title: Outrage Factors in Government Press Releases of Food Risk and Their Influence on News Media Coverage.
abstract: An appropriate level of risk perception should be a critical issue in modern "risk society." There have been many studies on the influences on risk perception. This study investigates whether risk communication scholar Dr. Peter Sandman's outrage factors intensify journalistic attention to health risks from food consumption. A content analysis of a health institution's press releases was conducted to examine 15 outrage factors of food risks conveyed in the governmental risk communication. In addition, the news stories covering the food risks informed by the press releases were calculated to evaluate the relation between outrage factors of a risk and the number of news stories covering the risk. Results showed that controllability was the most salient outrage factor, followed by trust, voluntariness, familiarity, and human origin; the greater the outrage score of a risk, the more news stories of the risk. For individual outrage factors, a risk with an implication of catastrophic potential was associated with an increase of news stories. Food providers' distrustful behaviors also influenced journalistic attention to the food risks. The implication of the findings to health message designers is discussed.
authors.affiliation: a School of Communication , Hallym University , Chuncheon , Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Youngkee
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ju
authors.forename: Jeongsub
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.forename: Minsun
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shim
authors.forename: Myoungsoon
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: You
mesh_terms: D005502:Food / Q000009:adverse effects*; D006076:Government; D006801:Humans; D008402:Mass Media / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D018570:Risk Assessment; D014481:United States