Socially Amplified Risk: Attitude and Behavior Change in Response to CWD in Wisconsin Deer

Abstract

When chronic wasting disease (CWD) was discovered in the Wisconsin deer herd in early 2002 few people had attitudes about the disease, although they had strong attitudes toward deer and deer hunting. Because deer are important in Wisconsin, major newspapers published CWD stories at a rate of more than one a day for the last 10 months of 2002. Within weeks new attitudes were created along with behavioral intentions and documented changes in behavior. We use the Social Amplification of Risk framework to show how characteristics of the disease, scientific uncertainty, and fear arousing management actions amplified the risk. The media re-interpreted “normal” scientific and managerial uncertainty as problematic. We compare the social amplification of CWD risk with the relative lack of amplification of risk related to West Nile Virus and Episodic Hemorrhagic Disease. Our analysis, however, highlights just how difficult it is to change behaviors through attitude change. Further analysis of the effects of resulting hunter declines is recommended.

Keywords:

• attitudes
• chronic wasting disease
• emotion
• cognition
• uncertainty
• hunting
• risk perception
• social amplification of risk
• Wisconsin

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Paul Smith of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, John Nolan of the Wisconsin State Journal, and Amber Christopher of the Green Bay Press Gazette for kindly providing information about CWD coverage and circulation. We also thank Katherine McComas, Shawn Riley, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier drafts.

Notes

1. Attitude theorists tend to use the term direct experience, whereas risk theorists use personal experience. When building on attitude theory we use the former and when citing the risk theorists we use the later.

2. Bibliographic note: In this section many newspaper articles are cited. These came from a DNR clipping service that distributed all DNR-related news stories each week. These clippings sometimes do not have even the name of the newspaper and seldom have page numbers, which makes it difficult to give a complete citation. Wherever possible we have provided all of the information we can listed in the bibliography. Interested readers should check with the first author for more information. Unfortunately, and ironically, near the end of the CWD crisis the WDNR stopped providing this clipping service, citing increased expenses associated with fighting CWD.

3. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel circulation in 2008 was 217,755 daily (Monday through Friday) and 385,537 on Sunday and it is sold in all 72 counties in Wisconsin. Scarborough Research reported in 2007 a weekly readership of 1,114,000 or 66% of the adults in its area. They further reported the average daily readership for the newspapers in the Gannett east and west was 689,000 people on week days or 57% of the adults in its market area and 719,800 or 60% of the adults on Sunday. No comparable data are available for the Madison Newspapers. The circulation of the Wisconsin State Journal in 2009 was 133,761 (Sunday) and 96,927 (weekday).