Title: Knowledge communication in internet age and its impacts on public perception of nuclear risk

Authors: Xingquan Wang

Addresses: Research Center on Knowledge Management, Institute of Information Sciences, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, 8F, 1610 Zhong Shan Road (West), Shanghai 200 235, China

Abstract: The public perception of nuclear risk can sensibly sway political decision and policy making related to nuclear energy. Knowledge is generally considered as an important variable to change public perception, so to promote knowledge communication is a rational choice for all stakeholders in the political game. The era of internet knowledge communication is marked by the emergence of three models, namely network community, media convergence and cloud computing. By mapping of relations between these three models of communication and three versions of nuclear knowledge communicated by pro-nuclear, anti-nuclear and scientific stakeholders, some significant correlations can be identified: network community contributes to further self-organisation of anti-nuclear individuals; media convergence helps to optimise the communication efficiency of pro-nuclear groups; cloud computing facilitates the communication of scientific nuclear knowledge.

Keywords: knowledge communication; network community; media convergence; cloud computing; nuclear risk perception; public perception; internet; nuclear knowledge management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNKM.2010.037076

International Journal of Nuclear Knowledge Management, 2010 Vol.4 No.4, pp.339 - 349

Published online: 22 Nov 2010 *

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