A PRIMER ON RISK: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH TO THINKING ABOUT PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF AGBIOTECH

This essay outlines some of the major social-science based understandings in the fields of risk assessment, risk perception, and risk communication emphasizing the theoretical strengths and weaknesses of these various approaches to thinking about risk. The essay emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of the field and the role that scientific expertise about risk should and should not play in democratic societies. It concludes with a brief overview of how these findings might apply to the specific case of agbiotech, particularly in light of cultural understandings about the role of science in modern life. Key words: risk communication; risk; risk perception; mass communication; politics; public understanding of science. The field of riskwhether it is defined as risk assessment, risk perception, risk communication, or risk managementis a relatively young one. It has no ready academic home, although scientists, engineers, social scientists, and humanists have made important contributions to the collective project. Nevertheless, almost all scholars concerned with risk find themselves immersed in fields that are outside their original academic disciplines. The inherently interdisciplinary nature of the project has led to struggles over what should count as evidence an