A Qualitative Approach to the Social Semantics of Risk
Abstract
This paper studies the social semantics of risk. After summing up the modern history of risk it proposes that in the academic literature appears as a heterogeneous concept in which at least four different dimensions are typically considered (temporal, ontological, cognitive and practical). Research on risk social semantics is not yet enough developed. To progress in this field, this paper shows the results of a qualitative research by means of discussion groups. The discursive material provided by the research was subjected to a structural analysis. The main results are as follows: the social concept of risk contrasts risk and safety, and highlights, with different dramatism, its ambivalence (damage vs. opportunity). The distinctions that allow to qualify and assess the risks are spatial-temporal (proximity vs. distance), ontological (real vs. constructible), practical (control vs. lack of control) and cognitive (uncertainty vs. probability).
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