Social agents and news media as risk amplifiers: a case study on the public debate about the E. coli outbreak in Germany 2011

The social amplification of risk framework highlights the role which the news media play in risk communication by interacting with other agents in amplifying risk. However, the precise ways in which the media and other social agents actually amplify risks in public debates are unclear. In this article we draw on insights from the sociology of news to examine whether and to what extent social agents and news media amplify an emerging health risk. We use the debate about the Escherichia coli outbreak in Germany in 2011 to examine three issues: the amount of risk reporting by news media and social agents in their function as news sources; their evaluation of risk; and how they contribute to the escalation of risk, also known as ripple effects. In this article we draw on data from a content analysis of press releases from public health authorities and affected stakeholders and of news items in leading German news media. We found that the affected stakeholders were amplifying the risk to the greatest extent. We also found that there was a shift over time in the use of dominant frames. At the start of the debate the risk was framed as a public health issue and linked to medical-scientific progress. As the debate developed, more attention was given to political and economic consequences of the outbreak and the original health risk event was layered by other risk-related events.     

Researching risk and the media

The media are crucial players in the construction of, and communication about, risk. Yet their role is often under-theorised, and sometimes misrepresented or parodied. In particular, the media are accused of routine sensationalism. Journalists are blamed for exaggerating risk, ‘whipping up hysteria’ and distorting reality. Academic studies of the media, however, suggest a more complex picture. The first half of this article reflects on the theoretical and methodological considerations which inform studies of ‘risk reporting’ and highlights some of the key questions when designing or assessing such research. The second half of the article draws out some common findings about how ‘risk reporting’ operates, focusing, in particular, on what we know about ‘news values’ and media production processes. It outlines the factors influencing media coverage of risk: from the organisation and resources of different source agencies through to the news gathering routines of journalists, and reflects on the ‘cultural givens’ which inform representations of diverse hazards.     

Women's health and the mass media: The reporting of risk

News about women's health risks is prevalent in the mass media, and how that news is presented is important for the women who uses it to make decisions about her health. Conferees at a Jacobs Institute symposium reviewed the presentation and discussion of risk factors in scientific articles and the subsequent translation of this information by the media to their consumers. The symposium participants made four major recommendations to improve the reporting of risk: 1) as information sources, the scientific community, institutions, and media organizations should share the responsibility of clearly presenting information on risk factors affecting women's health, 2) institutional public affairs officers, journal public affairs officers, and mass media editors should require that reports on single studies be placed within the context of current scientific knowledge, with limitations prominently described, 3) measures of absolute and relative risk should be interpretable by a general audience, and 4) news makers (the scientific community) and news writers (reporters and editors) should have more training opportunities to achieve a clearer understanding of the constraints on the news media and the limitations of science.     

Women's health and the mass media: The reporting of risk

News about women's health risks is prevalent in the mass media, and how that news is presented is important for the women who uses it to make decisions about her health. Conferees at a Jacobs Institute symposium reviewed the presentation and discussion of risk factors in scientific articles and the subsequent translation of this information by the media to their consumers. The symposium participants made four major recommendations to improve the reporting of risk: 1) as information sources, the scientific community, institutions, and media organizations should share the responsibility of clearly presenting information on risk factors affecting women's health, 2) institutional public affairs officers, journal public affairs officers, and mass media editors should require that reports on single studies be placed within the context of current scientific knowledge, with limitations prominently described, 3) measures of absolute and relative risk should be interpretable by a general audience, and 4) news makers (the scientific community) and news writers (reporters and editors) should have more training opportunities to achieve a clearer understanding of the constraints on the news media and the limitations of science.     

Media Influence on Alcohol-Control Policy Support in the U.S. Adult Population: The Intervening Role of Issue Concern and Risk Judgments

Data from a national random-digit dial survey (N = 1,272) were analyzed to examine the influence of news media use on alcohol-control policy support, and to test whether risk judgments and concern about alcohol-related risks mediated effects of news media use variables on support for various types of alcohol-control public policies. In so doing, we test the proposition that perceptions influenced by routine coverage of events such as crime or accidents may in part explain news effects on public policy support in the domain of health policy. Analyses indicated that the (positive) influence of attention to news about crime and accidents on support for laws increasing server liability and limiting marketing of alcohol products was mediated by concern about risks of alcohol-related injuries and by perceptions of the alcohol-attributable fraction of homicides and unintended injury fatalities. Tests of model fit suggest that concern precedes the more cognitive risk judgment in the mediation model.     

