This workshop is part of a conference on LANGUAGE & THE SCIENTIFIC IMAGINATION at the University of Helsinki (28 Jul – 2 Aug 2008) – the 11th Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas.
Overview :
Risks arise when an activity or event contains a degree of uncertainty to which a value judgement is attached. Various features of scientific risk make its communication via the media particularly challenging, not least the fact that scientific risk often deals with phenomena invisible to the human eye, explained only through specialised terminology requiring scientific literacy. Scientific understanding is often disputed amongst scientists themselves, expressed in terms of probabilities and uncertainties. This is even more pronounced in postnormal science issues, such as nuclear power, bioengineering and biotechnology, where ignorance predominates, rendering quantification problematic.
This workshop invites studies that explore the mass media’s role in communicating scientific risk, and the uncertainties therein.
More info on the conference and the workshops on the website : [http://issei2008.haifa.ac.il/]
