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About
I’m Professor of Risk Research, specialising in sociological studies of risk behaviours and anxieties, and the role of media, and social and political institutions in the making of risk perceptions and controversies. My work concerns how we think about the future – what may happen – and what this tells us about ourselves and our society. I follow developments in a whole range of areas from food risk, to terrorism, to fears for child safety, lifestyle risks and harm reduction, and others. I do this from an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing particularly on insights from the ‘risk society’ and cultural approaches.
I became interested in risk in the 1980s when – though issues such as AIDS, food poisoning and ‘dangerous dogs’ - it began to become a part of public discourse and policy, and impact upon social behaviour. This new risk aversion was particularly striking in a nation that identifies itself through resilience; to ‘keep calm and carry on’. I was also intrigued as it appeared to follow a pattern set by the US a decade or more earlier, when environmental risk became so prominent. I sought insight into these developments through case studies such as into the concern with mobile phone radiation that began in the late 1990s, locating reactions in an institutionalised defensiveness that followed the ‘mad cow disease’ experience. I also became engaged more practically, working closely with the previous UK government’s Risk Regulation Advisory Council, which sought ways of challenging what it saw as a damaging cycle of public and political risk aversion.
Contact Information
Address
Room CNE 115
Cornwallis North East
University of Kent
Canterbury
Kent CT2 7NF
Links
Publications
Also view these in the Kent Academic Repository
Article
Burgess, A. (2013). Manufacturing Uncertainty out of Manufactured Sweeteners: The Curious Case of Aspartame . European Journal of Risk Regulation 3:377-381.
Burgess, A. (2013). Missing the Wood for the Trees? European Journal of Risk Regulation 2:287-291.
Burgess, A. and Horii, M. (2012). Risk, ritual and health responsibilisation: Japan’s ‘safety blanket’ of surgical face mask-wearing. Sociology of Health & Illness [Online] 34:1184-1198. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9566.2012.01466.x.
This article begins to develop an understanding of surgical mask-wearing in Japan, now a routine practice against a range of health threats. Their usage and associated meanings are explored through surveys conducted in Tokyo with both mask wearers and non-mask wearers. It contests commonly held cultural views of the practice as a fixed and distinctively Japanese collective courtesy to others. A historical analysis suggests that an originally collective, targeted and science-based response to public health threats has dispersed into a generalised practice lacking a clear end or purpose. Developed as part of the biomedical response to the Spanish flu of 1919, the practice resonated with folk assumptions as making a barrier between purity and pollution. But mask-wearing became socially embedded as a general protective practice only from the 1990s through a combination of commercial, corporate and political pressures that responsibilised individual health protection. These developments are usefully understood amidst the uncertainty created by Japan's 'second modernity' and the fracturing of her post-war order. Mask-wearing is only one form of a wider culture of risk; a self-protective risk ritual rather than a selfless collective practice.
Burgess, A. (2012). Media, Risk, and Absence of Blame for “Acts of God”: Attenuation of the European Volcanic Ash Cloud of 2010. Risk Analysis [Online] 32:1693-1702. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2012.01803.x.
This article analyzes the character, extent, and patterns of media coverage of the 2010 volcanic ash cloud, comparing it with coverage of other major natural hazards, such as Deepwater Horizon. It does so drawing upon sociological themes and concludes that the ash cloud was reported largely in its own terms rather than being amplified as a wider, uncertain threat. As well as the absence of major incident and casualties two interrelated factors are highlighted to explain this result. Emphasizing the importance of hazard duration, the unexpected arrival and short-lived character of the ash cloud was one important factor that limited the potential for sustained media amplification. More broadly, this was an "act of God" with no clear responsible agents. This preliminary study suggests that contemporary media risk narrative requires a focus for institutional blame attribution, and without a plausible candidate amplification may not acquire momentum.
Burgess, A. (2012). An Experimental Offensive against the Mishandling of Risk in Society’: Reflecting on the Pioneering Work of the Risk Regulation Advisory Council in the UK. European Journal of Risk Regulation 3:343-351.
