The Walter Reed Institute of Army Research developed the antimalarial drug mefloquine then collaborated with Hoffman-La Roche to produce the drug under its brand name "Lariam," after Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved licensure in 1989. For over twenty years, the Army used this pill as its "drug of choice" for soldiers deployed to endemic regions until 2009, and in 2013 the Food and Drug Administration warned that the drug's neurotoxic effects could be lasting, if not permanent. The sociopolitical exigence of developing a new biochemical antimalarial drug rushed the development and licensure processes, and the modern craving for certainty in the New Drug Application (NDA) process led to a biomedical disaster-- economically, politically, and interpersonally. In this paper, I present the factors contributing to uncertainty and heightened exigence in the development of what I call "mef-Lariam" in a nod to Latourian hybridization. By tracing the history of the drug's development process, I argue that definitional stasis around the NDA genre's terms safe and effective undergird a dangerous ontological orientation to medicine that privileges an ethic of expediency. Finally, I argue that actor-network theory can help medical rhetors apply a more ethical, multiple view of medical research that could prevent the future licensure of toxic pharmaceuticals.

The likelihood of achieving an effective environmental health communications program increases with a knowledge of the target audience's attitudes toward their environmental health concerns, source credibility, preferred channels of communication, and desire to participate in environmental issues. With this in mind, the purpose of this study was threefold: 1) to examine selected personal and social variables that influence attitudes towards environmental health communications; 2) to explore differences in those attitudes between groups that share a common environmental hazard within a defined geographic region; and, 3) to develop a communication needs assessment tool that other public health agencies might be able to use. A stratified random telephone sampling of 407 households was conducted in Idaho's Coeur d'Alene River Basin. Nonparametric statistical methods, Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of ranks, were utilized for the data analysis. The results, showed significant differences in the environmental concerns between the residents of Couer d'Alene and residents of the Silver Valley. Respondents in Coeur d'Alene were more concerned with air pollution, while respondents in the Silver Valley were more concerned with the effects of mining. Secondly, the state government was less negatively received as a source of environmental information than were the local or federal governments. In addition, respondents earning between $50,000 and $75,000 a year have the highest amount of trust in information coming from the federal government. Both TV news and local newspaper were the preferred channels of communication for the majority of respondents in the region. Qualitative data revealed that media sources from Spokane, Washington were a dominant influence in the region. Respondents with a college degree were less likely than respondents from other educational levels to prefer TV news as a source of environmental information. They were, however, more likely to participate in a public meeting than were respondents from other educational levels. Finally, research findings suggest that women, and respondents earning less than $10,000 per year, feel less control over their environmental health than do men and respondents from higher income levels. They are also less likely than either men or respondents earning more than $10,000 per year to feel that a citizen's efforts to protect the environment are usually effective. / Graduation date: 1996

It has been stressed within social sciences that risk management has focused too much on technical solutions and in order to decrease the risks also social factors have to be taken into account, namely the way people perceive risk. Risk perception is an important research field working on these issues. The aim of the study was in the light of the diverging views between the two paradigms to understand which of the psychometric or the cultural theory paradigm that can to a larger extent explain the flood risk perception of people living in the Tisza River basin. Furthermore the aim was to understand how the gap between experts’ and the public’s view on flood risk communication can be understood as well as how the risk communication could be improved. Data was collected through a survey and interviews. The results show that risk perception can partly be explained by either paradigm. To better understand people’s risk perception studies need to be more empirically based, not treat people’s perception as something too abstract and understand the interaction between individuals, society and the environment. The gap between the public’s and experts’ views is not as large as expected. In order to improve flood risk communication, decision makers need a better understanding of citizens’ perceptions and the motivation to include public perception in flood risk management need to be based on the view that the public could have an important input into risk management.

Coverage for the combined measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR) has been low since the publication of Wakefield’s 1998 study associating MMR with the onset of autism. As a part of a larger project on risk communication, this study examined the medical discourse on parental decision-making for childhood immunizations to gain insight on why risk communication efforts have not been successful at improving uptake. The Public Understanding of Science (PUS) was used as a theoretical lens to guide Critical Discourse Analysis of texts from medical, pediatric, and public health journals, from which the analytic themes of Risk and Trust emerged. MMR uptake was framed mainly in terms of risk, indicating the dominance of the Deficit Model of PUS in the discourse. Future research and risk communication need to expand beyond current notions of risk; the Contextual Model of PUS can help highlight other factors that impact parental decision-making about MMR.

