Jamie K. Wardman

Watts in it for me?: design implications for implementing effective energy interventions in organisations

The design of technological interventions to motivate behaviour-based reductions in end-user energy consumption has recently been identified as a priority for the HCI community. Previous interventions have produced promising results, but have typically focused on domestic energy consumption. By contrast, this paper focuses on the workplace context, which presents very different opportunities and challenges. For instance, financial consequences, which have proved successful as motivations in the domestic environment, are not present in the workplace in the context of employees. We describe the outcome of a sequence of workshops that focussed on understanding employee perceptions of energy use in the workplace, with the locus of activity on energy intervention design. Using a grounded theory analysis, we produced a framework of key themes detailing user perceptions and energy intervention design considerations. Our findings provide a framework of considerations for the design of successful workplace energy interventions.

The changing nature of communication and regulation of risk in Europe

The regulation and communication of risk have changed significantly over the past 20 years or so, partially as a result of a number of regulatory scandals in Europe and elsewhere, which have led to greater public distrust of regulators and policy‐makers. This increase in public distrust has resulted in a phasing‐out of consensual‐style regulation, and the emergence of a newer model of regulation based on variables including public participation, transparency and increasingly powerful non‐governmental organisations (NGOs). This paper discusses some of the consequences of adopting this new model of regulation through a series of case studies.

Toward a Critical Discourse on Affect and Risk Perception

Editorials and commentaries in academic journals can perform a useful function in the social sciences, by bringing different ideas and perspectives to the fore they may help to punctuate academic discourse and lead to a more focused debate about the development, validity and utility of a particular concept or theme of research. In this respect, Sjoberg’s (2006) editorial of this issue, ‘Will the real meaning of affect please stand up?’ is a timely critique of a burgeoning area of risk perception research.

Risk communication: against the Gods or against all odds? Problems and prospects of accounting for Black Swans

Recent academic and policy preoccupations with ‘Black Swans’ underscore the predicament of capturing and communicating risk events when information is absent, partial, incomplete or contingent. In this article, we wish to articulate some key thematic and theoretical points of concurrence around which academic and practitioner interests in risk communication under conditions of ‘high uncertainty’ intersect. We outline the historical context and recent debate concerning the limits to ‘risk thinking’ spurred by Black Swans, and in particular how this calls for a more holistic approach to risk communication. In order to support a more critical foresight agenda, we suggest incorporating ‘adaptive governance’ principles to decentre focal risk communication concerns on the mitigation of short-term security threats, which critics argue can also lead to other unforeseen dangers. Finally, we welcome further interdisciplinary inquiry into the constitution and use of risk communication under high uncertainty.

Sociocultural vectors of effective risk communication

Kasperson’s reflections on the ‘state of the art’ in risk communication thinking and practice set out an ambitious programmatic vision of how future progress in effective risk communication might be achieved. In this critical but supportive response, I first outline two perspectives on how progress in risk communication might be evaluated. This is followed by some discussion relating these issues to the sociocultural nature of risk communication thinking and practice, and the normative basis of underlying assumptions and ideas of effectiveness. It is suggested that inasmuch as the practical application of effective risk communication requires knowledge of human thinking and behaviour, then further considerations of some sociocultural regularities, contingencies and varieties in risk communication thinking and behaviour within particular contexts should also have practical applications.

The prophecy of Ulrich Beck: signposts for the social sciences

Abstract This special issue on the legacy of Ulrich Beck is aimed to stimulate reflection both on the specific uses to which Beck’s conceptual and theoretical apparatus can be put within risk studies and the wider significance of his academic project for the social sciences. In this end-piece, we draw out the key themes which surface in the different contributions relating to five particular areas: the nature of risk; advancements in methods; issues of non-knowledge and uncertainty; the development of cosmopolitan risk communities; and the situated character of individualization. We discuss the implications of the accounts contained in this special issue and reflect on the impact and influence of Beck’s sustained engagement with colleagues around the globe, concluding that the concepts and methods that Beck bequeathed the social sciences are set to live on and thrive.

