The course is concerned with the relatively new ideas of living in a ‘risk society’ which theoretically capture the heightened sensitivity within Western societies to the numerous ‘risks’ which shape our lives. The course will explore basic concepts of risk, hazard and probability and how risk is managed and communicated. Topics will include risk and globalization, and risk and the media. Developments will be examined through key examples such as ‘mad cow’ disease and genetically modified ‘frankenfoods’. The course will suggest that heightened perception of risk is here to stay, and is leading to a reorganisation of society in important areas.

100% coursework (1,500 word book review or essay [30%]; group risk assessment and presentation [10%], and 2500 word essay [60%])

• Jakob Arnoldi, Risk (Oxford: Polity, 2009)
• Christopher Booker and Richard North, Scared to Death (London Continuum, 2009
• Nick Pidgeon et al.. The Social Amplification of Risk (Cambridge UP, 2003)
• Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, Nudge (London: Penguin 2008)
• Adam Burgess, Cellular Phones, Public Fears and a Culture of Precaution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
• Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky, Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technical and Environmental Dangers (University of California Press, 1982)

See the library reading list for this module

• On successful completion of this module students will be able to: Understand the key concepts associated with the sociology of risk
• Recognise and interpret the key theoretical accounts of risk perception
• Understand how risk has been socially, politically and culturally constructed
• Be able to locate risk perceptions within the context of an understanding of modernity and its social consequences
• Understand the impact of risk perception upon aspects of everyday life
• Understand institutional responses - from risk analysis and management, to broad policy approaches

No pre-requisites