Risk and Uncertainty in a Post-Truth Society

Risk and Uncertainty in a Post-Truth Society

Author: Sander van der Linden

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-06-10

Total Pages: 78

ISBN-13: 1000022927

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This edited volume looks at whether it is possible to be more transparent about uncertainty in scientific evidence without undermining public understanding and trust. With contributions from leading experts in the field, this book explores the communication of risk and decision-making in an increasingly post-truth world. Drawing on case studies from climate change to genetic testing, the authors argue for better quality evidence synthesis to cut through the noise and highlight the need for more structured public dialogue. For uncertainty in scientific evidence to be communicated effectively, they conclude that trustworthiness is vital: the data and methods underlying statistics must be transparent, valid, and sound, and the numbers need to demonstrate practical utility and add social value to people’s lives. Presenting a conceptual framework to help navigate the reader through the key social and scientific challenges of a post-truth era, this book will be of great relevance to students, scholars, and policy makers with an interest in risk analysis and communication.


History in a Post-Truth World

History in a Post-Truth World

Author: Marius Gudonis

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-10-06

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 1000198227

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History in a Post-Truth World: Theory and Praxis explores one of the most significant paradigm shifts in public discourse. A post-truth environment that appeals primarily to emotion, elevates personal belief, and devalues expert opinion has important implications far beyond Brexit or the election of Donald Trump, and has a profound impact on how history is produced and consumed. Post-truth history is not merely a synonym for lies. This book argues that indifference to historicity by both the purveyor and the recipient, contempt for expert opinion that contradicts it, and ideological motivation are its key characteristics. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, this work explores some of the following questions: What exactly is post-truth history? Does it represent a new phenomenon? Does the historian have a special role to play in preserving public memory from ‘alternative facts’? Do academics more generally have an obligation to combat fake news and fake history both in universities and on social media? How has a ‘post-truth culture’ impacted professional and popular historical discourse? Looking at theoretical dimensions and case studies from around the world, this book explores the violent potential of post-truth history and calls on readers to resist.


Risk, Uncertainty and Profit

Risk, Uncertainty and Profit

Author: Frank H. Knight

Publisher: Cosimo, Inc.

Published: 2006-11-01

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 1602060053

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A timeless classic of economic theory that remains fascinating and pertinent today, this is Frank Knight's famous explanation of why perfect competition cannot eliminate profits, the important differences between "risk" and "uncertainty," and the vital role of the entrepreneur in profitmaking. Based on Knight's PhD dissertation, this 1921 work, balancing theory with fact to come to stunning insights, is a distinct pleasure to read. FRANK H. KNIGHT (1885-1972) is considered by some the greatest American scholar of economics of the 20th century. An economics professor at the University of Chicago from 1927 until 1955, he was one of the founders of the Chicago school of economics, which influenced Milton Friedman and George Stigler.


Risk and Crisis Management in the Public Sector

Risk and Crisis Management in the Public Sector

Author: Lynn T. Drennan

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-06-27

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 1040036651

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Risk and Crisis Management in the Public Sector 3rd edition is a guide for public managers and public management students which combines practical and scholarly knowledge about risk and crisis management together in a single accessible text. In the uncertainty of the twenty-first century, public managers need to know how to identify risks and plan for crises, how to respond to uncertain events and emergencies and how to develop resilience. This book provides this fundamental knowledge with reference to a range of contemporary cases including COVID-19, the war in Ukraine and global cyber-crime crises. It also explores the international, transboundary and multi-agency dimensions of risk and crisis management. This fully updated new edition explores the cutting edge of risk and crisis management scholarship, provides an extensive series of tools and practical guidance for public managers who deal with uncertainty and draws on a wealth of classic and contemporary case studies. This content equips readers and public managers with the knowledge and skills to understand key issues and debates, as well as the capacity to treat risks and better prepare for, respond to and recover from crisis episodes. This book is essential reading for students studying public management, risk management and crisis management as well as professionals in the public management sector.


Truth Decay

Truth Decay

Author: Kavanagh

Publisher: Rand Corporation

Published: 2018-01-16

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 1977400132

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Political and civil discourse in the United States is characterized by “Truth Decay,” defined as increasing disagreement about facts, a blurring of the line between opinion and fact, an increase in the relative volume of opinion compared with fact, and lowered trust in formerly respected sources of factual information. This report explores the causes and wide-ranging consequences of Truth Decay and proposes strategies for further action.