A ‘superstorm’: when moral panic and new risk discourses converge in the media

There has been a proliferation of risk discourses in recent decades but studies of these have been polarised, drawing either on moral panic or new risk frameworks to analyse journalistic discourses. This article opens the theoretical possibility that the two may co-exist and converge in the same scare. I do this by bringing together more recent developments in moral panic thesis, with new risk theory and the concept of media logic. I then apply this theoretical approach to an empirical analysis of how and with what consequences moral panic and new risk type discourses converged in the editorials of four newspaper campaigns against GM food policy in Britain in the late 1990s. The article analyses 112 editorials published between January 1998 and December 2000, supplemented with news stories where these were needed for contextual clarity. This analysis shows that not only did this novel food generate intense media and public reactions; these developed in the absence of the type of concrete details journalists usually look for in risk stories. Media logic is important in understanding how journalists were able to engage and hence how a major scare could be constructed around convergent moral panic and new risk type discourses. The result was a media ‘superstorm’ of sustained coverage in which both types of discourse converged in highly emotive mutually reinforcing ways that resonated in a highly sensitised context. The consequence was acute anxiety, social volatility and the potential for the disruption of policy and social change.     

‘A grim health future’: food risks in the Sydney press

Food scares and newsworthy stories about risks associated with food often receive a high level of attention in the news media. This article examines the reporting of food risks over a recent 14-month period in three metropolitan newspapers available to readers in Sydney. The major topic reported over this time was the relationship between food intake and obesity, which comprised almost half of news stories about food risks. This topic was followed in frequency by the risks associated with primary food production and the risks from processed, restaurant or takeaway food. The article looks in detail at how each of these topics was reported, including the discourses that were employed to give meaning to the news stories. Much emphasis was placed upon personal responsibility for avoiding food risks, particularly in relation to overweight. News stories suggested that Australians, and in particular, Australian children, were facing a crisis in relation to the numbers of people over-eating and becoming fat as a result. The overweight body was represented as grotesque, out of control, unhealthy and unAustralian. In other news stories, various aspects of farming were presented as ‘unnatural’ and thus as rendering foodstuffs risky. Food prepared outside the home was portrayed as far more dangerous than food prepared within the home, with an emphasis in reporting on the potential for contamination in such foods.     

The silent killer in media stories: Representations of hypertension as health risk factor in French-language Canadian newspapers

The media is recognised as an increasingly important source of information about health risk and disease for non-professionals. The issue for public health actors is the accuracy and objectivity of such information. But the media do not neutrally transmit expert information on health risk; they also contribute to shaping it. Media studies show that the media have their own modus operandi and produce content that satisfies the criteria of newsworthiness and media-value. The objective of our research was to analyse how newspapers represent hypertension as a health risk factor, to examine how these representations relate to media-value characteristics, and to reveal differences between serious, popular, and tabloid newspapers. Our findings show that, in their coverage of hypertension, the newspapers we analysed accentuate features that come closest to media-value characteristics of health risk. The magnitude and undetectable nature of hypertension, and the severity and unpredictability of its consequences, are accentuated in media discourse through various rhetorical devices. Exacerbation of fear is most prevalent in the tabloid newspapers, with more use of scary metaphors and personifications.     

Reporting AIDS and the invisible victims in China: official knowledge as news in the People's Daily, 1986-2002

Against the backdrop of the sociology of knowledge as a framework, the purposes of this study are threefold: (1) to examine the discourses surrounding the AIDS news in China; (2) to determine how Chinese people with AIDS and the identification of their social groups are covered at the national level; and (3) to discuss the implications of reporting AIDS as official knowledge for a better understanding of the interplay between the mass media and social structure in China today. Findings indicate that as an epidemic, AIDS in China has not only become invisible in the national news, but also constructed as a nonissue devoid of social consequences in public health communication. It is a disease mostly presented in an "us vs. them" news discourse that helps convey the official knowledge as to how AIDS is to be perceived and understood in the country.     

Why the transformation of the risk message is a healthy sign: a model of the reception of warning messages

In this article, we examine the communication of health risks caused by technological and natural disasters to the public. Contrary to the commonly accepted view, we argue that in the context of the risk society, the transformation and multiplication of risk messages among the public is a healthy sign. We aim to show how the recipients of risk communication can overcome the confusion that emanates from the inevitable contradictions of warning messages. We used Luhmann’s communication theory to develop a model of the analysis of personal interpretations of warning messages and examined how this explained the variations in the personal sense of risk that shaped the reception of a warning message. Our model developed Luhmann’s concepts of first- and second-order observations: direct and reflective approaches to risk messages. Using data derived from seven focus groups conducted in four Estonian cities in 2009–2010, we examined how the choice between direct and reflective approaches to risk messages was dependent on recipient’s reflection of social relations in the messages and the channels of their delivery. We found that the first response to the warning message depended on whether the information could be dealt with by first-order observation. When members of the focus group realised they needed to use a second-order observation strategy, they tended to use emotions to respond to risk messages. Our data show that defining risks and legitimising solutions in a collective discussion tended to be more important for an individual than accessing the one-dimensional official constructions of risks.     

