リスク・コミュニケーション・ギャップの分析手法 : 【リスク管理者】が【リスク被受者】を理解するための指針

リスク

The purpose of this Ph.D. thesis is to provide a new tool for discourse analysis, which is indispensable to achieve mutual understandings on a risk debate, and to reach a consensus on the risk. What is also sought is a way to improve the risk management system when risk communication is taken for a function of the system. Today's society is filled with various kinds of risks. Even though, we must somehow manage such risks, we can't do that thoroughly enough to accomplish "zero risk" on the other hand. This is why risk communication is indispensable to make a compromise and/or to build a consensus of how comprehensively we should manage a risk. The importance of risk communication has been already recognized, and various researchers have been making studying it from a variety of view points. However, no robust conclusion has yet been obtained. Therefore a further investigation and/or theoretical review is required for improvement of risk communication, otherwise trial-and-error would be the most effective way for improvement. In the history of risk communication trials, the first focal point was "how to persuade". And this moved on to "what makes them unpersuaded", and then to "importance of participation", and is now "how to build trust". But there has never been a central theme of what methodology should be provided to a risk communication situation in order to build a consensus among stakeholders. Consequently, we usually can't so much as obtain mutual understanding which is necessary for a consensus. In my attempt to improve risk communication, I employed the concept of a risk management system theory as a theoretical basis when previous studies were reviewed, so that the diversified concepts of "risk" could be unified in a single way of thinking. And presuming that risk communication is a function of a risk management system, I thought the whole risk management system would be renovated if the risk communication was renovated as well. In this research, the purposes shown above are sought in the following steps.#1. Reviewing concepts of "risk" and "risk communication" in a variety of risk researches from the view point of the risk management system theory.#2. Re-defining risk communication within this research frame.#3. Introducing discourse analysis tools as hypotheses based upon re-defined risk communication.#4. Verifying efficacy and limitation of the hypotheses using three categorized cases.#5. Seeking for possibility to improve the risk communication and risk management system using the verified analytical tools.More concretely, this Ph.D. thesis consists of two parts; the theoretical reviews and the case study analyses. In the former part, the definition of risk communication was renewed based upon the risk management system theory where outcomes from a variety of risk researches were integrated. And as a consequence, three hypotheses were derived from the definition. In the latter part, three cases were used to justify the hypotheses. These hypotheses fully explained how compromises on a risk could have been obtained, and how risk debates had been confused and diverged. Here are brief explanations of the contents.Part 1 (Chapter 2 - 5) is a collection of theoretical reviews of previous studies, where the definition of the risk communication was recalled as a consequence. In this part, the focal areas of risk studies to be reviewed included "risk management system", "psychometric paradigm", "trust" in "Social Amplification of Risk Framework (SARF)", and "risk society (Beck and Giddens)". Also employed was simplification of relationships among stakeholders into a binominal relationship between a <risk manager> and a <risk bearer>. And the risk communication was defined as a series of activities to move <boundaries of endurance>which distinguished between <avoidable risk> and <inevitable danger>. The <boundaries of endurance> were thought to be possessed by a <risk manager> and <risk bearer> respectively, and discrepancies between these boundaries were thought to be attributed to feelings of insecurity / discontent with regards to a risk. If risk communication could move these boundaries properly, the discrepancies of <boundaries of endurance> could be reduced/cancelled, which I thought was the goal of risk communication.In the 2nd Part (Chapter 6), I hypothesized a model of how insecurity / discontent broke out about a risk based on the outcomes of the Part 1, and I named it "three discrepancies model" after the structure. In this model, discrepancies of <boundaries of endurance> were attributed to emergence of insecurity / discontent, and these discrepancies could be categorized into <paradigm>, <compliance> or <frame>. And this model was derived into two other hypotheses; "compromise achievement structure model" and "patterning model of risk debate divergence".Part 3 (Chapter 7 - 9) was the section of case analyses. In order to verify the hypotheses, I selected cases of pesticides, BSE and Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (hereinafter referred to as EDC). In the case of pesticides, "three discrepancies model" was verified using a set of data obtained at risk communication events, "Noyaku-zemi (pesticide seminar)". In the case of BSE, the hypotheses were verified by two collections of documentation; the negotiation for lifting embargo between US-Japanese Governments, and public opinion shown in the readers' column in newspapers. And in the case of EDC, the analysis of the EDC history and opinions presented by a variety of stakeholders revealed that the hypotheses could explain how the compromise was achieved and how the opinions were mixed up.In Part 4 (Chapter 10 - 11), I drew a conclusion and showed the significance of this thesis in the risk research areas. And the applicability of my theory was shown using two examples, but they remain to be proven in the future.In total, I provided a new methodology to analyze risk debates, and showed its efficacy using three past cases. Introduction of this methodology to the risk management system would lead to the improvement of risk communication as well as the whole risk management system. Therefore the outcome of this research contributes to those who intend proper risk communication. In the course of this research, I proposed a new concept and significance of risk communication. This was achieved by integrating risk related concepts into the risk management system theory comprehensively, which had been impossible due to incommensurability of these concepts among risk research areas without a common conceptual basis. This thesis could suggest to us a new opportunity to have a different approach to risk communication, which could be installed in the social infrastructure. Therefore I believe the outcome of this thesis is applicable not only to practical use, but also to our society in general. Therefore, I believe this Ph.D. thesis is not only a guideline for those who intend risk communication, but is of practical importance in our society which is now built on several risk management systems.