This article looks back at the history and legacy of the Risk and Regulation Advisory Council in the UK. The Council was the first government body to explicitly challenge a culture of overreaction to 'public risk', one of a number of ways in which it was a unique and interesting experiment in addressing the political dimension of contemporary regulation. Whilst the RRAC was ultimately unsuccessful in bringing about a change in how risk is managed by government it has, at least, left a useful intellectual legacy and, more practically, its work is effectively being taken forward by the Risk and Responsibility programme of the Dutch government.
Burgess, A. (2012). Nudging’ Healthy Lifestyles: The UK Experiments with the Behavioural Alternative to Regulation and the Market. European Journal of Risk Regulation 1:3-16.
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This article critically reflects upon the introduction of behavioural, 'nudging' approaches into UK policy making, the latest in a series of regulatory innovations. Initiatives have focused particularly upon correcting lifestyle risk behaviours, marking a significant continuity with previous 'nannying' policy. On the other hand, nudging represents a departure, even inversion of previous approaches that involved the overstating of risk, being based partly upon establishing a norm that bad behaviours are less, rather than more common than supposed. Despite substantive similarities, its attraction lies in the reaction against the former approach but must also be understood in the context of the economic crisis and a diminished sense of liberty and autonomy that makes intimate managerial intervention seem unproblematic. Problems are, in fact, substantial, as nudging is caught between the utility of unconscious disguised direction and the need to allow some transparency, thereby choice. Further, it assumes clear, fixed 'better outcomes' but encourages no development of capacity to manage problems, contradicting a wider policy intent to build a more responsible and active citizenry. More practically, nudging faces considerable barriers to becoming a successfully implemented programme, in the context of severe, Conservativeled austerity with which it is now associated.
Horii, M. and Burgess, A. (2012). Constructing sexual risk: ‘Chikan’,collapsing male authority and the emergence of women-only train carriages in Japan. Health, Risk & Society [Online] 14:41-55. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698575.2011.641523.
Women-only train carriages have been introduced in Japan as a response to
widespread groping (chikan) by men. In August 2007, 155 young women
completed a survey at a variety of locations in central Tokyo, mainly at the
popular meeting places, Shinjuku and Shibuya. The survey involved face-to-face
interviews conducted mainly by young female interviewers. The numbers involved
are insufficient for rigorous statistical analysis and in this pilot study we were
principally interested in further refining ideas and hypotheses for further
investigation by considering results in the context of significant contemporary
social trends. This article starts by considering a particular cultural context in
which the issue of groping resulted in the introduction of women-only train
carriages and this official antigroping measure which has been widely accepted.
The article then examines women's responses to the availability of women-only
train carriages, using surveys carried out in Tokyo. It concludes by considering
the specific and anomalous targeting of primarily middle aged 'salarymen', a
focus understood in the context of the collapse of the ideological power of the
patriarchal corporate figure associated with the end of the Japanese economic
miracle. Women's use and support for women-only train carriages is not solely
dominated by anxiety over the risk of chikan. Our survey indicated that it was a
symbolic rejection of a particular type of masculinity, rather than the physical
separation from a risk of being groped.
Burgess, A. (2011). Fukushima Fixation – The Media Focus on Radiation Risk in Tsunami-Stricken Japan. European Journal of Risk Regulation 2:209-212.
Moore, S. and Burgess, A. (2011). Risk rituals? Journal of Risk Research [Online] 14:111-124. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2010.505347.
This article considers how risks are responded to through behavioral adaptations and avoidance strategies. We observe that such behavior can become totemistic and have a limited relationship to the risk it ostensibly answers to. Drawing upon examples such as recycling and original data from a study on drink-spiking avoidance, the article sets out a new concept for discussing and understanding such risk-related behavior: the 'risk ritual'. We elaborate upon this concept in the article, identifying a number of tendencies in risk rituals and drawing upon anthropological and sociological work on the nature and uses of ritual. We compare the 'risk ritual' to religious and community rituals, exploring the connections between the former and the rain dance, religious ablutions, abstinence from eating meat on a Friday, and rite of passage ceremonies. Influenced by the cultural approach to risk, we argue that risk rituals, like rituals more generally, are shaped by social conditions, currents, and processes, such as the emphasis on personal responsibility for risk management and the desire to mark out the 'sacred' and the 'profane'. The article concludes that ritualistic risk behavior is better viewed as functional rather than irrational. © 2011 Taylor &Francis.
