaction, and how they are affected by social frameworks, including trust in information sources. It discusses issues such as the need for indicators of perception and trust, along with methods for capturing and interpreting what these mean and how they can be used in policy-making. It covers current issues such as the relevance of describing the public as "consumers" or as "citizens", the potential contribution of lay epidemiology, and the value of monitoring the symbolic environment (made up of perceptions and beliefs) in which various actors operate. It also discusses issues of representation in policy-making, particularly representation by direct participation of certain individuals as against representation through researching the opinions of a wider group. In particular, it discusses three different methods for accessing existing views: focus group discussions, surveys or opinion polls, and content analysis of mass media coverage. The strengths and weaknesses of each method are examined briefly, along with practical considerations such as their cost and the ease with which they can be "contracted out" to private-service providers.
Assessing Public Perception: Issues and Methods
GASPERONI, Giancarlo;
2006
Abstract
The bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) saga has made painfully evident the limitations of risk communication as a one-way avenue, where information to the public about the risks they face comes after critical policy decisions have already been made. In fact, communication has even been identified as one of the key elements of what went wrong and generated the loss of trust in government discourse and in beef in Europe. This book deals with risk communication as an evolving and interactive process between decision-makers and their publics and underlines the critical importance of creating mechanisms for interaction between policy-makers and stakeholders at all stages of policy-making, in order for risk communication to be effective. The book – the result of a research project carried out in four countries (Italy, Finland, Germany, Great Britain) by an international team of researchers in 2000-2002, supported by the European Commission DG Research and led by the World Health Organization – reports on research into the strategies used by different actors to communicate about BSE and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in four European countries between 1985 and 2000. These actors include the mass media, health information systems, and political actors. The research also assessed the way people construct their perceptions about risk, who they listen to and how they make decisions on risk avoidance. A range of qualitative and quantitative methods used to describe what was said as well as was the perspectives and framework assumptions espoused by those different actors. This specific chapter reviews key issues in understanding public perceptions and behaviours, how they are constructed and influenced by beliefs and social interaction, and how they are affected by social frameworks, including trust in information sources. It discusses issues such as the need for indicators of perception and trust, along with methods for capturing and interpreting what these mean and how they can be used in policy-making. It covers current issues such as the relevance of describing the public as "consumers" or as "citizens", the potential contribution of lay epidemiology, and the value of monitoring the symbolic environment (made up of perceptions and beliefs) in which various actors operate. It also discusses issues of representation in policy-making, particularly representation by direct participation of certain individuals as against representation through researching the opinions of a wider group. In particular, it discusses three different methods for accessing existing views: focus group discussions, surveys or opinion polls, and content analysis of mass media coverage. The strengths and weaknesses of each method are examined briefly, along with practical considerations such as their cost and the ease with which they can be "contracted out" to private-service providers.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
