The roles of news media as democratic fora, agenda setters, and strategic instruments in risk governance

Alette Eva Opperhuizen, Susanna Pagiotti and Jasper Eshuis

Journal of Risk Research, 2021, vol. 24, issue 12, 1517-1531

Abstract: This study analyzes news media’s role in governmental decision-making processes related to a gradually intensifying series of earthquakes resulting from gas drilling in the Netherlands, and catastrophic natural earthquakes in Italy. According to the risk governance actors interviewed in both cases, media play three roles, as: democratic fora, agenda setters, and strategic instruments. Media attention for risk can create ripple effects in governmental decision-making processes. However, media attention tends to be risk-event driven and focuses on direct newsworthy consequences of events. For ‘non-event risks’, or when newsworthiness after a risk-event fades, the media’s agenda setting and democratic fora roles are limited. This contributes to risk attenuation in society, potentially resulting in limited risk prevention and preparedness. Governmental actors report difficulties in using news media for strategic communication to facilitate risk governance because of media’s tendency towards sensationalism. Our research suggests that, in the governance of earthquake-risk news, media logic overrules other institutional logics only for a short while and not in the long run when the three roles of media do not reinforce each other.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13669877.2020.1750458 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jriskr:v:24:y:2021:i:12:p:1517-1531

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RJRR20

DOI: 10.1080/13669877.2020.1750458

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Risk Research is currently edited by Bryan MacGregor

More articles in Journal of Risk Research from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().