Risk Society

 Recollection: Three periods of discussion on the IS:

1.  From late 1940’s onwards: Information economy as an economy of different nature

2.  From 1960’s onwards: Analysis of post-industrial society (or service society)

3.  From 1980’s onwards: Discussion about the evolution of modernity into "another modernity"

The concept of risk society

• Ulrich Beck: The Risk Society (1986 / 1992)
• The distribution of "bads" (risks) supersede the distribution of "goods"
• Risks escape the institutions of modern industrial society

Three-stage periodization:

1.  Pre-industrial

2.  Modern industrial

3.  "Risk Society"

• "The age of uncertainty"

Two phases in the shift into a risk society (Beck):

1.  The industrial society produces threats or risks which become observed but they do not become issues of public debate, in politics and media

2.  Risks are an issue of debate and the institutions of industrial society become recognized as producers of risks they cannot control

Three domains / reasons in the transformation of industrial society into risk society

1.  natural and cultural resources are dissipating

2.  risks exceed the safety measures of the society

3.  collective meanings are suffering from exhaustion

- Risks are global: Chernobyl, Brazilian rain forests etc.
- Different types of risks: economic, political, social, cultural or environmental

The nature of risks is different in different periods:

1.  In pre-industrial societies risks are external risks (not man-made)

2.  In modern industrial societies risks and hazards are no longer externalized onto the gods or fate (the modern society aims at taking the risks under control)

3.  In risk societies, risks become incalculable, unaccountable and unlimited

- Risks are produced by industry and sciences
- Risks produce many questions to which there are no clear answers (BSE etc.)
- What can be done?
- Beck: The modern societies can a) simply distruct themselves from the inside or b) give birth to another kind of modernity through different kind of politics

• the entering of new groups into policy-making ("sub-politics")

- new reflexivity to risks, global risk awarness

Giddens on global modernity and the media

• Consequence of modernity (1990)
• Although everyone continues to live a local life, phenomenal worlds for the most part are truly global
• The intrusion of distance into local activities: social relationships "at distance" with local contextualities
• The transformation of time and place in modernity
• Advanced technologies are able to connect the local and the global in ways which would have been unthinkable in more traditional societies
• Global risk awarness: humankind becomes a "we"
• the need for "long-distance morality"
   
• A global community?