Burgess, A. (2011). The changing character of public inquiries in the (risk) regulatory state. British Politics [Online] 6:3-29. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/bp.2010.15.
This article historically considers major public inquiries as an institution of the British regulatory state, using recent data from parliamentary committees. Major inquiries draw upon judicial independence to restore political authority. Despite their formally 'public' character, major inquiries were more confined to matters internal to the state before the 1980s, reflecting the insularity of 'club rule' and the invisibility of the actual 'public'. Inquiries began to assume their modern form in the 1960s, but it was in the context of the need for new institutions that arose with the collapse of 'club rule' that inquiries took on new significance. Their increased use reflects not simply an increase in the number of events necessitating such a response, but a greater need for a mechanism with both a public orientation and formal independence. The article suggests that inquiries may have become overburdened instruments, particularly in relation to an expectation to effectively eliminate risk.
Burgess, A. (2011). Thinking culturally about risk. International Journal of Law in Context [Online] 7:249-256. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1744552311000073.
Risk Perception, Culture, and Legal Change: A Comparative Study of Food Safety in the Wake of the Mad Cow Crisis. By Matteo Ferrari, Farnham: Ashgate, 2009. 216 pp. ISBN 978-0-7546-7811-3
Ferrari's book is a welcome addition to the still limited literature on the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) experience which, unlike any other specific response to a disease, played an important role in reshaping modern governance and consolidating key assumptions about the world around us. The 'mad cow' crisis began in 1986 when the unfathomable bovine brain disease was identified, but was then reignited with the shocking discovery a decade later that it could pass, and had passed, to humans despite the controls put in place. Scientific confirmation in 1996 that there was a human form of BSE led to political panic and further undermined the then exhausted Conservative Party rule. The retrospective lessons of the experience went far beyond agriculture. The problem was perceived to be one of openness and independence: perhaps government was too dependent upon lobbies and financial interests such as agriculture and, whilst utilising scientific advice, did not allow their independent voice to have influence. Less widely recognised, but even more importantly, the political lesson of the BSE experience was to henceforth tend to avoid being seen to downplay risk, based on the retrospective view that the danger could, and should, have been announced before it was scientifically confirmed. Better to overestimate even apparently limited risks than be caught again committing the now cardinal sin of downplaying them, or simply remaining silent. This is not so much a new-found principle of risk aversion as a variation on an age-old political truism of, above all, making sure that the next crisis is 'not on my watch'.
Burgess, A. (2010). Media risk campaigning in the UK: From mobile phones to 'Baby P'. Journal of Risk Research [Online] 13:59-72. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13669870903136035.
A distinctive risk campaigning by particular British media emerged in the late 1990s through three issues: mobile phones, genetically modified organisms and the campaign to expose sex offenders. Subsequently such campaigning has become normalised and generalised, culminating with the 2008 campaign to attribute blame for the death of the murdered child, 'Baby P'. Their distinctive evolution and characteristics are considered. Central to their success and subsequent generalisation is the encouragement provided by increasing government responsiveness and accommodation. The BSE crisis created a political orientation to engage with public anxiety that in these cases meant engagement with campaigning media. © 2010 Taylor & Francis.
Burgess, A., Donovan, P. and Moore, S. (2009). Embodying Uncertainty? Understanding Heightened Risk Perception of Drink ‘Spiking’. British Journal of Criminology [Online] 49:848-862. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azp049 .
There is a stark contrast between heightened perceptions of risk associated with drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) and a lack of evidence that this is a widespread threat. Through surveys and interviews with university students in the United Kingdom and United States, we explore knowledge and beliefs about drink-spiking and the linked threat of sexual assault. University students in both locations are not only widely sensitized to the issue, but substantial segments claim first- or second-hand experience of particular incidents. We explore students' understanding of the DFSA threat in relationship to their attitudes concerning alcohol, binge-drinking, and responsibility for personal safety. We suggest that the drink-spiking narrative has a functional appeal in relation to the contemporary experience of young women's public drinking.
Burgess, A. (2009). The politics of health risk promotion: 'Passive drinking': A 'good lie' too far? Health, Risk & Society [Online] 11:527-540. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698570903329482.
