Main speaker: Prof. Dr. William Kinsella, North Carolina State University, Visiting Fulbright Scholar at Universität Stuttgart (picture at the top)

Commentator: Prof. Dr. Ortwin Renn, Universität Stuttgart (picture at the bottom)

Despite movements toward more dialogic and rhetorical models, the field of risk communication remains rooted in foundational commitments regarding the objectivity of risk, how to evaluate risk, who can speak authoritatively about risk, and how to deal with risk.  In prevailing views of risk communication, risk is                               the primary phenomenon and communication is a secondary and subordinateprocess by which objective risks are represented and managed. Applying ideas from philosophy, sociology, and communication studies, this presentation proposes an alternative view in which communication constitutes, rather than represents, risks and explores the implications of such a view.

Prof Dr. Kinsella earned a bachelor's degree in physics (Manhattan College), pursued graduate studies in astronomy and physics (New Mexico State University) and worked as a science educator before completing his master's and doctoral degrees in Communication at Rutgers University. In 2004 he joined the Communication faculty at NC State University, where he serves as Director of the University's interdisciplinary program in Science, Technology & Society and as a faculty member in the interdisciplinary program in Communication, Rhetoric & Digital Media.

His research and teaching address the overlapping areas of organizational communication, environmental communication, rhetoric of science and technology, and rhetoric of public policy. He views these areas through an interpretive perspective grounded in critical theory, phenomenology, rhetoric, and discourse studies.  

Eine gemeinsame Veranstaltung des Internationalen Zentrums für Kultur- und Technikforschung (IZKT) der Universität Stuttgart und des Stuttgart European Virtual Institute for Integrated Risk Management (EU-VRi).