| Title |
: The Social Construction of Environmental Risk Communication: The Social Construction of Environmental Risk Communication: |
| Date |
: 2015. 06 |
| Journal title |
: ECO |
| Author |
: Kwang Soo Park and Buhm Soon Park |
| Contact us |
: csts@khu.ac.kr |
| Abstract |
: This paper shows the changing media coverage of asbestos risk in the four major newspapers of Korea (Dong-ah, Kyunghyang, Hankyoreh and Maeil business) since its first appearance in 1966. Primarily drawing on foreign sources, the earlier reports were limited in number and tended to be fact-oriented. Yet a notable change took place in the late 1980s, during the heydays of the democratization movement, when the media began to pay attention to the issue of occupational hazards of asbestos in the workplace. Subsequently, environmental risk of asbestos in open spaces such as subway stations and elementary schools was exposed, and the public concerns about asbestos risk peaked during the “baby powder scandal” in 2009-2010. Analyzing more than 900 media reports for 47 years in terms of the coverage of susceptibility (possibility of risk exposure), severity (damage severity after exposure) and efficacy (countermeasure for reduction), this paper argues that environmental risk communication is a manifestation of risk concerns constructed in specific historical contexts. It aims to offer a way of interpreting the contents of risk communication from the standpoint of social constructivism that sees science as a body of “constructed” or “situated” knowledge, instead of that of unchanging, truth-defining one.
Key words: risk communication, asbestos, environmental health, susceptibility, severity, efficacy
Click the following link for downloading the article: https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/ci/sereArticleSearch/ciSereArtiView.kci?sereArticleSearchBean.artiId=ART002008506 |
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