The Evolving Field of Risk Communication

"Perhaps more than any other event in recent memory, the COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the sizable gap between risk communication research and practice..."

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA), this review evaluates the evolving field of risk communication. The authors examine recent debates over the current state and future directions of the field and then spotlight a selection of cognitive, cultural, and social risk communication scholarship appearing in the published literature since 2010. In reviewing the literature, the authors resist offering a single, generic definition of risk communication and instead argue for an open-minded exploration of the multiple forms that comprise today's interdisciplinary field.

To begin, the authors suggest that the boundaries of risk communication research and practice are not static but have been shaped and reshaped over time. The field has advanced partly through an evolution in thinking about what is meant by 'risk' in society, and partly due to shifting perspectives on how risk communication could and should be practiced. One of the most important changes has been a shift in thinking away from a "deficit model" of risk communication, where practitioners seek to teach and educate the "lay" public about risk, to multiway risk communication, which emphasises the importance of engaging audiences through meaningful dialog and deliberation. In the analysis, 3 broad arguments for engaging in multiway risk communication are highlighted:

• Normative arguments stress no particular desired end result and often view multiway risk communication as the right thing to do in and of itself. From this perspective, governments, scientists, businesses, and others have an obligation to inform honestly, precisely, with audience relevance, and while specifying uncertainties about conclusions.
• Instrumental arguments centre on effective multiway risk communication as a resource or means for individuals, groups, or organisations to help achieve desired results, such as sharing information, changing beliefs, and/or changing behaviour (e.g., during the COVID-19 pandemic, most governments sought to persuade the public to physically distance as much as possible to reduce virus transmission). Other desired goals for risk communicators include fostering trusting behaviour or enhancing legitimacy such as through multiway dialog, consensus building, and conflict resolution.
• Substantive arguments stress the ability of effective multiway risk communication to generate new insights and improvements in the quality of available knowledge. This centres on bringing different types of knowledge and experience to the table, such as through meaningful public participation and deliberation and, more recently, capitalising on social media channels.

In concluding the section, the authors contend that future debate is needed on the relative strengths and weaknesses of different coexisting forms of risk communication, including their underlying rationales.

The authors go on to review a selection of recent cognitive, cultural, and social risk communication scholarship, organised into 3 research areas:

1. Messengers: the individuals, groups, and organisations purposefully engaging in risk communication. The authors focus on recent debates about trust, transparency, social media, and training risk communication messengers. The extensive trust literature has particularly focused on: trust models, types, and dimensions; the importance of trust in varying contexts; the stability of trust; and the relationship between trust and its consequences, as well as strategies for improving trust in key risk communication messengers. Scholars have pointed to the role of transparency and openness as a prerequisite for building trust, noting that effective transparency requires that audiences can receive, process, digest, and use the information made available to them. The rise of social media is relevant here, as messengers can open dialog with audiences by using interactive features such as replying to comments or using real-time videos, which have been suggested as a new way of engaging in participatory multiway risk communication and building trusted relationships with influential opinion leaders and groups. However, social media presents new challenges, as messengers have to keep pace with increasing volumes of misinformation, mal-information, and dis-information.
2. Message attributes: the qualities and inherent characteristics of verbal, written, or recorded risk communication. Framing of various kinds plays a central role in all messages, with researchers comparing frames like humans versus the environment, gains versus losses, closeness versus distance, threats versus benefits, and economics versus health, as well as many others. As the authors explain, framing choices "can fundamentally alter the nature of a risk issue by setting the context for risk perceptions, conversations, and disputes..." Scholars have also suggested that risk communicators should attend to the affective and emotional components of messages; strategies such as use of narratives/storytelling and "serious games" are relevant to this discussion. In addition, the advantages and pitfalls of communicating uncertain risk information ("uncertainty communication") have continued to receive attention in the literature. The authors emphasise that no matter the message, risk communicators should carefully evaluate messages to offset potentially negative effects and unintended consequences.
3. Audiences: various intended message recipients. Risk communication messages are filtered through audiences' own selective lenses, with scholarship on risk perception continuing to dominate the literature over the last decade. After outlining recent advances in risk perception research, the authors look at the latest advances on concepts such as cultural cognition and motivated reasoning, as well as models like the Protective Action Decision Model and Risk Information and Processing Model. The past decade also saw continued research on the processes and outcomes of public engagement in risk communication activities, with the suggestion made by one scholar that such processes should seek to: (i) provide participants with balanced information and policy framings; (ii) open and maintain deliberative spaces that enable different forms of engagement and reflection; (iii) avoid naïve audience sampling strategies; and (iv) use varied methods to elicit broader values.

Reflecting on their review of the last decade of literature in the field, the authors cull out key findings, such as that effective risk communication requires a multifaceted approach, that many concepts are multidimensional and require nuanced discussion, and that interdisciplinarity is one of the field's greatest strengths. The authors conclude by arguing that the field's interdisciplinary tradition should be further nurtured, such as by facilitating collaborations between the academic risk communication community and practitioners on the ground. They also emphasise that more concerted and evidence-based efforts to improve the policy relevance of the field are necessary. "What is needed is a research program dedicated to understanding local, national, and international risk communication contexts....Evidence-informed policy engagement can help guide the way toward improving the field's policy relevance and communicating risk communication research more effectively."