Sociology of Risk

Cyber-security

by Myriam Dunn Cavelty

Forthcoming in: Allan Collins (ed.) Contemporary Security Studies (Oxford University Press 2012)

This chapter analyses why cyber-security is considered one of the key national security issues of our times. The first... more This chapter analyses why cyber-security is considered one of the key national security issues of our times. The first section provides the necessary technical background information. The second unravels three different, but interrelated discourses about cyber-security: discourse number one has a technical focus and is about viruses and worms. Number two looks at the interrelationship between the phenomenon of cyber-crime and cyber-espionage. Number three is a military and civil defence-driven discourse about the double-edged sword of fighting wars in the information domain and the need for critical infrastructure protection. Based on this, the third section turns to selected protection concepts from each of the three discourses. The final section sets the threat into perspective: despite heightened media attention and a general feeling of impending cyber-doom in some government circles, the level of cyber-risk is generally overstated. This has important repercussions for decision-makers and students, which are addressed in the concluding section.

Der Cyber-Krieg der (so) nicht kommt: Erzählte Katastrophen als (Nicht)Wissenspraxis

by Myriam Dunn Cavelty

forthcoming in: Leon Hempel, Marie Bartels (eds), Aufbruch ins Unversicherbare - Zum Katastrophendiskurs der Gegenwart (transcript 2012).

Das vorliegende Kapitel untersucht narrative Praktiken im Fall der Cyber-Apokalypse. Es geht der Frage nach, welche... more Das vorliegende Kapitel untersucht narrative Praktiken im Fall der Cyber-Apokalypse. Es geht der Frage nach, welche Methoden und Praktiken bei der Generierung von Narrationen im politischen Prozess angewandt werden, welche inhaltlichen Ausprägungen diese Narrationen im konkreten Fall aufweisen und was die Konsequenzen solcher Praktiken sind. In einem ersten Kapitel wird die Idee der erzählen Katastrophe näher erläutert und auf ihre spezifischen Merkmale eingegangen. Insbesondere wird die Rolle von Nichtwissen hervorgehoben. Im zweiten Kapitel wird konkreter auf die narrative Praxis von wissenschaftlichen und politischen Erkenntnisgemeinschaften eingegangen. Im abschließenden Kapitel werden die Konsequenzen solcher Prakti-ken diskutiert.

Pandemicity and Severity are Separate Constructs

by Alan Card

Configuring maternal, preborn and infant embodiment

by Deborah Lupton

An increasing literature on the biopolitics of contemporary maternity and on risk society, individualisation and... more An increasing literature on the biopolitics of contemporary maternity and on risk society, individualisation and parenting has demonstrated the increasing emphasis that has been placed upon pregnant women and mothers to take responsibility for the health and welfare of their children. The ideal female ‘reproductive citizen’ is expected to place her children’s health and wellbeing above her own needs and desires. Here the subject positions of the ‘good mother’ and the ‘responsible citizen’ as they are produced through the discourses and practices of neoliberalism intertwine. This paper looks at the convergence of various influential discourses, images, practices and technologies in configuring maternal, preborn and infant bodies in certain ways in the context of neoliberalism. These include such factors as the growing importance of the concept of risk in relation to preborn and infant wellbeing, the extension of infant identity back into preborn bodies, the emergence of the concepts of the foetal and embryonic (and even the preconceived embryonic) citizen, the precious child and intensive parenting and the symbolic concepts of permeability, purity and danger and Self and Other as they relate to maternal, infant and preborn embodiment.

Book Review. Laviolette, P., Extreme Landscapes of Leisure: Not a Hap-Hazardous Sport. London: Ashgate, 2010

by Jonathan Westaway

Book Review
Journal of Tourism History, 2012, 4, (1), 118-120.
DOI:10.1080/1755182X.2012.671498

Review: Karen Lund Petersen, 2012. Corporate Risk and National Security Redefined. London: Routledge.

by Jonas Hagmann

Forthcoming in: Cambridge Review of International Affairs

Concerns with terrorism not only have a profound impact on Western security policies, they also affect the internal... more Concerns with terrorism not only have a profound impact on Western security policies, they also affect the internal political organisation of Western polities as such, with private actors being increasingly enlisted directly in the fight against terrorism. Karen Lund Petersen’s book is dedicated to such governmental attempts at ‘responsibilising’ companies. Looking at how politicians in Denmark and the United States formulate the need for society-wide responses to the risk of terrorism, her book analyses how novel conceptualisations of the private sector’s role in national security are projected onto the market, and how companies respond to such ideas.

