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Elite Ideology and Risk Perception in Nuclear Energy Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 1987

Stanley Rothman  and
S. Robert Lichter
Stanley Rothman
Affiliation:
Smith College
S. Robert Lichter
Affiliation:
George Washington University
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Abstract

Changing U.S. attitudes toward new technologies are examined, as are explanations of such changes. We hypothesize that increased concern with the risks of new technologies by certain elite groups is partly a surrogate for underlying ideological criticisms of U.S. society. The question of risk is examined within the framework of the debate over nuclear energy. Studies of various leadership groups are used to demonstrate the ideological component of risk assessment. Studies of scientists' and journalists' attitudes, media coverage of nuclear energy, and public perception of scientists' views suggest both that journalists' ideologies influence their coverage of nuclear energy and that media coverage of the issue is partly responsible for public misperceptions of the views of scientists. We conclude with a discussion of the historical development of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s and the relation of this movement to the public's declining support for nuclear energy.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 81 , Issue 2 , June 1987 , pp. 383 - 404
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1987

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