Does Social Risk Amplification Theory Explain the Resistance to COVID-19 Geo-Localization Applications?

KSA have launched a mobile application which recognizes if there is a confirmed COVID-19 subject in proximity. Its adoption can be explained by technology acceptance models, but the pandemic context involves also the use of a theory dealing with the health risk. This study adapts the Social Amplification of Risk Framework to verify a model explaining three behaviors: information seeking, preventive behavior and resistance to COVID-19 mobile application Tawakkalna. A survey has been distributed to a sample of 312 individuals living in Saudi Arabia. Findings show that media coverage and perceived risk have an impact on negative affective reactions which influence behavior.

Texts, Lies, and Mediascapes: Communication Technologies and Social Media as Risk in the Educational Landscape

Studies have shown how digital communications impact administrators’ work, but few have looked at the reputational risks to school administrators incurred through social media and digital communications. This Alberta case study looks at risk through Kasperson et. al’s (1988) social amplification of risk framework for an exclusion room controversy. Twitter responses are analyzed and interpreted over a longitudinal, 5-year period. Despite school administrators’ perceptions that risk might be generated on social media from community-led, grass-roots sources, traditional figures and agencies such as provincial news media and politicians appear more influential than school administrators, teachers, or parents in the Twitterverse. Implications are drawn for educational administrative behaviour and policy.

Alternative media framing of COVID-19 risks

Early media coverage of COVID-19, between 1 January and 31 March 2020, provided Alternative Media Personalities (AMPs) an opportunity to provide conspiratorial misinformation to their online audiences. Far-right AMPs may reframe sociopolitical aspects of risk to produce ‘fake-news’, amplifying future risks arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the Social Amplification of Risk Framework (SARF) to define factors of risk amplification, this study conducted a framing analysis upon 1,895 minutes of streamed video content from a popular, far-right, AMP regarding COVID-19. Significant differences in frame expression suggested that AMPs hold greater value in specific frames when providing infotainment based upon authentic interpretations of risk. A lack of significant change in frame expression over time suggests that AMPs may rely upon media templates when communicating risk to their audience. Qualitative data suggest that different aspects of risk amplification work in concert to provide discursive contexts for far-right AMPs to define risks from their ideological standpoint. The data provided by this study better outline some of the complexities facing scientific communications strategies which seek to directly address misinformation online.

The Impact of Health Risk Communication: A Study on the Dengue, Chikungunya, and Zika Epidemics in Curaçao, Analyzed by the Social Amplification of Risk Framework (SARF)

Epidemics of dengue, chikungunya, and Zika have been threatening the Caribbean. Since risk communication (RC) plays a fundamental role in preventing and controlling diseases understanding how RC works is essential for enabling risk-reducing behavior. This multimethod qualitative study compares news reports with local’s and health professional’s perspectives, currently lacking in RC research. It was found that RC strategies were obstructed by a lack of governmental structure, organization, and communication. The content analysis showed that the majority of newspaper articles contained negative reporting on the government. Furthermore, this study shows how trust and heuristics attenuate or amplify people’s risk perceptions and possibly positively and negatively influence people’s risk-reducing behavior. A transcending approach (e.g., structural, cooperative, and multidisciplinary) of the prevention and control of vector-borne diseases and the corresponding RC is recommended.

A Study on the Formation and Evolution Model of Social Psychology in Major Public Health Emergencies

The occurrence of local or regional major public health emergencies has seriously damaged human health and life safety, and has an impact on the psychological state of the public. The study introduces “social amplification of risk” effect and the mechanism of emotional infection, and constructs a process model of psychological prediction, psychological cognition and psychological behavior in the generation of social psychology of major public health emergencies, and from the level of individual emotions, group emotions and social emotions analyze the evolutionary model of social psychology; Research has found that information disclosure, government trust and social confidence are the main factors influencing the formation of social psychology of major public health emergencies.

A Hazard Multiple: Overlapping Tornado and Flash Flood Warnings in a National Weather Service Forecast Office in the Southeastern United States

The U.S. weather warning system is designed to help operational forecasters identify hazards and issue alerts to assist people in taking life-saving actions. Assessing risks for separate hazards, such as flash flooding, can be challenging for individuals, depending on their contexts, resources, and abilities. When two or more hazards co-occur in time and space, such as tornadoes and flash floods, which we call TORFFs, risk assessment and available actions people can take to stay safe become increasingly complex and potentially dangerous. TORFF advice can suggest contradictory action—that people get low for a tornado and seek higher ground for a flash flood. The origin of risk information about such threats is the National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Forecast Office. This article contributes to an understanding of the warning and forecast system though a naturalistic study of the NWS during a TORFF event in the southeastern United States. Drawing on literature for the Social Amplification of Risk Framework, this article argues that during TORFFs, elements of the NWS warning operations can unintentionally amplify or attenuate one threat over the other. Our results reveal three ways this amplification or attenuation might occur: 1) underlying assumptions that forecasters understandably make about the danger of different threats; 2) threat terminology and coordination with national offices that shape the communication of risks during a multihazard event; and 3) organizational arrangements of space and forecaster expertise during operations. We conclude with suggestions for rethinking sites of amplification and attenuation and additional areas of future study.