Risk and Responsibilisation in Public Communication

Risk and Responsibilisation in Public Communication

Author: Antoinette Fage-Butler

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-10-23

Total Pages: 166

ISBN-13: 1000987175

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This book explores the connections between risk and responsibilisation in official communication to the public about the global risks of the pandemic and climate change. Our media spheres in the 2020s have been saturated with information about what we should or should not be doing to meet the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. Although the ability of risk communication to ‘responsibilise’ the public is central to its functioning in our societies, this aspect has so far been under-investigated in academia. To address this lacuna, Antoinette Fage-Butler develops a discursive approach to risk communication that focuses on the values that are communicated in risk messages. Examples of official risk communication about the pandemic and climate change from national and transnational contexts are analysed and compared, leading to new empirical findings and theoretical insights about the nature of risk and responsibilisation. Fage-Butler also builds on recent stirrings in the evolving field of risk communication that highlight the importance of cultural and value-related factors. Overall, this book will equip researchers with an approach to risk communication that reflects the complexity of today’s global risk challenges. Risk and Responsibilisation in Public Communication will be of great interest to students and scholars of risk communication, public health and environmental studies.


The Post-Truth Era

The Post-Truth Era

Author: Ralph Keyes

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2004-10-03

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9780312306489

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Politicians aren't the only ones who lie. The bestselling author of "Is There Life After High School?" explains America's unusually high tolerance for deceit.


COVID-19

COVID-19

Author: Jamie K. Wardman

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-11-28

Total Pages: 375

ISBN-13: 1000791149

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This comprehensive book looks at COVID-19, along with other recent infectious disease outbreaks, with the broad aim of providing constructive lessons and critical reflections from across a wide range of perspectives and disciplinary interests within the risk analysis field. The chapters in this edited volume probe the roles of risk communication, risk perception, and risk science in helping to manage the ever-growing pandemic that was declared a public health emergency of international concern in the beginning of 2020. A few chapters in the book also include relevant content discussing past disease outbreaks, such as Zika, Ebola and MERS-CoV. This book distils past and present knowledge, appraises current responses, introduces new ideas and data, and offers key recommendations, which will help illuminate different aspects of the global health crisis. It also explores how different constructive insights offered from a ‘risk perspective’ might inform decisions on how best to proceed in response as the pandemic continues. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Risk Research.


Environmental Sociology and Social Transformation

Environmental Sociology and Social Transformation

Author: Magnus Boström

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-06-07

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1040030408

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Environmental Sociology and Social Transformation demonstrates how sociological theory and research are critical for understanding the social drivers of global environmental destruction and the conditions for transformative change. Written by two professors of sociology who are deeply involved in the international community of environmental sociology, Magnus Boström and Rolf Lidskog argue that we need to better understand society as well as the fundamentally social nature of environmental problems and how they can be addressed. The authors provide answers to why so many unsustainable practices are maintained and supported by institutions and actors despite widespread knowledge of their negative consequences. Employing a pluralistic sociological approach to the study of social transformations, the book is divided into five key themes: Causes, Distributions, Understandings, Barriers, and Transformation. Overall, the book offers an integrative and comprehensive understanding of the social dimension of (un)sustainability, societal inertia, and conditions for transformative change. It provides the reader with references from classic and contemporary sociology and uses pedagogical features including boxes and questions for discussion to help embed learning. Arguing that a broad and deep social transformation is needed to avoid a global civilization crisis, Environmental Sociology and Social Transformation will be a great resource for students and scholars who are exploring current environmental challenges and the societal conditions for meeting them.


Science, Technology, Policy and International Law

Science, Technology, Policy and International Law

Author: Justo Corti Varela

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-10-02

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 1040019889

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This book presents innovative insights into the intersections between science, technology, and society, and particularly their regulation by the law. Departing from the idea that law and science have similar methods and objectives, the book deals with problems, and solutions, that source from these interactions: concerns on how to integrate scientific evidence into trials, how to best regulate new technologies, or whether technological innovations could improve democratic legitimacy, create new regulatory tools or even new spaces of regulation, and what is the impact on the society. The edited collection, by building on a functionalist and comparatist approach, offers answers to how to best integrate law, science, and technology in policy-making and reviews the current attempts made at the transnational and international levels. Case studies, ranging from emerging technologies via environmental protection to statistics, are complemented by a solid theoretical framework, all of which seek to provide readers with tools for critical thinking in the reassessment of the relationship among theory, practice, political goals, and international regulation.