The Relationship Between Risk Perception and Social Interaction

Risk perception is one of the significant factors influencing individual action to response and reduces the risk, (Smith, et. al. 2013). Although, most of the theoretical perspectives on risk emphasis on the individual unit of analysis, some recent research has calculated community experience to risk or disaster. For instance, research from Masuda & Garvin (2006) suggests that risk perceptions were connected within the minds of individuals and revealed as people’s sense of belonging in their community. According to cultural theory and perspectives, risk perception can be translated as a reflection of the social context of an individual (Sjoberg, 2000). Risk perception is a social construction that affected by several factors in which risk was culturally embedded, such as experience, the structure of economics and politics, environment, personal exposures to hazard, and community process (Fitchen et. al, 1987, Flint & Luloff, 2005).

Reading Summaries (9): Anti-Genetic Engineering Movement in the U.S. and Britain

During the second half of the 1990s, European activists opposed to the use of genetic engineering (GE) in the food supply. Unlike European activists were gained significant achievement in the anti-GE movement, U.S. activists were gained little traction. Why was the European/Britain anti-biotech movement so effective, while the U.S. campaign was not? For this reason, the author addresses the comparative analysis of anti-biotechnology activism in the United States and Britain. Their analysis draws on both primary and secondary data sources: in-depth interviews, extensive media coverage, trade journals, public opinion survey data, newspaper and magazine articles, scholarly articles on the British supermarket sector, and detailed field notes from an in-depth study of six British supermarkets in the mid-1990s (p. 168-169). Using the Global Community Chains (GCC) literature, they show how the GCC for food was a critical factor that enabled anti-GE activists and exploring the different outcomes of these two very similar social movements.

Reading Summaries (8): Local Embeddedness of Farmers Market

The first article is coming from Feagan & Morris (2009) entitled “Consumer quest for embeddedness: a case study of the Brantford Farmers’ Market.” This research examines consumer motivations for shopping at the Brantford Farmers’ Market in south-central Ontario, Canada. The authors use the concept of embeddedness (social, spatial and natural spheres) to understand and organize the sets of values tied to consumer motivations at FMs. Social embeddedness is a value associated with ‘economies of regard,' trust, social interaction, and responsibility. Natural embeddedness contains consumer desires for food associated with more ecologically values like organic production and sustainable farming methods. Spatial embeddedness includes a group of motivations associated with the desire to buy food produced locally and more directly linked.