This article reflects on UK Chief Medical Officer's (CMO) 2009 announcement that alcohol abuse should be understood as a problem of 'passive drinking'. This was an attempt to instrumentally problematise drinking drawing on the successful campaign against 'passive smoking'. An implausible term that originated as an anti-state interventionist joke, both 'passive drinking's' lack of impact but also the lack of criticism its revelation attracted are considered. This curious episode is explained in relation to the CMO's distinctive precautionary style, the growing campaign against alcohol in the UK and a wider acceptance of a contemporary politics of health risk where dramatisation has become relatively routine. Despite the failure of this initiative, a widely drawn 'second hand effects' case against alcohol persists. More generally, risk/harm framed argument has filled the vacuum left by the discrediting of moral-based approaches and recast a similarly polarised approach to a socially complex practice. This episode indicates a pragmatic 'good lie' approach toward lifestyle health risk promotion legitimised by a superficial 'evidence based' foundation. © 2009 Taylor & Francis.
Burgess, A. (2008). Revisiting the BSE experience: Hindsight and the politicization of food. Health, Risk & Society [Online] 10:195-200. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698570801919889.
This review essay on risk, politics and food focuses particularly on an important new insider account of how the BSE crisis was managed by one of the main civil servants involved. The management of BSE remains a decisive experience in the modern politics of risk that cautions generally against ever downplaying possible risks, and more specifically doing anything 'unnatural' with food. It led to the contemporary politicization of food and with it the insistence on only the organic, local and sustainable. What emerges from this new account is how the interpretation of the BSE experience on which current assumptions rest is very selective and laden with hindsight bias. Through revisiting BSE and the real contexts in which decisions were made, this essay raises important questions both about the politics of risk in general and the new consumer lifestyle politics of 'only natural.'
Burgess, A. (2007). Real and phantom risks at the petrol station: The curious case of mobile phones, fires and body static. Health, Risk & Society [Online] 9:53-66. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698570601181524.
This case study examines the alleged hazard associated with mobile phone use at petrol stations and suggests that it is a phantom risk. Understanding its persistence in the absence of evidence, a number of factors are outlined. A precautionary safety regime enforced by oil companies in the UK established a restriction on mobile use on station forecourts that had the effect of confirming a danger. Warning signs in mobile phone handbooks had a similar effect and led to further restrictions at petrol stations. Among a number of problematic consequences, most ironic has been to distract from the real cause of the increased number of petrol stations fires at, particularly, American petrol stations. Investigations have identified the real cause, body static generated through vehicle re-entry while refuelling. This episode suggests the need for clarity about the precise reasons behind any restrictions on the use of a popular device that is already established as a potential, but invariably unconfirmed, health hazard.
Burgess, A. (2007). Mobile phones and service stations: Rumour, risk and precaution. Diogenes [Online] 54:125-139. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0392192107073435.
This paper considers the implications of precautionary restrictions against technologies, in the context of the potential for creating and sustaining rumours. It focuses on the restriction against mobile phone use at petrol stations, based on the rumour that a spark might cause an explosion. Rumours have been substantiated by precautionary usage warnings from mobile phone manufacturers, petrol station usage restrictions, and a general lack of technical understanding. Petrol station employees have themselves spread the rumour about alleged incidents, filling the information gap about the basis for the restriction.
Alaszewski, A. and Burgess, A. (2007). Risk, Time & Reason. Health, Risk & Society [Online] 9:349-358. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698570701612295.
Over time, a number of alternative approaches to risk have developed and, while these co-exist, they structure time in different ways and are grounded in different combinations of cognitive rationality and affect. The initial conceptualization of risk, which remains prominent, was based on the use of knowledge from past events to provide the context for choices which minimize harm in the future. It underpins structured approaches to decision making based on use of statistics as a means of calculating the probability of future outcomes. This approach has been challenged by the development of a more forensic approach in which the emphasis is on identifying the specific causes of disasters using hindsight and from the analysis of specific cases making recommendations to prevent future disasters. While this approach has a rational basis, it also addresses the collective emotional responses to disaster and provides a cathartic function. In the late twentieth century a more precautionary approach has emerged, in which the fear of future is given precedence over evidence or lack of evidence of past harm. The precautionary approach is future oriented and casts the future principally in negative, potentially catastrophic terms.
