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Articles 1 - 30 of 35
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
The Relation Of Communication To Risk Judgment And Preventive Behavior Related To Lead In Tap Water, Robert Griffin, Sharon Dunwoody
The Relation Of Communication To Risk Judgment And Preventive Behavior Related To Lead In Tap Water, Robert Griffin, Sharon Dunwoody
Robert Griffin
More and more communities are becoming concerned about health risks posed by lead and other health hazards in their drinking water. Our study, applying the model of innovation diffusion to the adoption of preventive health behaviors, found that reliance on health professionals for information about lead in tap water was associated with residents perceiving risk from this hazard, their sense of efficacy in dealing with it, and their adoption of preventive behaviors. Mass media and pamphlets mailed directly to residents were relatively ineffective. Results suggest that interpersonal channels may be the best way to reach individuals who live in areas …
Information Sufficiency And Risk Communication, Robert Griffin, Kurt Neuwirth, Sharon Dunwoody, James K. Giese
Information Sufficiency And Risk Communication, Robert Griffin, Kurt Neuwirth, Sharon Dunwoody, James K. Giese
Robert Griffin
In an effort to better understand individuals' use of information in risky situations, in this article we propose a new variable, information sufficiency, as an important component of people's information-seeking behaviors. We surveyed residents of 2 Great Lakes cities to test the ability of a group of factors often employed in risk communication studies to predict information sufficiency, defined as a person's sense of how much information he or she needs to cope with a risk. We found that 2 predictors of this perceived gap in information were an individual's worry about the risk and the perception that others would …
Studying Heuristic-Systematic Processing Of Risk Communication, Lee Ann Kahlor, Sharon Dunwoody, Robert Griffin, Kurt Neuwirth, James Giese
Studying Heuristic-Systematic Processing Of Risk Communication, Lee Ann Kahlor, Sharon Dunwoody, Robert Griffin, Kurt Neuwirth, James Giese
Robert Griffin
Using a model of risk information seeking and processing developed by Griffin, Dunwoody, and Neuwirth (1999), this study looks at predictors of the processing strategies that people apply to health risk information. Specifically, this article focuses on one relationship within the model—the relationship between perceived amount of information needed to deal with a risk and heuristic-systematic processing. Perceived amount of information needed refers to the gap between one's understanding of a risk and the level of understanding that one needs in order to make a decision about that risk. Building on the work of Chaiken (cf. 1980), the Griffin et …
Communication And The Adoption Of Energy Conservation Measures By The Elderly, Robert Griffin
Communication And The Adoption Of Energy Conservation Measures By The Elderly, Robert Griffin
Robert Griffin
A four-wave panel study was conducted in a Midwest community to determine the relationship of communication to adoption of energy conservation behavior among homeowners. Special attention was paid to the communication and energy use constraints faced by the elderly. Analysis indicates that younger respondents adopted actions to save energy in the home at a faster rate than did older respondents. This study found that energy-related content in the mass media bears stronger relationships with the perceived importance of the energy problem than with adoption of energy conservation behavior. The latter is associated more strongly with utility pamphlet reading, information requests, …
Proposed Model Of The Relationship Of Risk Information Seeking And Processing To The Development Of Preventive Behaviors, Robert Griffin, Sharon Dunwoody, Kurt Neuwirth
Proposed Model Of The Relationship Of Risk Information Seeking And Processing To The Development Of Preventive Behaviors, Robert Griffin, Sharon Dunwoody, Kurt Neuwirth
Robert Griffin
We articulate a model that focuses on characteristics of individuals that might predispose them to seek and process information about health in different ways. Specifically, the model proposes that seven factors—(1) individual characteristics, (2) perceived hazard characteristics, (3) affective response to the risk, (4) felt social pressures to possess relevant information, (5) information sufficiency, (6) one's personal capacity to learn, (7) beliefs about the usefulness of information in various channels—will influence the extent to which a person will seek out this risk information in both routine and nonroutine channels and the extent to which he or she will spend time …
The Impact Of Risk Message Content And Construction On Comments About Risks Embedded In 'Letters To Friends', Sharon Dunwoody, Kurt Neuwirth, Robert Griffin, Marilee Long
The Impact Of Risk Message Content And Construction On Comments About Risks Embedded In 'Letters To Friends', Sharon Dunwoody, Kurt Neuwirth, Robert Griffin, Marilee Long
Robert Griffin
In an effort to examine the ways in which content and framing components of mediated risk messages influence individuals' cognitive and affective responses, this study asked university students to read and respond to two risk stories that varied along four dimensions: level of risk expressed, severity of health symptoms experienced as a result of the risk, presence/absence of 'risk' in the headline, and vividness of story lead. Subjects, after reading the stories, were asked to write about the risks in letters to friends who were likely to encounter those risks themselves. Content analysis of the letters then isolated statements of …
Environmental Impact: University Programs In Journalism, Robert Griffin, Clay Schoenfeld
Environmental Impact: University Programs In Journalism, Robert Griffin, Clay Schoenfeld
Robert Griffin
No abstract provided.