Strategies for dismissing dietary risks: insights from user-generated comments online

Communication around chronic dietary risks has proved challenging as dietary health risks are ostensibly met with attenuated perceptions of their likelihood and consequences. In this article, we examine the strategies that an online public use to negotiate risk messages from expert stakeholders that may be incongruent with their own position on a risk. Progressing from conceptualisations of amplification as laid out in the social amplification of risk framework, we are particularly interested in understanding whether and how amplifications of risk may be attributed towards other stakeholders. The article presents an analysis of comments posted on a website oriented to a British audience. These comments were left by members of the public in reply to two online media articles published in 2012 reporting on an epidemiological study carried out in the United States on the risks of red meat consumption. We found that the comments generally expressed resistance to the risk message, embodied in two main strategies. The first strategy was to discount the message itself by deploying rules of thumb that undermined the applicability of the general risk message to the particularities of the individual. The second strategy was to undermine the risks by casting doubt on the credibility of the message source. Together, these strategies allowed the commenters to argue that the risks and the process of communicating them resulted in an exaggerated picture. These findings highlight that by attributing amplification to others, further polarisation of risk views between stakeholders may occur. Thinking about amplification as an attribution provides a distinct and significant conceptual contribution to the study of incongruent risk responses.     

Reporting AIDS and the Invisible Victims in China: Official Knowledge as News in the People's Daily, 1986–2002

Against the backdrop of the sociology of knowledge as a framework, the purposes of this study are threefold: (1) to examine the discourses surrounding the AIDS news in China; (2) to determine how Chinese people with AIDS and the identification of their social groups are covered at the national level; and (3) to discuss the implications of reporting AIDS as official knowledge for a better understanding of the interplay between the mass media and social structure in China today. Findings indicate that as an epidemic, AIDS in China has not only become invisible in the national news, but also constructed as a nonissue devoid of social consequences in public health communication. It is a disease mostly presented in an “us vs. them” news discourse that helps convey the official knowledge as to how AIDS is to be perceived and understood in the country.     

The affect heuristic and perceptions of ‘the young smoker’ as a risk object

Young people's perceptions of the health risks associated with smoking are explored with specific reference to the affect heuristic. It is argued that young people's perceptions of the risks associated with smoking will be influenced by their feelings about those of their own age who smoke. ‘The young smoker’ is therefore treated as a risk object. Findings are based on a survey of 15–16 year olds in the East Midlands of England (n = 466). A range of feelings about ‘the young smoker’ were evident and these were broadly consistent with the risk discourse of contemporary health education. However, among those in this survey there was not a clear and unified affect towards the risk object and, indeed, there was a notable level of ambivalence and uncertainty in terms of feelings about ‘the young smoker’. Overall, there was a reluctance to demonise the young smoker or to project onto the young smoker the kind of negative aspects of risk (fear, loathing and dread) that would allow them to function in terms of ‘Otherness’. The implications of these findings are considered in the context of western society in the era of late modernity.     

AIDS and the news media.

News reports on AIDS have appeared at a time of general public concern about health risks, and, like the coverage of risk, the reporting on AIDS has been controversial. Perceptions of this disease have been linked to economic and personal stakes, professional ideologies, administrative responsibilities, and moral beliefs. It is from this perspective that news coverage of AIDS must be understood. The norms and practices of journalism, the technical uncertainties of risk evaluation, and the pressures placed on the media by various interests have influenced the reporting on this disease. However, media reports also shape the social context of the epidemic, affecting public perceptions, personal behavior, and policy agendas.     

A Comparative Analysis of European Press Coverage of Children and the Internet

This article reports a content analysis of press coverage of children and the Internet in order to examine cross-cultural similarities and differences in the news values framing accounts of the benefits from and risks facing children online. By comparing media reporting in 14 European countries, the study found greater coverage of online risks than opportunities across Europe, which appears to be due to the high position of crime stories on the news agenda. Thus readers, including parents, are exposed to media representations that often show the online world as being risky for children, which may affect perceptions of the prevalence of risk. However, there is national variation in terms of which risks receive more press attention, meaning that parents in different countries are potentially sensitised to different risks.     