Derbyshire, S. and Burgess, A. (2006). Use of mobile phones in hospitals. British Medical Journal [Online] 333:767-768. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.38995.599769.80.
Mobile phones are widely used, but their use is still restricted in certain places including petrol stations, some areas in hospitals, and aircraft. Restrictions have been justified on the grounds of public safety, but the reasons behind these restrictions are often unclear. In hospitals, patients, visitors, and staff routinely breeze through wards with their mobile phones switched on. As yet we have no evidence that this behaviour has serious consequences for patients. The lack of such evidence has encouraged the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to advise more selective restrictions on the use of mobile phones in hospitals (box).1 While welcoming this relaxation, we wonder why it has taken so long to happen and why it has the feeling of extracting a generous concession. The liberalisation sits alongside proposed new restrictions, such as a ban on the use of camera phones in patient areas. The regulations also fail to criticise the previous ones, which were overcautionary. Paradoxically, the new rules may be even more restrictive than the old ones.
Burgess, A. (2006). The Shock of a Social Disaster in an Age of (Nonsocial) Risk. Space and Culture [Online] 9:74-76. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1206331205283725.
The distinctly socially differentiated impact of the New Orleans flood stands in marked contrast to the nonsocial character of disasters and inquiries we have become accustomed to in the "risk society."
Burgess, A. (2006). The making of the risk-centred society and the limits of social risk research. Health, Risk & Society [Online] 8:329-342. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698570601008321.
Despite the apparent triumph of social perspectives on risk, the predominant approach to risk is less social and contextual than is often supposed. A widespread acceptance of a constructionist approach is more formal than substantive. Risk 'objects' and events remain given and objectified in many accounts, at the same time as they have been subject to little critical empirical enquiry. Iconic risk events such as the BSE crisis and Chernobyl have shaped academic and policy responses to risk despite the gap between their putative and actual impacts. This editorial calls for a more interdisciplinary approach able to trace the historical evolution and changing character of risk perceptions that rigorously analyses and clearly distinguishes the scientific/technical, and socially and politically manufactured dimensions of risk.
Burgess, A. (2003). A precautionary tale: the British response to cell phone EMF. Technology and Society Magazine, IEEE [Online] 21:14-16. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MTAS.2003.1166561.
The UK led the campaign for precautionary responses to cell phone EMF. The experience which informed this approach was BSE, a disease that originated and had greatest impact in the UK. Unsurprisingly, British politicians have responded even more directly than the EU to the cell phone issue, seeking to prove that they have "learnt their lesson." The highly selective lesson was that seeking to reassure the public about a relatively small risk is disastrous - which it certainly was for the Conservative government at the time. It is now deemed necessary to advertise prominently even the smallest possible risk. This is the rationale behind the recently established Food Standards Agency, which was vigorously promoting the purely theoretical risk of BSE infection through sheep in 2001, for example. Other factors particular to British society have fostered an alarmist response to cell phone EMF at odds with that of other European countries such as Holland. The UK has a media that openly campaigns rather than objectively reports on issues particularly issues related to consumer health. It is now common for newspapers to almost arbitrarily choose a health concern that they then make their own. More importantly the UK government is highly sensitive to the media's promptings, which it interprets as the most accurate and irresistible measure of public feeling.
Burgess, A. (2002). Comparing National Responses to Perceived Health Risks from Mobile Phone Masts MacLachlan, I. and Syrontinsky, M. eds. Health, Risk & Society [Online] 4:175-188. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698570220137051.
This article concerns responses to health risk concerns about electromagnetic emissions
from mobile phone masts. The article draws particular attention to the differential patterns of state
response in the UK, USA, Italy, Ireland and Australia. It concludes that precautionary government
responses have played a role in the 'social construction' of risk perceptions.
Burgess, A. (2001). Flattering Consumption: The Growth of Consumer Rights and Product Safety Concerns in Europe MacLachlan, I. and Syrontinsky, M. eds. Journal of Consumer Culture [Online] 1:93-117. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/146954050100100106 .
