The Social Amplification Of Risk:Interaction Between The Media And Society

New needs breed new productions, and new technologies change the media. From word of mouth to today’s media, every improvement of the media has changed our way of life and social structure, while, it has also brought unexpected problems. Beck once stated that,"in a developed modern society, wealth production advances systematically with the emergence of social risk. The development of the media also brings up new social risks."In November20th,2006, a young man in Nanjing raised an elderly lady XuShoulan who was lying on the ground. It gave rise to a civil dispute and caused widespread media attention and coverage. The "Peng Yu Case" should have been an ordinary civil case, but its impact will have been lasting over China because of the combined effect of various factors. During the whole process, the risk that could have been avoided shows a trend of being amplified Moreover, its impact even goes far beyond the influence that the incident itself should have, and this is worth thinking.Since the2003SARS event, an increasing number of people started to pay attention to the topic of risk, and they also began to realize that the risk that had been ignored previously has been accompanied by our side. Especially, the media also began to take risk issues into consideration. However, with growing focus on risk, it also reveals that whether it is due to the intervention from internal or external factors, the risks often shows an amplified trend in society. The trend is puzzling and makes the problem becoming increasingly difficult."Peng Yu Case" is such a thorny issue. It risk amplification during the process is especially typical.The current research selects "Peng Yu Case", a case of broad implications as a sample by using Social Amplification of Risk Frame (SARF) to analyze from different perspectives as signal amplification, the structural aspects of risk amplification, the amplified risk information mechanism and the reaction mechanism; meanwhile various social factors, media factors and psychological factors are considered, hoping to discover the hidden process of risk amplification, and find out the in-depth reasons behind.The thesis consists of four chapters.Chapter One. Introduction.This chapter provides a brief introduction to the background, purpose, significance, research ideas and methods of the research. It provides a background introduction to domestic and international research on risk and risk amplification, and thus to clarify the aim of the study that more social factors would be included for consideration when research on risks. The present thesis mainly uses case analysis and literature study method.Chapter Two. Theoretical Background.In this chapter, terms will be defined as amplification of risk, risk society, risk, manufacturing risk and risk perception in order to satisfy research needs. Then SARF is introduced as a theoretical background of the present study.Chapter Three. Case Study.The case chosen is "Peng Yu Case", which has a great social impact. The chapter discusses from four aspects. First of all, a number of significant factors in the event are analyzed. Second, SARF is adapted to provide an in-depth investigate the event from the aspects as signal amplification, structural aspects of social amplification of risk, social amplification of risk, information mechanism and reaction mechanism respectively. Again, the ripple effect from the "Peng Yu case" is examined. Finally, the performance of risk amplification and risk weakening in the case is sorted.Chapter Four. Discussion.After finding out the relationship between media and social interaction, rational thinking and discussions are carried out from four aspects. Hoping to find out the underlying reasons, and to expect the research result can provide reference for future research.