Medusa and Pandora meet the web 2.0: How risk types influence the communication in social media

Risk communication is an important branch of technical communication: Innovative technologies need to be communicated to the general public; concerns of relevant stakeholders need to be addressed. Such concerns can be identified in topic-related comments in social media. This paper presents the results of a study on how people evaluate technologies that are characterized by as different risk types. Two examples of technology-induced risks types are examined: (1) The ubiquitous and persistent impacts of hydraulic fracturing (risk type: Pandora). (2) The consequences with high exposure but little damage potential of a local infrastructure project aiming at the introduction of a light-rail system (risk type: Medusa). Risk-relevant comments were identified automatically using a topic tracking approach based on dictionaries of risk-related terms. The identified comments were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively with regard to comment types, formulation styles, evaluation types, evaluated aspects and objects of comparison. The results show that the type of risk influences which aspects of a technology users evaluate and how they formulate evaluations. The findings are discussed with respect to implications for risk communication.