Article Discourse Ecology and Knowledge Niches: Negotiating the Risks of Radiation in Online Canadian Forums, Post-Fukushima

In this article, we investigate Internet discourses that capture Canadians’ perceptions of the risk of radiation from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear incident. We consider these online discourses of radiation risk in the context of recent Internet-based theories that explore ecological models of communication, and we take a discourse approach to our analysis of the online texts about Fukushima radiation risk. Our analysis reveals that, while government and scientific discourses about radiation risk are framed in terms of public concern and certainty, public discourses are framed in terms of uncertainty and gaps in public knowledge. Members of the public engaged in knowledge-seeking activities conducted their own nuclear risk assess-ments and disseminated the results to the interested public in street scienc