"L'incertitude comme menace"

by Claude-Olivier Doron

Draft to be published in Deprins, D. (ed.), Parier sur l'incertitude, Bruxelles, Bruylant, 2012

Through an analysis focusing on penal policies and how they deal with "uncertainty", this article wants to... more Through an analysis focusing on penal policies and how they deal with "uncertainty", this article wants to distinguish between different ways of perceiving and governing uncertainty, what we call different "rationalities" dealing with uncertainty.

If San Gennaro is not enough. How the Italian press covered and framed the 2008 Naples’ waste emergency.

by Giuseppe Tipaldo

accepted @ PCST 2012 - Florence - 18-20 April 2012
Panel Media Coverage of Health and Food Issues

The paper is first of all concerned on the analysis of the Italian press communication during the 2008 waste emergency... more The paper is first of all concerned on the analysis of the Italian press communication during the 2008 waste emergency in the city of Naples. Data are analysed using a combination of content analysis and textual data mining techniques to underline the main strategies used by seven of the Italian main newspapers (Repubblica, Corriere della Sera, La Stampa, Il Sole 24 Ore, Il Giornale, Il Mattino, La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno) to cover and frame the issue as long as to critically discuss the role of mass media in technoscientific controversies.
As a part of a still on-going 5-years research conducted on the social impact of the under- contruction co-incineration plant in the city of Turin, data from the mass media analysis are cross tabulated with those coming from a panel survey and some focus groups in order to give empirical evidences of the effects of the coverage on public opinion.
The work demonstrates a highly emphasized and dramatized communication has been set up by the Italian newspapers, which described the Naples’ waste emergency as a “new Chernobyl”, whose solely solution was the co-incineration, without giving enough space to alternative solutions. By making the local emergency a sort of Hirschman’s «catalytic event» nation-wide, mass media have strongly influenced public opinion in a short term perspective, increasing the number of people agreed with waste incineration. Otherwise, in a wider-time perspective, such an oversimplistic technoscientific communication only led to a waste of institutional trust, mainly in expertise and mass media.
Accordingly to the empirical evidences, considerations on what could be quality, honesty and beauty in technoscience communication, and, more in general, on the importance of journalism’s trustworthy as a (presently frail) trait d’union between lay public and expertise are made in the conclusions.

Among «Bananas» and «Backyards»: what lays behind the opposition to mega-buildings projects?

by Giuseppe Tipaldo

accepted @ 8th National Conference of Sociologists of Environment - Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Brescia - 23-24 September 2011

Based on social impact research and the possible NIMBY-effect of the Turin, Italy co-incinerator, this paper deals... more Based on social impact research and the possible NIMBY-effect of the Turin, Italy co-incinerator, this paper deals with risk perception, scientific literacy and their influence on attitude towards high-tech and controversial industrial plants.
The paper argues that plant and infrastructure settlements having a substantial ecological impact represent a highly sophisticated and diverse social phenomenon in which risk plays an important but not unique role. Taking into account some important concomitant variables (such as trust, mass media use, political culture in decision-making processes), it is first of all shown that risk is not a mono-dimensional concept, as is assumed by the psychometric tradition, and that two dimensions of the concept are to be found. The first “collective” dimension has a positive monotonic association with a critical attitude towards the co-incinerator, whereas the second and “individual” dimension has an unexpectedly negative correlation. It also demonstrates that scientific literacy has no statistical significance for attitude in our model, confirming the well-known limits of the so called “knowledge deficit” model.

«Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody!» Opposition against waste management projects: is there a lack of «civic culture»?

by Giuseppe Tipaldo

accepted @ International Conference on Integrated Urban Solid Waste Management, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa - 14-15 June 2011
Topic: Social acceptability of waste management systems

When properly overlayed on a territorial map of Italy, the data developed each year by the Nimby Forum  shows... more When properly overlayed on a territorial map of Italy, the data developed each year by the Nimby Forum  shows that some form of protest exists for every major public work project in Italy. With increasing media interest in this theme, “NIMBY syndrome” (an idiomatic expression for “Not  In My Backyard”) has been used to describe this phenomonon and has now become part of everyday language, hinting that allegedly egotistical and localistic interests lay behind every oppositional reaction. Thus explaining away these protests as a sort of “civic culture” deficit.  Based on a more longitudinal research project still underway , this study intends to delve into the relationship existing between “civic culture” and local opposition to major public works by empirically studying the first waste co-incinerator project in Turin, Italy. Using a multitecniques approach, an extensive data set is laid out and analysed, the total evidence of which appears to define the limits of the “culturalist” explanation, even with notable differences between the levels of civic values (or civicness), social networks and trust.

