Managing issues in the face of risk uncertainty: lessons 20 years after the Alar controversy

Author:

Jaques Tony

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to take a 20‐year perspective to revisit the Alar controversy, one of the most hotly argued public issues of the late 1980s, and to explore what fresh conclusions can be drawn for modern risk and issue managers.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews contemporary reports and analysis, along with subsequent retrospective opinions from some key participants and commentators, and examines those conclusions in the context of current communication practice.FindingsThe Alar case triggered a major reassessment of risk communication and the role of activists and the news media in amplifying issues. But even today some facts of the case remain in dispute and some of the purported lessons have been blurred by history or appear to have had little lasting impact.Practical implicationsIssue managers increasingly find themselves defending reputation in the face of public issues which focus on scientific uncertainty, and the Alar case provides vivid examples of both what to do and what not to do.Originality/valueWhile most scholarship on the case discusses the implications for scientists, regulators and journalists, this paper throws fresh light on the case from the corporate perspective of the manufacturer of Alar, and the apple growers who found themselves in the eye of the storm.

Publisher

Emerald

Subject

Strategy and Management,Communication

Reference41 articles.

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2. Bodensteiner, C.A. (1995), “Predicting public and media attention span for social issues”, Public Relations Quarterly, Vol. 40 No. 2, pp. 14‐19.

3. Campbell, H. and Fitzgerald, R. (2001), “Food scares and GM: ambivalent technologies, fear and the politics of nostalgia”, paper presented at ISA Conference: New nature, new cultures, new technology, Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, July 2001.

4. Centre, A.H. and Jackson, P. (1995), “Alar and PR: Getting to the core of the apple problems”, Public Relations Practices: Managerial Case Studies and Problems, 5th ed., Prentice‐Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, pp. 269‐79.

5. Coombs, W.T. (2002), “Assessing online issue threats: issue contagions and their effect on issue prioritisation”, Journal of Public Affairs, Vol. 2 No. 4, pp. 215‐29.

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