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Abstract
Over the past number of years the reporting of food scares, particularly in European context, have grown in prevalence. These scares are more often than not amplified by the media leading to greater pressure on regulators, industry and other stakeholders to communicate the actual risks associated with the food issue in question accurately. The aims of this paper is three fold: firstly, provide a brief background on the history of risk communication itself. Secondly, to summarise some of the main theoretical avenues that are presently favoured by the wider academic (risk) community. The final section of the paper provides research ideas regarding what academics working in the food risk communication area may wish to look at now. Among the issues highlighted include addressing the issue of media amplification, rebuilding public trust, and better communicating uncertainty.
Keywords:
Acknowledgements
The research leading to this paper was supported by a grant from the European Food Information Council. I am grateful to the following individuals who have either provided me with background information or who have commented on earlier drafts of this paper: Frederic Bouder, Celio Ferreira, Anna Jung, William Leiss, Ortwin Renn, Irene van Geest, and two anonymous referees.
Notes
1. I use the word “scare” to describe an alarm or warning. It should be made clear that scares can be categorized. For example there is a difference between scares that are seen as acute (e.g. salmonella or E. coli) or scares that are seen as chronic such as fish filled with toxins or heavy metals. For this paper, however, I have lumped them together as this is how the media reports them.
2. This is not an exhaustive review of all the food risk communication articles.
3. It should be noted that comparisons can have certain unanticipated effects and need to empirically tested.
4. See also Kamrin et al Citation1999 for a US version.