Impacts Of Information Subsidies And Community Structure On Local Press Coverage Of Environmental Contamination, Robert Griffin, Sharon Dunwoody
Impacts Of Information Subsidies And Community Structure On Local Press Coverage Of Environmental Contamination, Robert Griffin, Sharon Dunwoody
Robert Griffin
An analysis of 373 daily newspapers in the Midwest found that community structure and an information subsidy from an environmental group affected press coverage of a story about pollution from industrial toxins. A press kit the group sent to some newspapers appears to have influenced the papers to run a story on industrial toxic releases, but it primarily prompted editors to delegate local staff to cover the story. Results indicate that the press' function to report or raise issues concerning industrial toxic releases and related health risks is tempered by community structure and particularly by community reliance on manufacturing.
Seeking And Processing Information About Impersonal Risk, Lee Ann Kahlor, Sharon Dunwoody, Robert Griffin, Kurt Neuwirth
Seeking And Processing Information About Impersonal Risk, Lee Ann Kahlor, Sharon Dunwoody, Robert Griffin, Kurt Neuwirth
Robert Griffin
Attempts to model risk response tend to focus on risks that pose a direct personal threat. This study examined the applicability of one risk response model to impersonal risks—risks that threaten something other than the self, in this case, the environment. This study utilized a section of the Griffin et al. risk-information seeking and processing model, which depicts relationships between informational subjective norms and information seeking and processing as being mediated by perceptions of information insufficiency. The results indicate that while those relationships do hold for impersonal risk, informational subjective norms (perceived social pressure to be informed) may play an …
Protection Motivation And Risk Communication, Kurt Neuwirth, Sharon Dunwoody, Robert Griffin
Protection Motivation And Risk Communication, Kurt Neuwirth, Sharon Dunwoody, Robert Griffin
Robert Griffin
The purpose of this study was to explore the utility of protection motivation theory (PMT) in the context of mass media reports about a hazard. Content elements of a hazard's severity, likelihood of occurring, and the effectiveness of preventive actions were systematically varied in a news story about a fabricated risk: exposure to fluorescent lighting lowering academic performance. Results of this experiment (N = 206) suggest that providing information about the severity of a hazard's consequences produces greater information seeking. In addition, information about levels of risk, severity, and efficacy combined jointly to produce greater rates of willingness to take …
Journalists, Cognition, And The Presentation Of An Epidemiologic Study, Craig Trumbo, Sharon Dunwoody, Robert Griffin
Journalists, Cognition, And The Presentation Of An Epidemiologic Study, Craig Trumbo, Sharon Dunwoody, Robert Griffin
Robert Griffin
Cognitive processes can inform an understanding of newswork. In this case study, the authors examine a growing literature relating cognitive theories to newsmaking and then apply some of the principles in that literature to media coverage of EPA-mandated reformulated gasoline in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In an analysis of how local Milwaukee television news presented an epidemiologic study answering health complaints associated with the gasoline additive, the authors find a number of cognitive processes at work, especially those involving bias and error. Finally, the authors consider implications of such processes for newsmaking.
Causal Communication: Movie Portrayals And Audience Attributions For Vietnam Veterans' Problems, Robert Griffin, Shaikat Sen
Causal Communication: Movie Portrayals And Audience Attributions For Vietnam Veterans' Problems, Robert Griffin, Shaikat Sen
Robert Griffin
This study applies attribution theory to field research into communication and public perceptions of a social group. In particular, audience viewing of various popular Vietnam War films related to attributions audiences made for readjustment problems facing some Vietnam veterans, which in turn related to public opinion about government assistance to Vietnam veterans. Results also suggest that mass media might play a role in the social definition of the meaning of the Vietnam War as the United States comes to closure on that episode in history.