Fear of the fire. The uneasy connection between Environmental Culture and Society in Waste Management in Italy

by Giuseppe Tipaldo

accepted @ ESA 2011 Conferenze - 7-10 September 2011
Panel Environmental Attitudes, Values and Awarness

Uberrima Fides, Foucault and the Security of Uncertainty

by Luis Lobo-Guerrero

Uberrima Fides is a legal doctrine that governs insurance contracts and expects all parties to the insurance agreement... more Uberrima Fides is a legal doctrine that governs insurance contracts and expects all parties to the insurance agreement to act in good faith by declaring all material facts relative to a policy. The doctrine originated in England in 1766 with the case Carter v Boehm ruled by Lord Mansfield. Ever since, it has become, with some differences in interpretation, a cornerstone of insurance relationships around the world. The role that trust plays within it, however, is not simple and should not be taken for granted. While it is expected that an idea of trust represents an order of truth, trust in itself is the outcome of a complex negotiation of moral orders. Semiotically, trust operates here not as a Kantian category for the understanding but as a signifier of an order of truth that upholds the possibility for insurance relationships. Trust, as sign, operates as a condition of possibility for the performance of insurance. In this article, a Foucaultian approach is employed to problematise the idea of trust and its role in insurance relationships. The case of mis-selling of insurance policies in the United Kingdom since the 1980s, which has given rise to numerous legal rulings, is used as the empirical site for the problematisation.

Making sense of melancholy: Sub-categorisation and the perceived risk of future depression

by Tamara Kayali

Co-authored with Furhan Iqbal. published in Health, Risk & Society, 14: 2, 171-189.

This paper investigates the relationship between an individual’s experience of depression and her conceptualisation of... more This paper investigates the relationship between an individual’s experience of depression and her conceptualisation of its role in her life and sense of identity. Based on a mixed methods study involving interviews with 37 women diagnosed with unipolar or bipolar depression, the findings indicate that women who considered most of their episodes to have been triggered by events or circumstances in their lives were more likely to believe that their depression could in future be overcome, whereas those who did not consider the majority of their episodes to have been triggered were more likely to believe their depression to be chronic. Thus, women who participated in the study perceived the risk that they might never be able to overcome depression differently according to whether they believed most of their depressive episodes could be categorised as having been triggered or not. The reasons behind their beliefs are explored. Implications for the traditional medical exogenous–endogenous (reactive–endogenous) distinction are discussed.

Risk as Moral Danger: the Social and Political Functions of Risk Discourse in Public Health

by Deborah Lupton

Infinitesimal risk as public health crisis: News media coverage of a doctor-patient HIV contact tracing investigation

by Deborah Lupton

(2012) Un exemple d'écosophie des risques industriels

by Tobias Girard

Published in "Chimères", 76, 2012, p. 41-52.

En prenant appui sur une enquête anthropologique de terrain réalisée de 2005 à 2007 dans la zone industrielle de... more En prenant appui sur une enquête anthropologique de terrain réalisée de 2005 à 2007 dans la zone industrielle de Marseille/Fos-sur-Mer, cet article propose quelques exemples pour illustrer les manières dont différents dispositifs de sécurité peuvent articuler des questions techniques, liées à la nature des menaces, avec des enjeux de pouvoir, des visions du monde et des rapports sociaux, des manières de traiter les informations ou de composer avec une émotion comme la peur. Ces dispositifs étant eux-mêmes instables, nous verrons ensuite comment leur détraquement peut paradoxalement assurer le fonctionnement de la société de contrôle des risques.

Seeking health information on the internet: lifestyle choice or bad attack of cyberchondria?

by Tania Lewis

DIY selves?: Reflexivity and habitus in young people's use of the internet for health information

by Tania Lewis

Food, risk and subjectivity.

by Deborah Lupton

In Williams, S., Gabe, J. and Calnan, M. (2000) (eds), Health,Medicine and Society: Key Theories, Future Agendas. London: Routledge, pp. 205--18.

Pleasure, aggression and fear: the driving experiences of young Sydneysiders. .

by Deborah Lupton

In Mitchell, W. and Bunton, R. (2004) (eds), Young People, Risk and Leisure: Constructing Identities in Everyday Life. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 27—42