Media amplification under the floodlight: Contextualizing 20 years of US risk news.

IF 3 3区医学 Q1 MATHEMATICS, INTERDISCIPLINARY APPLICATIONS

Risk Analysis Pub Date : 2025-02-05 DOI:10.1111/risa.17701

Cormac Bryce, Michael Dowling, Suwan Cheng Long, Jamie K Wardman

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

This paper addresses the question of identifying and distinguishing risk amplification incidents and patterns in the news media. To meet this objective, our study incorporates a novel "floodlight" approach utilizing the Society for Risk Analysis Glossary in conjunction with topic modeling and time-series analysis, to investigate risk-focused stories within a corpus of 271,854 US news articles over the past two decades. We find that risk amplification in the US news media is concentrated around seven core risk news categories-business, domestic affairs, entertainment, environment, geopolitics, health, and technology-which also vary in the risk-related terms that they predominantly employ. We also identify 14 signal events that can be distinguished relative to general risk news within their categories. Across these events, the "War on Terror" and COVID-19 are seen to display uniquely dynamic media reporting patterns, including a systemic influence between risk news categories and the attenuation of other risk news. We discuss possible explanations for these findings along with their wider research and policy implications.

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来源期刊

Risk Analysis 数学-数学跨学科应用

CiteScore

7.50

自引率

10.50%

发文量

183

审稿时长

4.2 months

期刊介绍： Published on behalf of the Society for Risk Analysis, Risk Analysis is ranked among the top 10 journals in the ISI Journal Citation Reports under the social sciences, mathematical methods category, and provides a focal point for new developments in the field of risk analysis. This international peer-reviewed journal is committed to publishing critical empirical research and commentaries dealing with risk issues. The topics covered include: • Human health and safety risks • Microbial risks • Engineering • Mathematical modeling • Risk characterization • Risk communication • Risk management and decision-making • Risk perception, acceptability, and ethics • Laws and regulatory policy • Ecological risks.