Rowe G, Frewer L, Sjoberg L
Public Underst Sci. 2000 Jan;9(1):59-78. doi: 10.1088/0963-6625/9/1/304.
Public understanding of risks is likely to be informed by the media. We report a cross-national study looking at how newspapers in Sweden and the United Kingdom characterize a variety of risks, focusing on two months around the 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident. Approximately four times as many reports about risks were found in Sweden as in the U.K., possibly reflecting a Swedish safety culture. The Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) crisis dominated reporting in both countries, especially in the U.K. The proportion and pattern of reports on Chernobyl was similar across countries. However, in Sweden, there was an increase in reports about other nuclear hazards after the anniversary, suggesting that generalization of media concern may have occurred. Generally, BSE was discussed using a greater number of characterizations in the U.K., while Chernobyl was reported using more characterizations in Sweden. Reports about hazards tended to be alarmist rather than reassuring, and rarely used statistics to express degrees of risk.
公众对风险的认知可能受媒体影响。我们报告了一项跨国研究，该研究考察了瑞典和英国的报纸如何描述各种风险，重点关注切尔诺贝利事故十周年前后的两个月。在瑞典发现的有关风险的报道数量大约是英国的四倍，这可能反映了瑞典的安全文化。牛海绵状脑病（BSE）危机主导了两国的报道，尤其是在英国。各国关于切尔诺贝利的报道比例和模式相似。然而，在瑞典，周年纪念之后关于其他核危害的报道有所增加，这表明媒体的关注点可能已经泛化。总体而言，英国在讨论疯牛病时使用的描述方式更多，而瑞典在报道切尔诺贝利时使用的描述方式更多。有关危害的报道往往危言耸听而非让人安心，并且很少使用统计数据来表明风险程度。
