RAPID Proposal: The Impact of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

这项工作评估了福岛核电站灾难对美国人对决策者公平性的看法以及他们接受核电决策的意愿的影响。该项目的重点是这些观点与媒体对福岛事件报道的关注程度。这项研究涉及对2010年3月和2010年夏末参加过核电民意调查的受访者进行的调查。第二次民意调查是在墨西哥湾深水地平线石油钻井平台爆炸造成大规模石油泄漏之后进行的。将在原始小组中增加额外的受访者样本，以获得800名参与者的最终样本量，以便将来进行研究。部分面板设计的使用提供了一种独特的能力，可以理解由于福岛灾难而发生的对核电态度的任何变化的原因。调查的参与者是从一个学术质量、基于概率的在线小组中挑选出来的。除了具体问题的价值，了解更多关于核电的看法，研究解决了几个问题的相关风险传播研究人员在该地区的媒体影响和公平的看法对技术的作用。在这样做的过程中，拟议的研究将整合理论从过去的媒体效果研究到子领域的风险communication.This快速建议满足NSF快速资助标准的需要紧急支持，以及其他资助标准的智力价值和更广泛的影响。NSF在内部审查了该提案。

This work assesses the impact of the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster on Americans' views about the fairness of decision makers and their willingness to accept nuclear power decision making. The project focuses on the degree to which such views are associated with attention to media coverage of the Fukushima incident. The research involves a survey of respondents who previously participated in polls about nuclear power in March 2010 and then again during the late summer of 2010. This second poll took place just after the massive oil spill that originated with the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico. An additional sample of respondents will be added to the original panel to obtain a final sample size of 800 participants to enable future research. The use of a partial panel design provides a unique capacity to understand the reasons for any changes in attitudes about nuclear power that occurred because of the Fukushima disaster. The participants in the surveys are being drawn from an academic-quality, probability-based online panel. In addition to the issue-specific value of knowing more about nuclear power perceptions, the research addresses several questions of relevance to risk communication researchers in the area of media effects and the role of fairness perceptions on views about technology. In doing so, the proposed research will integrate theory from past media effects research into the sub-field of risk communication.This RAPID proposal fulfills the NSF RAPID funding criterion of the need for urgent support as well as the other funding criteria of intellectual merit and broader impacts. NSF reviewed this proposal internally.