Risk and Health Communication in an Evolving Media Environment

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INOCULATION AS A RISK AND HEALTH COMMUNICATION STRATEGY IN AN EVOLVING MEDIA ENVIRONMENT

Bobi Ivanov, Kimberly A. Parker, and Lindsay L. Dillingham

Introduction

Communication continues to be at the center of risk and health promotion management strategies (Ivanov, 2012; Ivanov et al., 2016; Pfau, 1995) as many of the processes associated with these activities are “inherently communicative” (e.g., O’Hair & Heath, 2005, p.4). Garnett and Kouzmin, for example, argued that “Hurricane Katrina was and continues to be as much a communication crisis as a natural disaster” (2007, p. 171). As a result, these researchers, in concert with other social scientists (e.g., Degeneffe, Kinsey, Stinson, & Ghosh, 2009; Ivanov, 2012; Pfau, 1995), have called ...