News coverage and risk

My work recently involves the examination of how media cover risks. The area of risk is broad and can include environmental, health, technological hazards and so on. During my search for literature, I come across a website: Risk: Health, Safty, & Environment.

Signal and Noise, by Boykoff and Rajan (2007), is another piece comparing news coverage of (environmental/ global climate change) risks in the US and UK.

An interesting idea is that something considered risky in one country/ culture may not trigger the same perception in another culture. My goal is to identify why and how these cultural difference in worldviews affects media representation of the risk issues.

Mass communications and agrobiotechnology.

Why should everyone care about the same environmental risk?

An article from the New York Times, Sustainability for rich and poor, has triggered some throughts from me.

The article talked about the different perceptions of the seriousness about global climate change in countries with different levels of economic development and personal well-being.

The deputy environment minster of Angola has made his point clear that the most immiment environmental concern of his country is the over-population of their capital city--Ruanda--and the ensuing infrastructural problems, such as sewage and waste. Global climate change is not on top of their list.

Well, this makes perfect sense. Countries with different stages of human and economic development will definitely define risks differently. And who has the right to decide what people should care about? Will people care about climate change when they don't even have enough food? Or do they even need to be concerned?

Dake and Wildavsky have published a series of studies, which highlight the influence of cultures and worldviews on what constitutes risks. Specifically, they suggest that people in the egalitarian, individualist, and hierarchist societies will define risks very differently (see "Theories of risk perception: Who fears what and why?").

However, what we see here is more than culture. The economic structure and human development (i.e., to what extent can people fulfill their basic needs of life?) also play a significant role in shaping attitudes toward environmental issues. This example not only strengthens the importance of taking into account country level variables, but also gives researchers good reasons to go beyond cultural factors when studying policy and public opinions of environment-related issues.

Nanotechnology data

Here are some newly-found data about public perception of nanotechnology.

Nanoforum is an European organization that publishs events, reports, and news about nanotechnology. One of its reports actually gave a decent overview about the debates surrounding nanotechnology; i.e., the balance between risks and benefits. For people who don't know much about nano, this is a good starting point.

Benefits, Risks, Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects of Nanotechnology

Although the report is not data-driven, it includes some findings from other research institute. For instance, there is information about media coverage of nanotechnology in Germany. It also includes an Internet poll conducted by the Royal Society in UK.

Of course, when talking about datasets in Europe, the European Commission is a good resource. In the "Publications and Events" page under the CORDIS website, there are tons of reports and survey results, although the pages for survey don't seem to work.

From the CORDIS website, I found a Eurobarometer special survey (#224, 2005) that asked questions related to nanotechnology. It seems comparable to another survey in 2001. But I haven't checked yet.

More about culture, value, and structural differences around the globe

Worldviews and values

Gallup World Poll looks very cool, but doesn't seem to have much information about Taiwan.

Henk Vinken's Website: Henk Vinken is a sociologist in Netherlands, who has done a lot of comparative studies on culture and values. This Website contains relevant publications and links. Absolutely useful.

Schwartz Value Survey.

International Social Survey Programme.

Country development

• World Development Indicators by World Bank

• Internet penetration rate (http://www.internetworldstats.com/top25.htm) (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm)
• Press freedom (http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=16&year=2007

)
• Newspaper circulation rate – Table 13 (pg 99) of the "Statistical Yearbook" of the United Nations. The 2006 volume is available at the Memorial Reference Desk, call number HA 12.5 U63v.2006
• Television sets penetration rate (see links below)
• Telephone lines / Mobile phones penetration rates (see links below)
• Personal computers penetration rates (see links below)
http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/
http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/handbook.html
http://www.unctad.org/Templates/webflyer.asp?docid=9479&intItemID=1397&lang=1&mode=downloads

Data Analysis in practice

I'm not sure if you feel about the same thing: you have been working with a professor for so long you think you know everything that s/he knows. But every time s/he impresses you with something new. This is what I felt about my advisor--DAS.

He offered a data-analysis course this semester, which covers a wide range of topics ranging from pre-analysis data cleaning, index-building, to various analytical approaches, with the statistical software of SPSS. As I have been working on data for years, I assume this class won't be a big challenge for me. I was thinking that even I just learn one thing new in each class, that will not be too bad. However, what I get turns out to be more than I expected. (I hope this doesn't mean I knew little before going to this class.)

