Societal risk communication—towards smart risk governance and safety management

Abstract

Risk communication has long been thought and conceptualized as based on a centralized model where experts were detaining knowledge and explaining risks to lay persons. Today’s risk communication reality is much more complex. It involves a variety of actors, each of them having multiple interests. Safety is one of them, among many others, but is also understood in different ways. However, acknowledging this complexity allows for building upon all risk communication actors’ respective inputs to build the overall risk and stake picture and be potentially an active contributor in relation to safety. Eventually, it leads to proposing a smart and open approach to risk governance and safety management.