Concept of Risk Communication

Concept of Risk Communication

Communication is an exchange of thought, message, and information by speech, visual, signal, writing or behavior between two or more living creatures (Wikipedia, 2013). The purpose of communication is to inform, educate, or even occasionally persuade. Moreover, risk is the potential of exposure to harm, and it is triggered by irresponsibility production in the world (Rohrmann, 2008). Moreover, risks involved in the level of individual or groups encounter in the future as well as the possibility of injury and risks also involve public’ cognitive judgments of this possibility (Cox, 2006). Risk perception stems from the process of modernization of human decision-making, with a high degree of uncertainty.

Risks sometime being communicated are frightening to particular audiences. Other times, audiences are unaware of and even apathetic of the risks. In other case, some organizations found to be not credible in communicating the risks towards a certain portion of audiences; or some audiences consider the management of certain risks unacceptable. The strong emotion or the lack thereof, audiences’ associate with risks can make it difficult to communicate (Lundgren & McMakin, 2009; Cox, 2006). Arguments on the potential risk seldom derive merely from communication issues, but a defective communication often become a factor in allowing concerns to increase and opposing groups to become polarized (Bennett, Calman and Curtis, 2010). The information exchange about potential hazards in response to increase environmental hazards between experts and public on what constitutes “acceptable risk” is called risk communication (Bennett, Calman and Curtis, 2010).

Risk communication often begins with a hazard, or potential harm or danger to the environment or society health and safety (Lundgren & McMakin, 2009; Lindell & Perry, 2004). Example includes a widespread of an infectious disease, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) from Asia to 24 countries during February 2003 created public health challenges (Abraham, 2006). The emergence of SARS risk communication derived from recognition of dangers in which public tend to exchange information and evaluate actions to be taken in order to avoid undesirable outcomes (Lindell and Perry, 2004). One of the frightening aspects of SARS was the disease spread by human-to-human casual contact (Wright, 2008). Therefore risk communication played a vital role in information exchange that was required by public to protect them from the disease and reduce the risk of transmission (Abraham, 2006; Wright, 2008). In most of the situation, risk communication is more appropriate to inform, encourage or persuade the building of consensus between parties about a range of areas including levels of risks, significance or meaning of certain risks and decisions, actions or policies aimed at managing or controlling certain risks (Lundgren & McMakin, 2009).