Effective Risk Communication

Joseph Árvai is the Svare Chair in Applied Decision Research at the University of Calgary, Canada and is a Senior Researcher with Decision Research in Eugene, USA.Louie Rivers III is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University, USA

• Introduction 1. A Relational Theory of Risk: Lessons for risk communication 2. Video Interventions for Risk Communication and Decision Making 3. Communicating inconclusive scientific evidence 4. Communicating about Uncertainty in Multi-Stakeholder Groups 5. New transparency policies: risk communication’s doom? 6. Social distrust and its implications for risk communication: An example from high level radioactive waste management 7. Fairness, Public Engagement, and Risk Communication 8. Why risk communicators should care about the fairness and competence of their public engagement process 9. Risk Communication in Social Media 10. The ‘Mental Models’ Methodology for Developing Communications: Adaptations for informing public risk management decisions about emerging technologies 11. Construing Risk 12. Risk Communication and Moral Emotions 13. The Role of Channel Beliefs in Risk Information Seeking 14. Risk Communication: Insights from the Decision Sciences 15. Risk Communication for Empowerment: An Ultimate or Elusive Goal? 16. Learning from Failures 17. Exploring Unintended Consequences of Risk Communication Messages 18. Boomerang Effects in Risk Communication 19. The Role of Social and Decision Sciences in Communicating Uncertain Climate Risks

"The book is an interesting mixture of practical, cookbook‐style notes (a detailed instruction on how to make a risk communication video takes center stage in the first category), general research ideas, case studies, and more abstract communication frameworks. I think that anybody interested in risk communication will be able to find something of value. The editors promise a mixture of well‐known and new faces on the risk communication scene and they do not disappoint. Effective Risk Communication authors are both newcomers and distinguished researchers in the field." – Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management, Agnieszka D Hunka, University of Twente, the Netherlands