Risk

According to Ericson and Haggerty (1997), "Risks exist only in institutional knowledge about them" (p. 100). To know what a risk is, is to know the institutional discourse around the risk - how it is classified, what it means, and how it should be responded to. Once classifications are taken for granted, the risk has been institutionalized. Risk communication systems (RCS) provides a plan of action for what to do and identity for who to be. It provides guidelines for how to report these risks as per the institutional standards (i.e., police reports). This institutionalism moves the authorship of risk away from the individual and to the routinized, institutional expectations. These standardizations allow the information to be compared to similar institutionalized information. Conflict arises at which institution has the "correct" classifications of risk. Since risks are just possibilities, they are open to various social constructions such as which view is marginalized or should be changed.

"Realists argue that risks are real. Risks can be identified, measured, classified and predicted by following rigorous, reliable and reproducible methods and calibrated techniques of the quantitative sciences. In contrast, cultural relativist and strong structuralists argue that: 'nothing is a risk in itself; there is no risk in reality. ...anything can be a risk; it all depends on how one analyses the danger, considers the event' (Ewald, 1991: 199)" (Ekberg 348). Risks then are "open to social definition and construction" (Beck 1992, 23). Since the risks associated with technology are made from science, the risks can't be externalized because they didn't come from nature, and humans are responsible for the problems (Ekberg 349). Beck brings out that risks like chemical pollution and atomic radiation can't be seen by human senses (Beck 1999, 55), but they can be identified using science. Risks then, are said to be scientized because they are able to be seen due to science. This usually leads to thinking science can fix more science. Risk society risks are thus problems of and for technology, and they span across borders and boundaries because their impact doesn't necessarily effect their points of origin (Ekberg 352). "They exemplify what Giddens terms 'time-space distanciation' (Giddens, 1994a), or what Harvey has termed 'time-space compression' (Harvey, 1989)" and also span across generations because sometime inheritable damage can be done (Ekert 352).

Beck (1998) says there are three responses to risk: denial, apathy, and initiation of social transformation (Ekberg 358).

Risk and technologies place society into groups of identities - minorities, those on welfare, those with elite credit cards, educated people, or those with disabilities (Ericson and Haggerty p. 94), and risk management is political arithmetic that aims at managing groups of risk from a distance.

Competing Definitions

Risks are different than hazards and dangers, and risk theorists are concerned with the competing definitions of things associated with risk. Beck states that risks are decision dependent and can be controlled (1999, 31), but dangers have "escaped or neutralized the control requirements of industrial society (31). Beck uses the insurance agency to describe the difference between risk and threats by suggesting that risks are become threats when insurance companies offer policies but become threats when insurance will deny insurance (Beck 1995). Giddens says risks are "determined by the predictions of the future" (Ekberg 353) which "determine risk planning and management decisions" (353). Wells defines risk as a something the may (probably) happen, but hazards are the circumstances which lead to this risk (Ekberg 353 and Wells). Douglas socioculturally defines risk as, and hazards pre-exist risks, but risks are what people add value to and declare a risk (so are "hence historically and culturally contingent" (Ekberg 354). Luhmann says that hazards are dangers and exist whether or not they are called that by the public, but they become risks once in public consciousness (Ekberg 354). Joffe says hazards are external creations but become risk once they can be "measured, managed, controlled, averted or avoided" (Ekberg 354 and Joffe 142). Fox concludes that both risks and hazards are socially constructed and come from "the contingent judgments about the adverse or undesirable outcomes of choices made by human beings" (Ekberg 354 and Fox).

References:

Beck, Ulrich. Democracy without Enemies. Malden, MA: Polity Press, 1998.

Beck, Ulrich. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage, 1992.

Beck, Ulrich. Ecological Politics in an Age of Risk. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995.

Beck, Ulrich.World Risk Society. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999.

Douglas, Mary. Risk and Blame: Essays in Cultural Theory. London: Routledge, 1992.

Ekberg, Merryn. "The Parameters of the Risk Society: A Review and Exploration." Current Sociology (55)3: 343-366. Web. 21 July 2014.

Ericson, R. V., & Haggerty, K.D. (1997). The Risk Society. In R.V. Ericson & K.D. Haggerty (Eds.) Policing the risk society (pp. 81-130). U of Toronto: Toronto.

Ewald, Francois. Insurance and Risk in The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. London: Harvester/Wheatsheaf, 1991.

Fox, N. "Postmodern Reflections on "Risk", "Hazards" and Life Choices in D. Lupton (ed.) Risk and Sociocultural Theory: New Directions and Perspectives.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Giddens, Anthony. Beyond Left and Right: The Future of Radical Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994.

Giddens, Anthony. 'Reith Lecture 2: Risk', Vol. 2000. 1999. Accessed 22 July 2014. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/reith_99/week2/week2.htm>

Harvey, David. The Conditions of Postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.

Joffe, H. Risk and 'the Other'. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Luhmann, N. Risk: A Sociological Theory. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1993.

Wells, G. Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment. Rugby: Institute of Chemical Engineers, 1996.