OVERVIEW

Presentation

People’s behaviour in relation to a risk depends on many factors: cognitive, emotional, social, political, and cultural. Risk communication faces the challenging goal to tackle as many factors as possible, in order to foster a proper perception of risks and, consequently, safe behaviors. This loop between perception and communication must be monitored. This course will address these issues, in order to provide the tools to promote resilience and safety of a community.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course will address the topic of risk from a psychosocial perspective, as it is perceived by stakeholders and as it is communicated among them. The adequate approach to risk will interpret the events with the proper perspective, allowing the system (i.e., the community, the political and technical administrators) to prevent or reduce the exposure to risk. The Resilience Engineering approach will be proposed, in order to enable the system to adjust its functions prior to, during, or following changes and disturbances, and thereby sustain required operations under both expected and unexpected conditions. In addition, the course will address the issue of risk communication with the community, both in proactive (risk awareness and preparedness) and reactive conditions (emergency management).ng

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

After an introduction to the several approaches to investigate and model human risk perception, we will describe the communication strategies more effective for promoting a proper risk perception in the community.

At the end of the course, the students will be able to:

- describe the main approaches to model risk perception

- apply the risk perception theories to specific case studies and different environmental risks

- describe on the most recent communication strategies to trigger behavioural changes in citizens

- list the main phases of risk communication plans

- apply the communication principles to specific case studies

- describe the main characteristics of crisis communication

- apply the principles of resilience engineering to environmental risk communication

- describe the most recent approaches and researches about participatory risk management

PREREQUISITES

No prerequisites needed

TEACHING METHODS

·      Frontal teaching

·      Case studies

·      Video analysis

·      Group activities

·      Talks

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

Syllabus

- introduction to the course

- definition of risk and risk perception

- rational approach to risk perception

- neurophysiology of risk perception

- risk perception and decision making

- bounded rationality

- heuristics and biases

- the psychometric paradigm of risk perception

- personal characteristics that affect risk perception

- social and cultural factors in risk perception

- risk perception models

- risk communication models

- nudge approach to risk communication

- effective communication of risks

- crisis communication

- dealing with the media

- building community resilience

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

- slides on aulaweb

- Pamela (Ferrante) Walaski (2011). Risk and Crisis Communications: Methods and Messages, New York, Wiley.

- David Ropeik (2010). How Risky Is It, Really? Why Our Fears Don't Always Match the Facts. McGraw-Hill

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

FABRIZIO BRACCO (President)

MICHELE MASINI

ANDREINA BRUNO (President Substitute)

LESSONS

LESSONS START

https://courses.unige.it/10553/p/students-timetable

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

Exam for students attending the course

The exam is structured in two steps:

1. presentation of a research paper chosen among those posted on the Aulaweb page of the course. The assignment is a powerpoint presentation where you provide a detailed description of the paper. After each presentation, all the other students must ask at least one question to the presenter.

2. Oral exam discussing the issues raised by the research paper and the topics of the whole program (slides and handbooks).

Exam for students not attending the course

-        Oral exam discussing the topics of the whole program (slides and handbooks).

ASSESSMENT METHODS

For students attending the course, the assessment will concern:

- capacity to synthetise the main topics of the chosen paper

- capacity to express the contents with clarity and precision of terminology

- capacity to link the presentation to the topics discussed in the program

For students not attending the course, the assessment will concern:

- capacity to express the program contents with clarity and precision of terminology

- capacity to link the topics discussed in the program with real cases

Exam schedule