Accommodation of Scientific Risks

This book explores how style accommodates scientific risks for public audiences in Sierra Magazine articles. Merging two unexplored dimensions risk communication and accommodation this study shows how syntax, diction, and metaphor resituate technical language and ideas in scientific risk studies for Sierra readers. First, interviews with Sierra editors and writers provide a rich understanding of how editing and composition practices influence accommodation processes. From there, an electronic communication analysis illustrates how this medium accommodates beyond text to give Sierra readers active roles and responsibilities to learn about and engage with scientific risks. Finally, Gibson s Style Machine determines the style Sierra writers and editors use to address their implied readers, while diction and metaphor analyses demonstrate how style shapes technical knowledge around their readers values, needs, and interests. This research is beneficial for writers and editors faced with the challenge of accommodating technical risks for public audiences, as well as for risk scientists interested in how their studies are transformed as they become accommodated.