Risk Information Seeking Among U.S. And Dutch Residents: An Application Of The Model Of Risk Information Seeking And Processing, Ellen Ter Huurne, Robert Griffin, Jan Gutteling
Risk Information Seeking Among U.S. And Dutch Residents: An Application Of The Model Of Risk Information Seeking And Processing, Ellen Ter Huurne, Robert Griffin, Jan Gutteling
Robert Griffin
The model of risk information seeking and processing (RISP) proposes characteristics of individuals that might predispose them to seek risk information. The intent of this study is to test the model’s robustness across two independent samples in different nations. Based on data from the United States and the Netherlands, the causal structure involving the impact of different predictors of seeking information was evaluated. In addition, the direct contributions of informational subjective norms and affective responses to the seeking of additional risk information were tested. Results indicate that the RISP model has international validity and that the newly proposed paths are …
Predicting Knowledge Complexity In The Wake Of An Environmental Risk, Lee Ann Kahlor, Sharon Dunwoody, Robert Griffin
Predicting Knowledge Complexity In The Wake Of An Environmental Risk, Lee Ann Kahlor, Sharon Dunwoody, Robert Griffin
Robert Griffin
In 1993, the parasite cryptosporidium infested the Milwaukee-area drinking supply and sickened some 400,000 people. This study uses survey data gathered from 610 residents in the wake of that outbreak to look at predictors of the complexity of people’s understanding of two causal components of the outbreak: (1) how the parasite got into the water and (2) how it caused illness in the human body. Analysis of open-ended data indicated that, consistent with the predictors used in the knowledge gap literature, indicators of socioeconomic status are significant predictors of differences in explanatory complexity. Also, consistent with the literature on motivation …
Balancing Flood Control And Ecological Preservation/Restoration Of Urban Watersheds, Vladimir Novotny, D. Clark, Robert Griffin, Alena Bartosova
Balancing Flood Control And Ecological Preservation/Restoration Of Urban Watersheds, Vladimir Novotny, D. Clark, Robert Griffin, Alena Bartosova
Robert Griffin
No abstract provided.
Energy In The Eighties: Education, Communication, And The Knowledge Gap, Robert Griffin
Energy In The Eighties: Education, Communication, And The Knowledge Gap, Robert Griffin
Robert Griffin
A four-wave panel study of West Allis, Wisconsin, homeowners, conducted from 1981 to 1986, found some evidence of a relationship between education and knowledge of energy issues, especially among the more educated readers of newspaper energy stories. There was some tendency—although not strong—for an initial knowledge gap: the more educated seemed to learn more than did the less educated at first. This difference diminished over the period of the study, a pattern that appears consistent with decreasing media attention to the energy issue during that time. Some other results of this study suggest that further research is warranted into the …
Using Systematic Thinking To Choose And Evaluate Evidence, Robert Griffin
Using Systematic Thinking To Choose And Evaluate Evidence, Robert Griffin
Robert Griffin
No abstract provided.
Risk Communication, Risk Beliefs, And Democracy: The Case Of Agricultural Biotechnology, Robert Griffin
Risk Communication, Risk Beliefs, And Democracy: The Case Of Agricultural Biotechnology, Robert Griffin
Robert Griffin
No abstract provided.
Linking The Heuristic-Systematic Model And Depth Of Processing, Robert Griffin, Kurt Neuwirth, James K. Giese, Sharon Dunwoody
Linking The Heuristic-Systematic Model And Depth Of Processing, Robert Griffin, Kurt Neuwirth, James K. Giese, Sharon Dunwoody
Robert Griffin
This study draws a nexus between heuristic-systematic information processing and the theory of planned behavior through a model of risk information seeking and processing. The model proposes that the form of information processing individuals apply to risk information from the media and other sources affects beliefs, evaluations, and attitudes considered important to making judgments about performing risk-reducing behaviors. This study found that deeper, more systematic processing of risk information is positively related to evaluation strength, attitude strength, and the number of strongly held behavioral beliefs actively considered by respondents when thinking about environmental hazards. The relationships were consistent, appearing across …
After The Flood: Anger, Attribution, And The Seeking Of Information, Robert Griffin, Zheng Yang, Ellen Ter Huurne, Francesca Boerner, Sherry Ortiz, Sharon Dunwoody
After The Flood: Anger, Attribution, And The Seeking Of Information, Robert Griffin, Zheng Yang, Ellen Ter Huurne, Francesca Boerner, Sherry Ortiz, Sharon Dunwoody
Robert Griffin
In an effort to understand what motivates people to attend to information about flood risks, this study applies the Risk Information Seeking and Processing model to explore how local residents responded to damaging river flooding in the Milwaukee area. The results indicate that anger at managing agencies was associated with the desire for information and active information seeking and processing, as well as with greater risk judgment of harm from future flooding, greater sense of personal efficacy, lower institutional trust, and causal attributions for flood losses as being due to poor government management.