Coverage for the combined measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR) has been low since the publication of Wakefield’s 1998 study associating MMR with the onset of autism. As a part of a larger project on risk communication, this study examined the medical discourse on parental decision-making for childhood immunizations to gain insight on why risk communication efforts have not been successful at improving uptake. The Public Understanding of Science (PUS) was used as a theoretical lens to guide Critical Discourse Analysis of texts from medical, pediatric, and public health journals, from which the analytic themes of Risk and Trust emerged. MMR uptake was framed mainly in terms of risk, indicating the dominance of the Deficit Model of PUS in the discourse. Future research and risk communication need to expand beyond current notions of risk; the Contextual Model of PUS can help highlight other factors that impact parental decision-making about MMR.

Heavy rainfall is a common source of disasters in Taiwan. In recent years, floods have become more frequent and more severe. Therefore, there is a need for more research on Taiwanese flood preparedness. This study aims to study Kaohsiung residents¡¦ risk perception and preparation for floods, using Rogers¡¦ (1983) protection motivation theory as the theoretical model. A convenience sample of 256 residents answered the questionnaire in this study. Results found that respondents¡¦ perception of flood risk and perception of weather forecast (its timeliness, accuracy and comprehensibility) could affect their intent to prepare. These findings suggest that the government should put more effort into flood risk education and improve the quality and trustworthiness of weather forecast.

In contemporary times, policy makers and risk managers find themselves required to make decisions about how to prevent or mitigate complex risks that face society. Risks, such as global warming and energy production, are considered complex because they require knowledge from multiple scientific and technical disciplines to explain the mechanisms that cause and/or prevent hazards. This dissertation focuses on these types of situations: when experts from different disciplines and professions interact to coordinate and legitimize risk characterizations. A review of the risk communication literature highlights three main critiques: (1) Risk communication research historically treats expert groups as uniform and does not consider the processes by which they construct and legitimize risk understandings. (2) Risk communication research tends to privilege transmissive and message-centered approached to communication rather than examine the discursive management and coordination of different risk understandings. (3) Rather than assuming the taken-for-granted position that objective scientific knowledge is the source of legitimacy for technical risk understandings, risk communication research should examine the way that expert groups legitimate their knowledge claims and emphasize the transparency of norms and values in public discourse. This study performs an in-depth analysis of the case of cesium chloride. Cesium chloride is a radioactive source that has several beneficial uses medical, research, and radiation safety applications. However, it has also been identified as a security threat due to the severity of its consequences if used in a radiological dispersal device, better known as a “dirty bomb.” A recent National Academy of Sciences study recommended the replacement or elimination of cesium chloride sources. This case is relevant to the study of risk communication among multidisciplinary experts because it involves a wide variety of fields to discuss and compare terrorism risks and health risks. This study uses a multi-perspectival framework based on Bakhtin’s dialogism that enables entrance into the discourse of experts’ risk communication from different vantage points. Three main implications emerge from this study as seen through the lens of dialogism. (1) Expert risk communication in cross-disciplinary situations is a tension-filled process. (2) Experts who interact in cross-disciplinary situations manage the tension between discursive openness and closure through the use of shared resources between the interpretative repertoires, immersion and interaction with other perspectives, and the layering of risk logics with structural resources. (3) The emergence of security risk Discourse in a post-9/11 world involves a different set of resources and strategies that risk communication studies need to address. In the case of cesium chloride issue, the interaction of experts negotiated conflict about the characterization of this isotope as a security threat or as being useful and unique. Even though participants and organizations vary in how they characterize cesium chloride, most maintained some level of balance between both characterizations—a balance that was constructed through their interactions with each other. This project demonstrates that risk characterizations risks shape organizational decisions and priorities in both policy-making and regulatory organizations and private-sector and functional organizations.

At present the county and city governments universally establish the fixed speed traps on the roads for clamping down on speeding and running a red light based on the reason of the traffic safety. It causes the populace to violate the traffic regulations incidentally and have the bad impression on the county and city governments who seem to enrich their local budget through setting traps. Essentially do speed trap devices have absolute relationship with the improvements in traffic condition and safety? It still needs verification and study. The governments raise the fine quite subjectively to curb speeding; however, now the domestic lacked research and discussion on the standard reliability of the speed traps. In addition, few people have the recognition of risks and terror appeal messages, such as fine or possible traffic accidents that might happen to the speeding populace. Therefore, we have to research into the aspects of changing the driving behaviors. The study range and the questionnaire design mainly define if the establishment of speed traps in fongsan city Kaohsiung County is a terror appeal to the drivers through risk communication and cognition. To survey the intention of obeying the laws and obtain the data, we implement the questionnaire survey on the common populace. It takes the risk communication and cognition as independent variable and the intention of obeying the laws as dependent variable. Through its deduction and the empirical study, it proves that the establishment and law enforcement of speed traps have the reinforcement and altruism on the law-abiding perception and the constraint to the populace. They will behave appropriately according to the information and the establishments; the governments will also make the most proper laws, regulations and the policies according to the data; finally this will help the individuals, the organizations or the society to make the choices tending to luck and avoiding disasters.

