Communicating about Risk

Abstract

Understanding the risks we face requires communication on many levels. On the technical level, we need to understand the basic concepts of risk, including probability and randomness. Often, these more technical aspects of the concept of risk are obscured by our use of the term in subtly different contexts, and with different meanings implied. An important first step to effective communication about risk is to understand the various meanings of the word “risk”. We then need to be specific about how we use these meanings in the context of communication. We also communicate about technical factors that cause, or expose us to risk, including various notions of cause and effect in the risk domain. Because of the complexities involved, such communication must invariably take into account uncertainty due to knowledge imperfections.