Learning through conflict: a realistic strategy for risk communication

Technological conflicts are commonly seen as rooted in problems of risk perception and risk communication. This view is seriously deficient in that it does not fully appreciate that despite their technical content, the conflicts are at bottom political. Conflict of interests and values is evident even in differences over scientific agendas, methods, and interpretations, and especially in the inevitable cacophony of messages describing scientific knowledge to non-experts. Efforts to produce clear, accurate, and unbiased messages about risks will not even solve communication problems, let alone reduce conflict, because unbiased is undefinable. Clear and accurate messages can always be devised to support a variety of policy positions, and they will be, whenever controversy persists. The article substantiates these points and outlines some realistic approaches to risk communication that enable nonexperts to learn through conflict what they cannot learn from carefully crafted risk messages.