Emerging infectious diseases are one of the growing risks the global community faces. From recent experiences of the bird flu and SARS outbreaks, we have learned how quickly and broadly a virus could spread, and how great the impact it could have on our lives. The outbreaks have highlighted the importance of risk communication. The media, as a major source of health information for the public, has been recognized as an important public health tool for communicating health risk during a pandemic. However, to what extent the media can help during an outbreak and what impact news coverage can have on the public is not clear. While many risk communication research related to infectious diseases focus on the public’s perception and responses to risk, related studies of news media content from a public health perspective are comparatively few. Existing studies generally focus on particular aspects of media coverage, such as sensationalism and the socio-cultural effects of the coverage. Findings from these studies are diverse. Also, most studies look at the English-language media, and studies on the Chinese-language media are sparse. This study examines how and what the news media reported about the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, using Hong Kong’s Chinese-language media coverage as a case. Based on content analysis and news frame analysis, and the concepts of perceived severity and efficacy in risk message process theories, an analytical scheme was constructed to examine to what extent the media provided “useful” information to the public, and how this information was presented. The analysis of newspaper content on swine flu focused on three aspects: Firstly, to examine the volume of coverage related to the pandemic and the relationship between the reporting trends and the disease’s development; secondly, to identify information about disease prevention measures presented in the news content; and thirdly, to describe how the media portrayed the new H1N1 vaccine, in an attempt to draw inferences about the public’s response to the vaccine. Results showed that the news reporting trend had no relationship with the infection case numbers. What triggered the peaks of coverage were event-oriented and government policy-related developments rather than case numbers. Content analysis showed that only a small proportion of the news stories presented health information, with particular prevention measures mentioned frequently but with limited explanation for how and why to do it. Frame analysis showed that the selected newspapers differed in framing the new vaccine. While the tabloid-styled papers tended to use more disfavor-vaccine frame, the up-market newspapers tended to use more favour-vaccine frame. Due to the limitation of the theoretical framework that this study is based on, it is not able to link the findings of the news content with the findings of the existing studies on public’s perception to the disease and related issues. However, the findings can provide an account of some characteristics of the news coverage of the Hong Kong Chinese-language media during a global public health crisis, which may serve as primary data for further study. / published_or_final_version / Journalism and Media Studies Centre / Master / Master of Philosophy

Those who are interested in the public mood, including politicians and economists, comment that the public are becoming ever more sceptical about many things, but health risk information should not be one of them. If health risk information is perceived by the public as ‘just another scary story’, or ‘more of the same we heard last month’, then the ability of risk messages to convey urgency and recommend action could be greatly diminished; the ‘cry wolf’ scenario becomes more real every time a threat appears in the media but fails to materialise. This thesis explores how avian influenza, (H₅N₁), as a health risk category, has been reported and represented in the New Zealand media. By analysing avian influenza-related items in four New Zealand newspapers over a six-year period, 2002-2008, and by comparing results with those found in a U.S. study by Dudo, Dahlstrom & Brossard (2007), this thesis explores the dominant themes and discourses the media drew upon when reporting the health threat of avian influenza. In addition, data from four focus groups sessions was analysed for the purpose of exploring public perceptions of health risk messages and the influence of the media on those perceptions. This thesis was situated within a constructionist epistemology, and employed a mixed-methods methodology with content, thematic and textual analyses. Risk communication theories and models, media conventions of agenda-setting and framing, and sociological concepts informed how the topic of health risk communication was operationalised. The analysis of the focus group data explored how the participants discussed the threat of H₅N₁; how they constructed concepts of personal and community risk, what role, if any, they attributed to the media in their construction and how they positioned themselves in regards to illness and contagion. The focus group analysis revealed that three dominant themes - risk, media and ‘othering’ – represented how the focus group participants talked about the risk of avian influenza. These and several sub-dominant themes shared similarities to those found in the newspaper analysis. Whilst initial discussions seemed to indicate a nonchalant attitude towards the risk of avian influenza, the many topics and themes that characterised the way the participants discussed the risk between them, showed that they had thought about the personal consequences of a possible health risk, and had formed strong opinions about many facets of that risk. Results from the newspaper analysis largely mirrored those of the above U.S. study, and showed that the New Zealand media favoured episodic over thematic framing; sensationalising the reporting of avian influenza, whilst providing little in the way of scientific and contextual information. Moreover, the analysis showed that, when reporting health risks, media templates are well established. The analysis of the focus group data revealed that the participants wanted media health risk messages to be clear, concrete and factual. However, this desire for messages that communicate certainty about risk, which is, by definition inherently uncertain, raises questions about the very nature of risk communication. Findings of this thesis suggest that future risk communication research should focus, not on how the media are reporting health risks, but how the public conceptualise risk, construct it in times of crisis and evaluate their ability to control it.