Health risk perception and shale development in the UK and US

In this paper, we examine discourse in public deliberations in pre-development locales in the UK and US about advantages and disadvantages of future shale development (‘fracking’). We aimed to understand how people anticipate potential health effects, broadly construed, of environmental toxicity and disturbance in the context of planned, but not yet implemented, energy development. In day-long deliberations with small, diverse groups in two cities in each country (London, Cardiff in the UK; Los Angeles, Santa Barbara in the US), participants discussed impacts on health and well-being using three main rubrics: ‘It’s money or health’, ‘Why take chances?’ and ‘Beyond the tipping point’. Throughout, participants framed health as an intrinsically moral issue, with collective responsibility as a dominant normative frame. We identify the concept of compound risk to underscore effects of multiple risks and hazards on people’s sensibilities about anticipated future health and environmental harm. The findings demonstrate how and why diverse publics in pre-impact sites in both countries saw shale extraction as high stakes development that poses significant, often unacceptable, risks to human and environmental health and well-being. Risks extended beyond toxicity to broad threats to health, including, for some, the end of life as we know it on the planet. Overall, participants’ discussions of health were more connected to social categories and their underlying moral principles than to technological details. This work contributes evidence of blurred boundaries between environment and health as well as the importance people place on social risks in the context of proposed energy system change.     

Birth models in and between Italy and Senegal: a cross-cultural inquiry on the risks related to childbirth and birth technologies

In Western societies, such as Italy, a positive representation of birth technologies as the main remedy to fight against the uncertainties of physiology and biological risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth has prevailed since the eighteenth century. This process has experienced a strengthening and an acceleration in the last fifty years. Although the (bio)medical discourse has replaced previous representations of childbirth-related risks, other risk categorizations, and search for remedies, have emerged and persist. Relying on the findings of a multi-sited ethnographic work focused on Italy, Senegal and the migratory experience from Senegal to Italy, this article investigates how the representation of childbirth-related risks changes in these three contexts. Working in a risk perception framework, I argue that birth technologies and medical interventions are understood by some groups of Italian women as a risk to be avoided compared to the possibility of experiencing a natural birth. At the same time, through an anthropological perspective, the article investigates how the relatively low level of medicalization in Senegal shapes a discourse on birth based on a very different understanding of health and risk. Unlike the biomedical discourse, childbirth-related risks in Senegal are only partially explained by the physical materiality of the birth process. Finally, stressing the strong interconnection between risk logics and material culture, the article analyses the multiple challenges connected to both the ‘fascination’ for technological births and the transfer of non-biomedical risk models from Senegal to Italy through the migratory process.     

Infinitesimal risk as public health crisis: News media coverage of a doctor-patient HIV contact tracing investigation

Among the most prominent health or medical stories covered in 1994 by the Australian news media was that concerning an HIV positive hospital obstetrician and the attempt by the New South Wales Health Department to trace and test 149 women on whom he had operated. All press and television coverage of the issue was reviewed. The surface news narrative of the search for missing, “innocent” mothers potentially infected with a deadly and infectious illness is shown to serve as a “hard news” pretext enabling a wider major discourse to operate about a health system accused as being captive to gay and civil libertarian politics, allowing “guilty” doctors at high risk of HIV to endanger “innocent” patients. Expert consensus held that the women were at “infinitesimal risk” of acquiring HIV. However, media accounts of the investigation all but belied this, illustrating that the news media's framing of risk has more to do with its reproduction of moral outrage components than with “scientific” notions of calculable risk.     

‘Give people work,and the blood pressure will sink’: lay engagement with cardiovascular risk factors in North Karelia in the 1970s

In high-income countries such as Finland, personal healthcare is organised around the management of lifestyle risks and minimisation of such risks forms a key part of public health policy. While the scientific development of the lifestyle risk model has been thoroughly studied, there has been less research on the history of popular experiences of the model. In this article, I examine lay people’s response to a pioneering heart disease prevention programme in north-eastern Finland in the 1970s, the North Karelia Project, which promoted the lifestyle risk model. I use archival data from early 1970s that recorded the project interactions with the local population and their reactions to the project. I show that although local residents in North Karelia responded positively to the project, they did not necessarily subscribe to its preventive and risk minimising objectives. In an area of limited health resources, the project provided local residents with access to medical expertise. Local reactions indicated a clash of a cultural notion of illness embedded in the social life-world of Karelians with a specific rationality of government emphasising individual responsibility vis-à-vis heart conditions. Local residents who were critical of the public health risk model tended to minimise the role of lifestyle risk factors in cardiovascular disease causation or subsumed these factors into a more encompassing explanation that stressed the effects of the on-going structural social change in the area, highlighting the sense of loss caused by the waning of traditional small farm existence and their anxiety about the resulting economic and social insecurity.