Exploring Lay Uncertainty About An Environmental Health Risk, Maria Powell, Sharon Dunwoody, Robert Griffin, Kurt Neuwirth
Exploring Lay Uncertainty About An Environmental Health Risk, Maria Powell, Sharon Dunwoody, Robert Griffin, Kurt Neuwirth
Robert Griffin
How do laypeople perceive uncertainties about environmental health risks? How do risk-related cognitions and emotions influence these uncertainties, and what roles do sociodemographic and contextual factors, risk judgments, and information exposures play? This study explores these questions using secondary analyses of survey data. Results suggest that uncertainty reflects individual-level emotions and cognitions, but may also be shaped by a variety of social and contextual factors. Emotions (worry and anger) are strongly associated with perceived uncertainty, and perceived lack of knowledge and perceived likelihood of becoming ill are weakly associated with it. Several demographic variables, information exposures, and risk judgment variables …
Public Perceptions Of The Midwest's Pavements: Explaining The Relationship Between Pavement Quality And Driver Satisfaction, James K. Giese, Robert Griffin, David Kuemmel
Public Perceptions Of The Midwest's Pavements: Explaining The Relationship Between Pavement Quality And Driver Satisfaction, James K. Giese, Robert Griffin, David Kuemmel
Robert Griffin
A three-phase study involving focus groups and sample surveys was conducted in three Midwestern states to assess the amount of satisfaction that motorists who drive on rural, two-lane state highways have with the pavement characteristics of those highways and to explain the relationship between the actual physical condition of the pavements and motorists' satisfaction. Consistently in each state, the direct relationship between pavement quality and driver satisfaction was mediated by cognitive structure—a set of five specific beliefs motorists have about the pavement. The part of the study that (a) applies a powerful psychological model to the task of understanding motorists' …
Attributions In Explanations Of Risk Estimates, Lee Ann Kahlor, Sharon Dunwoody, Robert Griffin
Attributions In Explanations Of Risk Estimates, Lee Ann Kahlor, Sharon Dunwoody, Robert Griffin
Robert Griffin
In the spring of 1993, nearly 40 percent of Milwaukee-area residents experienced a nationally publicized outbreak of cryptosporidium, a parasite that infested the metropolitan drinking water supply. Using open-ended survey data gathered from 610 adult residents in the wake of that outbreak, this study looks at factors related to the ways in which people make sense of their quantitative personal risk estimates. The concepts of informal reasoning and attribution aided this endeavor. Analysis of open-ended comments about the risk of getting ill from a waterborne parasite indicated that explanations of personal risk were consistent with predictions made by attribution theory. …
Constructing A Social Problem: The Press And The Environment, A. Clay Schoenfeld, Robert F. Meier, Robert J. Griffin
Constructing A Social Problem: The Press And The Environment, A. Clay Schoenfeld, Robert F. Meier, Robert J. Griffin
Robert Griffin
The U. S. daily press might seem to be in a strategic position to function as a claims-maker in the early construction of a social problem. But in the case of the manufacture of environmentalism as a social reality in the 1960's and 70's, the press was fairly slow to adopt a holistic environmental lexicon. Its reporting of environmental news even now only partially reflects concepts promoted by positive environmental claims-makers, such as planet-wide interdependence, and the threats to it by destructive technologies. The movement of environmental claims seems to have started with interest-group entrepreneurship using interpersonal communication and independent …
Public Reliance On Risk Communication Channels In The Wake Of A Cryptosporidium Outbreak, Robert Griffin, Sharon Dunwoody, Fernando Zabala
Public Reliance On Risk Communication Channels In The Wake Of A Cryptosporidium Outbreak, Robert Griffin, Sharon Dunwoody, Fernando Zabala
Robert Griffin
In the spring of 1993, about 39% of Milwaukee-area residents suffered through a nationally publicized illness brought about by cryptosporidium, a parasite that had infested the metropolitan drinking water supply. Our study, based on a telephone survey of 610 local adult residents, indicates that worry about becoming ill in the future with cryptosporidiosis relates more strongly and consistently to public reliance on, and use of, media for cryptosporidium information than do a range of risk perception and experience variables. We propose that more studies should take an audience-centered approach to understanding risk communication.
