Risk and Values in Contemporary Britain
Title: Risk and Values in Contemporary Britain
Authors: Wylie, Rick & Hague, Rod
Publisher: Newcastle Upon Tyne : Department of Politics, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne in association with Westlakes Research Institute
Published: 2000
Series: Westlakes research monograph ; no.4
ISBN: 1898036306 (pbk)
Price: £17.50
Are changes in contemporary society altering perceptions of risk among the mass public? Is a pervasive awareness of risk becoming the hallmark of our society? And is risk, indeed, the central contradiction of late industrial society? The prominent social theorist Ulrich Beck (1992) claims that technological and cultural changes in contemporary society are making ordinary people more aware of risk. These changes, he argues, are generating a ‘risk society’, which he defines as "...a phase of development of modern society in which the social, political, ecological and individual risks created by the momentum of innovation increasingly elude the control and protective institutions of industrial society." (Beck, 1996:27). On this view, risk is becoming a major concern at many levels: for ordinary individuals, for economic producers, and for governments on whom increasing public demands are being made for protection and regulation.
This study assesses theoretical grounds and empirical evidence for such changes, and how risk is related in changing ways to the formation of public attitudes. In it, we also seek to assess whether, if the public is becoming more risk aware, this necessarily means that people are becoming more risk averse, and what implications might be entailed.