Open access
FROM TCHERNOBYL TO FUKUSHIMA: ON THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF NUCLEAR ENERGY SAFETY
Piotr Stankiewicz1
PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES OF SECURITY
Publication language: Polish
Journal article
Transformations No. 1–2 (88–89) 2016, Publication date: 13 May 2016
Keywords: nuclear energy, framing, risks, nuclear accidents, ionizing radiation
Abstract This article analyses the process of constructing the ‘safety discourse’, which is created by persons and institutions representing the Polish Nuclear Energy Programme. To explain the success of presenting nuclear energy as a safe and clean energy source a discourse analysis has been applied. Using the categories of ‘frames’ and ‘framing’ it shows how the image nuclear energy has been framed in the Polish discourse, while, at the same time, excluding risk and uncertainties from the public debate. A key role in this process is played by the technical model or risk management, which offers a set of unquestioned assumptions about the nature of risk and technology (such as the quantitative and scientific character of risk, realism and objective mode of existence). Those (pre)assumptions help to explain and neutralize the meaning of incidents in nuclear power plants, such as those on Three Mile island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. They are also used for justifying the hypothesis about the safety of ionizing radiation, for excluding other than the technical aspects of risk and depreciating the social perception and images of risks related to nuclear energy.
Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika, Instytut Socjologii
E-mail: piotrek@umk.pl