Signature Projects
Project Wavelength
Principal Investigator:
Olivia Jensen
Carolyn Lo
Tra Thi Trinh
To improve communications, we must first understand how different people think about risk and what motivates these differences. Project Wavelength seeks to undercover the fundamental differences on how people perceive risk so that we can help attune communicators to the frequency of their audiences.
30 years ago, Professor Paul Slovic and his colleagues showed how dread of an incident and uncertainty are two factors which would lead to heightened perceptions of risk.
Building on this seminal work, Project Wavelength will uncover the additional factors which drive risk perceptions in today’s digital world. Through this research project, IPUR aims to acquire a revised understanding of the factors and dimensions that have become essential to how people—both the public and experts—perceive risk in Asia today.
We believe these insights will help policy makers devise more effective interventions and risk communication strategies. IPUR also aims to foster greater risk literacy by enabling individuals to identify risk issues of particular concern and take appropriate preventive or protective actions.
The project is led by Professor Leonard Lee, Dr Olivia Jensen and Dr Carolyn Lo, and collaborators from Tsinghua University in China and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology in South Korea.
In this research project, we aim to acquire a revised understanding of the factors and dimensions that have become essential to how people—both the public and experts—perceive risk in Asia today.
This report is the first in a series employing survey data from Singapore, South Korea, and China. Each report highlights a different dimension of public perceptions surrounding everyday risks, including:
- Whether risk information provided by public authorities is accessible, understandable and relevant to members of the public;
- Whether individuals see governments, private companies, the media and fellow citizens as giving sufficient attention to risks;
- Whether current protective actions against risks are perceived as adequate in the eyes of the public.
The insights from this research are intended to help decision-makers develop more effective risk communication strategies and to foster greater risk know-how among individuals.
Download the report here.
In the second report employing survey data from Singapore, South Korea, and China, IPUR looked at the perceptions of risks among the the three countries and how they compared against each other.
We found that infectious diseases were a leading source of worry for respondents in all three countries, but beyond this shared concern, there were considerable cross-national differences in terms of which risks respondents worried about the most. Chronic disease was the 3rd highest worry in Singapore; environmental pollution and violent crime were ranked in the top three in Korea; and food safety was only a leading worry in China.
The insights from this research are intended to help decision-makers develop more effective risk communication strategies and to foster greater risk know-how among individuals.
Download the report here.
In the third report employing survey data from Singapore, South Korea, and China, we focus on how individuals perceive key stakeholders—public authorities (government), private companies, the media, as well as the general public. It covers perceptions of:
- How much attention is paid to these risks by stakeholders and how much protective action is taken.
- Risks which receive insufficient attention.
- How much responsibility each stakeholder group should take in managing these risks.
- Which stakeholder groups are most trusted to inform people about risks and to take protective action.
The insights from this research are intended to inform decision-makers about how the public perceives the everyday risk landscape, fostering two-way risk communication and building risk know-how among stakeholders.
Download the report here.
