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1996 Sense-Making Workshop

Workshop Abstracts

COPYRIGHT AND CITATION INFORMATION:
© Dobbs, Linda Kay, 1996. Cite as: Dobbs, Linda Kay (1996). Relevant Risk: A Sense-Making Study of Risk. Paper presented at International Communication Association annual meeting, Chicago, Illinois, May 23. Available at: http://communication.sbs.ohio-state.edu/sense-making/meet/m96dobbs.html

ESSENCE OF THE PROJECT:
This project emerged from a consideration of the basic foundational assumption of risk communication--what IS risk? How is it commonly perceived and conceived by individuals in our society?

THE REASON I TOOK THIS ROAD IS:
Theories of risk usually follow one of two basic views of risk. Either risks are considered culturally constructed or they are considered real, measurable and probabilistically comparable. This second view of risk is common in cognitive psychology, economics, and other sciences that view individuals as rational actors who tend to make decisions that result in either risk-taking or risk-avoiding behaviors. In risk communication situations it is implied, but not often explicitly stated, that a too extreme tendency to either take or avoid risks is a negative character and/or social attribute. Those who take risks that "can" be avoided are seen as reckless and irresponsible; those who avoid risks that are "reasonable" are seen as overly fearful or self-serving.

Both of these views define the general risk concept as the possibility/ probability of harm from a hazard. The critical (in all meanings of the word) points that arise from this definition are: harm to whom? how does the causal linkage occur "from" the hazard to the harm? what is the degree of probability/ possibility? who benefits from the risk? and what (if anything) can and should be done to avoid the harm from occurring? Cultural anthropology argues that someone in a society always benefits from any construction of risk (e.g., the shaman controls the volcano eruption and gains social status), if not from the direct maintenance of the hazard (e.g., the chemical company dumps into a stream instead of paying to process or store an effluent). Risk is an inherently uncertain concept and often controversial; one definition suggested for risk based on the controversy of the definition of the term is that it is a four-letter word.

But studies of risk perceptions and risk communication have either been based on these definitional concepts or conducted in situations when individuals or social groups are already involved in what they consider specific "risky" situations (e.g., health risk campaigns, environmental actions, NIMBY protests, etc.). Empirical studies of risk perception have commonly used comparisons of "lay persons'" perceptions with those of "experts" to establish whether individuals were "accurate" in their evaluations. Constructions of lay persons by experts has often been particularly unflattering, insisting that lay persons want a risk-free guarantee from industry, government, and society in general.

Part of the difficulty with studying risk without imposing these pre-existing definitional conceptions is methodological. It is difficult in most methods of perceptual and conceptual measurement and analysis to frame the questions of risk without referring to the concepts inherent in the definitions or specific risk contexts.

Which brings me to the reason I took this road. Sense-making interviewing allowed me to "circle" the concept of risk in the lives of individuals who were not at that time "at risk." In the sense-making interview I developed (a copy of which I distributed earlier on projecti) individuals were asked to describe situations where they experienced risk in various topic areas (e.g., first, health, fearful) and risk-free parallel areas. Sense-making interviewing allowed the least "structuring" of risk by the interviewer in the process of eliciting general risk concepts from the respondents.

THE BEST OF WHAT I HAVE ACHIEVED:
The concept of what is best differs for me as a person and me as a researcher. One of the best points of this process for me as a person was that those who participated in the interview process actually seemed to be "helped" in some way by the interview process. (I will refer to this again in the section on what I have struggled with.) The process appears to be therapeutic (although that was not the designed intent). Most of my respondents enjoyed the process and thanked ME, instead of the more typical interview process where the interviewer is seen as having taken from the respondents.

The best for me as a researcher is that I believe I am gathering data that informs the concept of risk communication because the system of individual relevancy of risk concepts that is being revealed by the data gathered contradicts some of the assumptions that drive much of risk communication design processes. Although I have only collected a few interviews, data indicate, for example, that although it is commonly assumed that children are not as risk aware as adults, but my research indicates that the first risk (always reported as experienced as pre-adult (child or teen-age) is an integral part of the personal system of risk an individual possesses as an adult. And, in direct contradiction of the assumptions of experts of lay persons, no respondent so far has assumed that life CAN be risk free. As one respondent noted, "life is risk."

WHAT HAS BEEN PARTICULARLY HELPFUL TO ME IN THIS PROJECT HAS BEEN:
Particularly helpful to me has been the close parallel of the gap metaphor and incomplete ontological assumptions of sense-making with the basic concept of uncertainty in risk situations. Another help is the way in which sense-making allows me to conduct my research without feeling as if I am inflicting any undue load or discomfort on those who aid me by serving as respondents.

WHAT HAS HINDERED ME/ WHAT I HAVE STRUGGLED WITH:
The hardest thing I have struggled with in this project has been the depth of what respondents have shared with me during the interviews. As I stated above the interview was not intended to be intrusive or therapeutic, but one potential respondent saw the questions as making her feel "vulnerable," while another after the interview was amazed at the depth of memory that the questions had evoked. I always provided the respondents with the full interview schedule days before the interview so they could consider their answers, but two of the respondents were in tears during the interview, a reaction neither they nor I had expected. The interviews are also emotionally demanding for me as an interviewer, thus I collect them slowly and carefully.

WHAT WOULD HELP ME NOW IS:
What would be most helpful would be thoughtful critiques of my interpretation of the interview data. This three page precis does not allow for in-depth presentation of the data to date and my initial interpretation, but I hope to provide any interested reviewers with a more detailed draft paper. In addition, I hope to be able to collect more interviews this summer and hopefully to have my sense-making interview schedule conducted by other interviewers to establish whether the results so far have been from the questions or from some rapport with the questioner.

PROJECT ABSTRACT:
Perceptions and conceptions of risk as a general concept by individuals in our society have commonly been examined from a pre-existing theoretical frame provided by the researcher or in contexts in which a specific risk has been pre-established as salient and/or controversial through some type of social conflict (e.g., nuclear energy, hazardous waste disposal, health risks). The difficulty of these approaches is that either risk is framed in terms that have not been empirically established as those used by individuals in society not involved in the study of risk, or that risks as a general concept are examined only after attitudes toward certain risks have likely been affected by external influences. This study examines individual risk concepts through sense-making interviewing of individuals who are not in "at-risk" situations. This approach provides minimal interviewer framing with least salience of specific risks or risk areas to explore the everyday systems of relevance of risk that frame the concept of risk in our society. Results indicate that relevant risks may be framed more complexly by individuals than has been previously theorized and that some basic assumptions of lay person perceptions of risk as a concept may need to be re-evaluated.