Communication And Energy Conservation, Jack Mcleod, Carroll Glynn, Robert Griffin
Communication And Energy Conservation, Jack Mcleod, Carroll Glynn, Robert Griffin
Robert Griffin
Surveys of homeowners in two Wisconsin communities examined the relationship of media use to a set of cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral components of energy conservation. The perceived importance of the energy issue was associated with media use in both communities. In addition, this relationship was stronger the more energy related the communication variable. Communication did not, however, relate consistently to energy behavior. Utility pamphlets had opposite relationships with energy conservation across communities. It is suggested that conservation campaigns must take into account the communication and energy use environment of specific groups of consumers, and that research into the impact of …
Community Structure And Science Framing Of News About Local Environmental Risks, Robert Griffin, Sharon Dunwoody
Community Structure And Science Framing Of News About Local Environmental Risks, Robert Griffin, Sharon Dunwoody
Robert Griffin
When newspapers cover stories about environmental pollution, the nature of the community they serve can indirectly influence the contents of that coverage. This article describes research showing that newspapers in pluralistic (i.e., usually larger) communities are more likely than papers in homogeneous (i.e., usually smaller) communities to interpret the pollution as a science story. Framing a pollution incident as a science story makes it more likely that the story will link the pollution to health effects, especially when (1) newspapers in pluralistic communities are dealing with a local polluter, and (2) newspapers in homogeneous communities are writing about pollution problems …
Ecology And Environment: They've Been Integrated Into J-Education Thinking, Clay Schoenfeld, Robert J. Griffin
Ecology And Environment: They've Been Integrated Into J-Education Thinking, Clay Schoenfeld, Robert J. Griffin
Robert Griffin
The article focuses on the impact of ecology and the environment on journalism education. Environmental concerns have measurably affected curricula, internships, public service programs and professional liaisons in journalism education. Environmentally-related breadth courses are required or primarily, optional in 28 percent of the programs, with about 68 percent of those programs requiring or recommending traditional, natural science-oriented environmental courses, and 45 percent including those with social science orientation, perhaps reflecting the social overtones of environmental problems made salient by the environmental era.
The Effects Of Community Pluralism On Press Coverage Of Health Risks From Local Environmental Contamination, Robert Griffin, Sharon Dunwoody, Christine Gehrmann
The Effects Of Community Pluralism On Press Coverage Of Health Risks From Local Environmental Contamination, Robert Griffin, Sharon Dunwoody, Christine Gehrmann
Robert Griffin
Based on the conflict/consensus model of Tichenor, Donohue and Olien, we proposed that mass mediated information signalling that local agents are contaminating the local environment and posing health risks is conflict-generating information and, therefore, will be controlled in the interest of community stability. We expected such control to vary by community structure. A content analysis of nine months of coverage by 19 newspapers supported the hypothesis that papers in more pluralistic communities were more likely than papers in less pluralistic communities to link contamination from local agents to threats to human health in the community and to frame such stories …
Promises And Challenges Of Teaching Statistical Reasoning To Journalism Undergraduates: Twin Surveys Of Department Heads, 1997 And 2008, Robert Griffin, Sharon Dunwoody
Promises And Challenges Of Teaching Statistical Reasoning To Journalism Undergraduates: Twin Surveys Of Department Heads, 1997 And 2008, Robert Griffin, Sharon Dunwoody
Robert Griffin
This research is dedicated to the memory of Victor Cohn, former science reporter for the Washington Post and often considered the dean of science writers, who collaborated on the first wave of the survey. The 1997 survey was supported by a grant from the American Statistical Association and the 2008 survey by a grant from the Communication graduate program at Marquette University. Special thanks to research assistants Kathryn Zabriskie and Gongke Li for their valuable help in the survey. The analyses and conclusions are solely those of the authors.