This article argues that the unprecedented prominence of consumer groups in contemporary Europe is not the product of a 'bottom up' process driven by newly demanding consumers. Drawing particularly upon the examples of the UK and the EU, it is argued that the politicization of 'the consumer' in Europe has come from above. The creation of the 'citizen consumer' was firstly an attempt to introduce the appearance of accountability as the market was deregulated in the 1980s. Aligning authority with the consumer (and against the corporation) subsequently evolved as an important means of (re)establishing legitimacy. Such a process is problematic because government is effectively institutionalizing the mistrust at the heart of the new consumer culture.
Burgess, A. (2001). Universal Democracy, Diminished Expectation MacLachlan, I. and Syrontinsky, M. eds. Democratization 8:51-74.
Burgess, A. (1997). Writing off Slovakia to “the east”? Examining charges of bias in British press reporting of Slovakia, 1993–1994. Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity [Online] 25:659-682. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00905999708408533.
Burgess, A. (1996). National Minority Rights and “Civilizing” Eastern Europe. Contention 5:17-37.
Book
Burgess, A. (2010). The Contemporary Emergence of Health Concerns Related to Mobile Phones. [Online]. VDM Verlag. Available at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/contemporary-emergence-health-concerns-related/dp/3639226216.
Despite the popularity of mobile telecommunications there has been growing concern in the UK since the mid 1990s about possible health effects from the extremely low frequency radiation (EMF) associated with mobile phones and the masts (radio base stations) for transmitting their signals. By early 2000 there were over 300 campaign groups nationally against the siting of particular masts, and similar campaigns in a number of other countries. The campaign highlighting risks from mobile phones has not yet been subject to academic enquiry. The UK government's reaction to the expression of concerns, particularly through the Stewart Enquiry 1999-2000, has been important in consolidating a precautionary approach in policies governing science related issues of public concern. Similar perceived risks appear likely to prove influential in framing public attitudes and government responses.
Burgess, A. (2003). Cellular Phones, Public Fears and a Culture of Precaution. MacLachlan, I. and Syrontinsky, M. eds. New York: Cambridge University Press.
This is the first account of the health panic surrounding cellular phones that developed in the mid-1990s. Treating the issue as more 'social construction' than evident scientific problem, it tells the story of how this originally American anxiety diffused internationally, having an even bigger impact in countries such as Italy. Burgess highlights the contrasting reactions to the issue ranging from positive indifference in Finland to those such as the UK where precautionary measures were taken. These differences are located within the emergence of a precautionary culture driven by institutional insecurity that first appeared in the US and is now most evident in Europe. Anxieties about cell phone radiowaves are also situated historically in the very different reactions to technologies such as x-rays and in the more similar 'microwave suspicions' about television. In addition, Burgess outlines a history and sociology of what is, despite media-driven anxieties, a spectacularly successful device.
Burgess, A. (1997). Divided Europe: The New Domination of the East. [Online]. Pluto Press. Available at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Divided-Europe-New-Domination-East/dp/0745312578/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413675496&sr=1-4&keywords=Divided+Europe.
This text challenges the Western understanding of, and impact on, Eastern Europe in the years of political change that began in 1989. The author scrutinizes the Western obsessions with history, ethnicity, intolerance and the need for civil society.
Book section
Burgess, A. (2015). The Social Construction of Risk. in: Cho, H., Reimer, T. and McComas, K. A. eds. The SAGE Handbook of Risk Communication. SAGE Publications, Inc, pp. 121-139. Available at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-SAGE-Handbook-Risk-Communication/dp/1452258686/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413819789&sr=8-1&keywords=9781452258683.
Burgess, A. (2011). Representing emergency risks: Media, Risk and ‘Acts of God’ in the Volcanic Ash Cloud. in: Allemano, A. ed. The Challenge of Emergency Regulation - Beyond the European Volcanic Ash Crisis. London: Edward Elgar, pp. 65-80.
Burgess, A. (2008). Health Scares and Risk Awareness. in: Wainwright, D. ed. A Sociology of Health. London: SAGE Publications Ltd, pp. 56-75.
Burgess, A. (2007). Risk Perception of Mobile EMF,. in: Nishizawa, M. ed. Mobile EMF and Communication – International Perspectives. Tokyo/Tsukuba: National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention.
Burgess, A. (2006). The Impact of the Wider Social and Institutional Environment on Risk Perception. in: del Pozo, C. ed. Risk Perception and Risk Communication: Tools, Experiences and Strategies. European Commission Directorate General Joint Research Centre.
