Proposal for a Japan-U.S. Symposium on Risk Communication

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The March 2011 Great Eastern Japan Earthquake (GEJE), resulting tsunami, and Fukushima Dai-ichipower plant safety systems failures were catastrophic for Japan, and have influenced riskperceptions and policies globally. The nature of that influence remains an active area ofsocial scientific inquiry. Early findings suggest that risk communication and management inadequaciescontributed to the social amplification of events. The symposium will providea timely opportunity to synthesize emerging social and behavioral risk research findings regardingthese extreme events, develop a risk communication and management research agenda to addressthe challenges identified, and inform ongoing international risk communication and disasterrisk reduction efforts.Research to date on the nature and consequences of Great Eastern Japan Earthquake (GEJE) and Fukushima-related risk communications identifies a wide range of contributory factors, ranging from lack of scientific consensusand public misconceptions about the risks, to social amplification of risk by the media, lackof transparency by management, and insufficient public engagement. Nevertheless, an overarchingsynthesis and assessment of theoretical implications and resulting risk communication researchquestions stemming from these events is lacking, and would advance the related risk and decisionsciences. Extreme events of the last decade have increased in impact, heightening the global focus onthe necessity of disaster risk reduction. International efforts to improve the evidence basefor risk management include the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) supported by theUnited Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), the International Councilfor Science (ICSU), and the International Social Science Council (ISSC) and UNISDR activities,including its lead role in developing a post-2015 Hyogo Framework for Action. Risk Interpretationand Action (RIA) is a key activity of the IRDR, with the aim of understanding how people, bothdecision-makers and ordinary citizens, make decisions, individually and collectively, in theface of risk, and thereby contributing to an integrated research approach to disaster riskreduction, to ultimately decrease disaster risks worldwide. The proposed symposium advancesthis agenda, as well as integration of this research with research on the communication andmanagement of extreme technological risks, and enhances collaboration between Japan and theU.S. in the social, decision and risk sciences.