Risk, Uncertainty and Communication: A Discussion. Tor Arnesen, Eastern Norway Research Institute, Lillehammer, Norway
The paper discusses the relationships between our understanding of uncertainty and (somatically and ecologically defined) risk and threat within a deterministic and a indeterministic metaphysical framework. The fundamental reinterpretation of the idea of chance during the 19th and 20th centuries have produced a new framework for the understanding of risk. The rise of indeterminism has produced an ontological argument for risk, an argument dismissed within deterministic approaches. Indeterminism does not per se produce risk, but offers the possibility of a high level of certainty in knowledge combined with a high level of risk. This combination is logically excluded in deterministic approaches, where all gain in knowledge must be understood as a reduction in risk.
The relation between risk and uncertainty is then discussed as a problem of how to understand moral issues in the distribution of risk in the social matrix. An attempt is made to interpret risk as a question of justice, mainly within the framework of John Rawls "A Theory of Risk." Rawls relation between ignorance and just and fair behaviour, is applied to discuss both universal and segregated risk issues, providing and illuminating an argumentative foundation for the precautionary principle.
The relation between risk, uncertainty and communication of risk in the social matrix is discussed. Risks have a life cycle moving it from one kind of normality to another through an "inflammation zone." They often enter the scene of public attention as threats or potential risks in a process where they are pulled out of "the pool of background normality" and identified as a potential threat. An "inflammation zone" is identified as the situation when a potential threat/risk is identified at a high level of uncertainty in knowledge base. In this situation the potential for the risk communication to bring the social matrix in a resonance is great. This may produce extreme media and political attention, often out of proportion to the way other recognized risks are treated.
The conditions of matrix resonance is discussed as a function of various patterns of distribution of risk in the social matrix. As knowledge is produced and administrative strategies are being applied to handle the situation, the risk is being normalized as a risk, and the communicative situation changes character. The normalisation of risk occurs independent of whether knowledge production identifies a high or a low level of risk. The works of Ulrich Beck and Niklas Luhmann are used to analyse this life cycle. The debates in Norway related to the fall-out in Norway from Tsjernobyl and the rising attention paid to scrapie among sheep in Norway and the possible connection to CJ-syndrom are used as examples.
Go to:
Table of Contents of the 1997
SRA-Europe Conference
Program of the 1997 SRA-Europe Conference
RiskWorld Welcome Page
Tec-Com, Inc.