City Research Online

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 fourteen 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.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Bryce, C. ORCID: 0000-0002-9856-7851, Dowling, M., Long, S. & Wardman, J. K. (2024). Media amplification under the floodlight: Contextualising 20 years of US risk news. Risk Analysis which will be published in final form at onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15396924. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited.
Publisher Keywords:	media; risk communication; social amplification of risk; topic modeling
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HG Finance
Departments:	Bayes Business School Bayes Business School > Actuarial Science & Insurance
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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