Communicating Risk and Uncertainty

Abstract

This chapter presents a brief overview of some fundamental concepts in risk communication between technical experts and non-technical laypeople. It touches on core elements of risk and uncertainty when they are described, interpreted, and manipulated to persuade people to take specific actions. It focuses on what technical expert participants in risk communication enterprises can do to reflect on their own role in communication successes and failures. This material is punctuated with examples from the author’s experience of risk communication activities around Australia and the Pacific region.

Topics covered include various ways we understand risk and prioritise “risky” decisions, the importance of context and of identifying and recognising our assumptions in risk communication efforts, the necessity of explicit communication goals, and the pervasive influence of values. The chapter concludes with two activities and suggestions for further reading.

Research into risk perception and communication has been going on for decades. The volume of work is far too large to cover in a single book chapter. This chapter is a “taste test” of some of the aspects of risk communication that I have found to be among the most common and enduring. It is coloured with examples that typify how personal, ambiguous, variable, and context-dependent our views on risk can be. These examples also reveal how close the relationship between risk communication and science communication can be (e.g. in climate change debates or public health deliberations). If nothing else, I hope a reader new to risk communication will come away with a clearer impression of the potential complexity inherent in risk communication exchanges, and a deeper appreciation of the extent to which “successful” risk communication is rarely about just explaining the data.