Burgess, A. (2006). Risk, Precaution and the Media. in: Richter, I. K., Berking, S. and Muller-Schmid, R. eds. Risk Society and the Culture of Precaution. London: Routledge.
Burgess, A. (1998). Historical Reflections on the International Enforcement of Minority Rights in Europe. in: Cordell, K. ed. Ethnicity and Democracy in the New Europe. London: Routledge, pp. 49-61.
Burgess, A. (1998). European Identity and the Challenge from South and East. in: Hedetoft, U. ed. Political Symbols, Symbolic Politics: Between European Unity and Fragmentation. Aldershot: Avebury, pp. 209-226.
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Research Interests
I am Director of the Critical Studies in Risk and Uncertainty research cluster. My research interests can be found on the risk cluster web page and on Kent Academia
Teaching
I teach undergraduate and postgraduate modules on risk. I also convene a module on the sociology of the family, and teach on the sociology of health undergraduate course.
Doctoral supervision: I’m currently supervising doctoral research on:
- Risk and youth justice
- Online boundaries of public and private
- European food regulation
I’m prepared to consider any risk-related project and also anything related to health, and to the family.
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I’ve just finished editing the first Handbook of Risk Studies (Routledge 2015) whilst a visiting fellow at Princeton during the first half of 2015, which tries to draw together the many different strands of risk research from both sides of the Atlantic.
I coordinate the European and International sociological associations’ research groups on risk, and am a research associate at the Centre for the Analysis of Risk and Regulation at the LSE. I’m also interested in regulatory responses to risk, co-editing the European Journal of Risk Regulation. I’ve published many articles and books on risk-related topics, including Cellular Phones, Public Fears and a Culture of Precaution (Cambridge UP, 2004), and addressed some 60 international conferences.
I would encourage colleagues to participate in the regular conferences we hold in the European and International Sociological Associations risk specialist groups. The next ISA conference will be in Vienna (2017) and there will then be an ESA full conference in Athens before the next major ISA event in Toronto in 2018.
Media
My research is regularly covered by various media. For example I was interviewed about my work on Japanese flu mask wearing for BBC World Service, Radio 4 and Radio New Zealand in April 2013. In June 2013
I was interviewed about risk and electronic cigarettes for BBC Radio.
I was interviewed on drink spiking research by various radio stations such as Radio 4’s The World Tonight and many other BBC stations. It was covered by print media such as the New York Times ,
Daily Telegraph
and Daily Mail .
The study was identified by the British Academy as an example of how ‘rigorous, evidence-based research projects can inform social policy’ in their 2010 report on The Public Value of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
In January 2009 my work was cited in articles on technological risk in the Guardian and the Times. In June 2005 I appeared on Radio 4’s Today programme speaking about scientific uncertainty and on
Radio 5 Live about public restrictions on mobile usage.
My research on rumours in March 2005 was covered by the national and international media including the Economist, BBC Online, the Observer, Independent on Sunday, as well as the tabloids and many local,
regional and international newspapers and websites. I also appeared on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Radio 5 Live. In January 2005 I appeared on BBC News 24, BBC Online, BBC Asian Network; BBC Radio Kent,
BBC Radio 5 Live; BBC Radio London etc. International media such as Australian and South African radio, and Dutch newspapers also interviewed me.
On other occasions in 2004-5 the Economist, Sunday Telegraph, and the Times among others have referred to my work. Previously I have discussed my work on Radio 4’s Analysis, You and Yours, Law in Action, Thinking Allowed among others. In October 2006 my article on mobile phone use in hospitals was covered by The Times, Guardian, BBC Online, Daily Mail and Radio 4’s, PM.
Images
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Why did there seem to be more concern about nuclear radiation from Fukushima that killed nobody in Japan than about the thousands actually killed by the tsunami?
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Why is it mainly the Japanese who wear flu masks – and apparently to protect themselves from all manner of threats?
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The volcanic ash cloud: a frightening spectre that the media didn’t exaggerate (with one exception)?
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Is it right for us to be ‘nudged’ into making the right, healthy decisions?
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Does it make sense to ‘always be on your guard’ against the ‘drink spiker’?
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