The first class when I sat in was about building a composite index; for example, a "newspaper use" variable. I know exactly the technical process of doing this. But why should we build a multiple item index? I got questioned by a journal reviewer about my "talk" variable, which was based on single survey question. What is wrong with a single-item measure?

Basically, this at least partially has to do with the idea of systematic error, which refers to the missing of data due to mechanisms that does not affect everyone equally. For example when asking about people's income level, those who are weathy tend to be more concious and senstive to the question and have a higher chance of skipping the question. This is called a systematic error because it happens not to everybody, but only to those who don't feel comfortable answering the question (usually the wealthier ones).

Does setting up a yard sign, showing a bump sticker, or donating money each consititue a valid measure ofr political participation? The answer might be negative. Those who put up a yard sign need to have a lawn at the first place. By the same token, for people to show bump stickers, they need to have a car. In addition, those who can donate usually are economically better off. All these measures favor a demographic with higher SES status and thus can not be considered a comprehensive index of participation individually. That's why researchers usually combine all of these variables to form a composite index that gives a clearer picture regarding the concept of "participation."

Another source of systematic error comes from the tendancy for some people to give "socially desirable" answers--people are prone to give anwswers that are adored by the society. There are several strategies employed by large survey institution to deal with such situation. For example, GSS matched the interviewer and interviewee to the level or gender and race in order to solicit valid answer. One appraoch I felt very interesting is by asking respondensts a "hypothetical policy proposal" which does not exist at all. If the respondents said they have heard about it, they are people who tend to provide socially desirable answers.

Asia Values

While I was rummaging literature about worldview differences between West and Asia, I found several useful databases that may provide quantitative evidence. Because large-scale, cross-cultural surveys are relatively few in Asia than in the US (e.g., NES, GSS...) and in Europe (Eurobarometer), I think it's worth a note.

1. Asiabarometer is a comparative survey in Asia, covering East, Southeast, South and Central Asia. A Japanese scholar is in charge of the center. Many cross-national studies are based on the datasets. The data can be downloaded either at its Web site or through ICPSR, of which the University of Wisconsin is a member.

2. Asian Barometer is surprisingly different from the previous dataset. It is maintained by the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, National Taiwan University. The survey includes some interesting questions about "traditional Chinese values;" for example, "it is a shame for a man to work for a woman." There are also measures about political participation, media use, and national identity.

3. East Asia Value Survey. Unlike the previous two, which focus more on the "opinion" aspect, EAVS emphasizes the "value" aspect. For example, EAVS probes the relationship between human and nature or people's environmental beliefs. Taiwan is also included in this survey.

The Democracy Study Center at UC-Irvine actually compiled a webpage that includes many international survey databases.

A ASEP/JDS-maintained website also gives good resources for comparative studies.

Sources in news about epidemics

What sources played a role in news about avian flu and West Nile virus? Does sourcing patterns in news coverage of public health issues different from those of political issues?

The research of news source is pivotal because of mainly two reasons. First, journalists can not say things in their own names. They have to cite the witness of an incident, participant of an event, or government officials in order to be objective. Second, journalists need sources because they provide information not availabe to reporters or explain diffcult ideas.

Because sources have the "privilege" to appear in the media, they are also considered capable of shaping the focus of a story by supplying information to their advantage. Many researchers, in fact, think of the news construction process as the stuggle between sources.

In the case of epidemic diseases, a recent study found that journalists rely on bureaucratic officials and experts as source of information. The affected, such as humans infected by WNV or paltry farmers affected by avian flu, did not get much attention from the media. Even medical care providers, such as doctors and nurses, did not appear very frequently.

The depedence on institutional or government officials is more explicit when looking at trend lines illustrating the distribution of number of news coverage, key sources, number of press releases from key regulatory agencies, and number of infected cases.

The chart below indicates that the ups and downs of media attention to epidemics conform to the ups and downs of the number of press releases and government officials used. The findings suggest that the number of coverage did not reflect the magnitute of diseases, but reflect what government said about the seriousness of diseases.

The case illustrates that government authorities control the information journalists needed for public health issues and therefore have much power to shape media agenda of these issues.