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Radiation Protection Dosimetry 62:107-111 (1995)
© 1995 Oxford University Press
Public Information Strategies
The Chernobyl accident in 1986 uncovered serious information problems in many Western countries, and started a debate on crisis communication and information strategies in relation to radiation danger in society. The information problem focuses on four main perspectives. The first is related to information as a persuasion process in which an efficient strategy would influence both the public's knowledge of radiation danger, their attitude towards it and their behaviour. The second perspective calls attention to the importance of the different elements of the information process. How important are different types of information, what is this issue all about, why is the situation as it is, and how should people behave to protect themselves? The fourth perspective points to the various phases of a crisis. The information needed is obviously not the same in the period before a crisis emerges when no one knows what is going to happen, in the warning period when one knows that something may happen, and during the crisis itself.