State of the art transparency: lessons from Europe and North America

This Special Issue of the Journal of Risk Research was initiated to increase the evidence base supporting critical understanding of the use and impacts of transparency as a policy tool in risk management and regulation in Europe and North America. The lead research articles and perspectives were initially presented at a two-day workshop supported by the Journal of Risk Research and its publisher Taylor and Francis, which took place in Lavandou, Provence, 19th - 20th June 2014. In this editorial we introduce the motivations for the special issue and offer a brief summary of the contribution of each article highlighting key intersections and points of concurrence

Considering risk: placing the work of Ulrich Beck in context

Within five years of being published in 1986 in Germany, Ulrich Beck’s Risikogesellschaft – later translated in English as Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity ([1986] 1992) – sold some 60,000 copies. This represents an unprecedented volume of sales for a non-textbook work of social science (see Lash and Wynne 1992: 1). Using Google’s NGram viewer – which maps trends in book citations over time – a consistently high and rising rate of references can be observed from 1987 into the new millennium. Readers of risk research journals will be familiar with the frequency with which Beck’s thesis is routinely cited in articles. Yet, outside of risk studies, Beck’s work remains unfamiliar to many scholars in the social sciences. Indeed, within his home discipline of Sociology, reception to his work has been mixed and critiques are well established. It is interesting to speculate about the numbers of people who bought Risk Society (1992) expecting a racy account of looming catastrophe and the endemic anxieties of a risk averse culture in keeping with the title, only to find a much more wide ranging and dense sociological account of transformations in work, relationships, class structure and politics. The book is not a straightforward read. In the contemporary context, it is perhaps comparable with Thomas Picketty’s best-selling Capital in the Twenty First Century (2014). Picketty’s work has been influential, but its size and technical character has arguably led to the headline message about capitalism’s threat to democracy being endorsed by many that may well not have not read the book in its entirety. In an attempt to engage those who never managed to get beyond past the first few pages of Risk Society (1992), this special issue is designed to separate out the different elements of Beck’s thought, contextualising his contribution and drawing out the wider implications of his work within and beyond academia. While the term ‘risk society’ has become something of a lingua franca, the impact of Beck’s writing is not simply the result of a smartly chosen phrase. Mike Power (2007: 21) in his own work on uncertainty, explains the resonance of Beck’s work in terms of its capacity to tap into underlying anxieties and insecurities that define the modern age: ‘Beck’s ideas appeal in contexts where there is increasing consciousness of self-produced risks and also doubts about the capacity of a flourishing risk regulation industry to cope with them’. Beck put his finger on a central issue of our age; in fact, several issues of our age that are now more widely recognised, partly as a result of his influence. Central to Beck’s thinking about risk is the proposition that the major threats that society faces are no longer primarily external, coming from without – most obviously as natural hazards. Instead they are produced as unintended consequences of modernisation itself, most palpably in the form of climate change produced by human activity. Another looming example is antibiotic resistance, where thoughtless overuse of what were once described as ‘miracle drugs’ is increasingly rendering them ineffective. What makes matters worse in Beck’s reading is that the very institutions and instruments responsible for risk management are now part of the problem, wedded as they are to the frames of reference and types of solutions that produced the problems in the first place. And the further element that made these manufactured risks a qualitatively more difficult problem than in the past is their truly global nature; there is nowhere to hide from the deleterious consequences of climate change or diminishing antibiotic resistance. It is not only the nature and scale of the risks themselves, but the inadequacy of primarily national institutions to cope with global problems that Beck sought to illuminate. He identified a burgeoning culture of public distrust in expert systems, which further limited the capability of regulatory institutions to respond to emergent threats (see Power 2007: 21). The ‘risk society’ era – which became discernible

Communicating risk under high uncertainty: developing cross-disciplinary knowledge

The primary purpose of this Special Issue is to coalesce different perspectives on the theme of ‘Communicating Risk Under High Uncertainty’ from across a range of subject areas. These areas include environmental studies, international relations, engineering, sociology, psychology, media studies, the health sciences, criminology and anthropology. By bringing different perspectives together, we anticipate that commonalities and points of concurrence will help to identify cross-disciplinary synergies and provide opportunities to explore the potential for a more holistic understanding of risk communication in the academy and beyond.