My Previous Ideas

When thinking about risk communication a lot of things came to my mind. At first I assumed I already knew what the term meant. After attending the first class and reading the book I noticed how in depth risk communication can be. There are three main parts, and they are care communication, consensus communication and crisis communication. With those three branches in mind, now it is easier to understand what risk communication is and where it stems from.

I am a junior CGS student majoring in media communications and with this class I can see that there are so many ways to share one idea. Risk communication goes a lot deeper than “duck and cover”, “run for cover”, “be careful” and “watch out” just to name a few. In learning the different branches of risk communication I now know what would be the most interesting for me to explore this semester.

The most interesting issue for me is the War in Iraq. This topic hits very close to home for me because of my ties with the United States Air Force. I watched people very close to me feel the cause and want to help, so they joined the military. I personally do not agree with the topic but I support our troops immensely. My ex-fiancée went to the Air Force with good intentions and watching step for step what he went through and following the politics and news stories that surround it, it is hard not to have an opinion on what is going on. Being lied to by our president (is how I feel) about the intentions for the war and then the conflict of the Iraqis and Americans, it seems to not make any sense. Since people are losing their lives for what seems to be the truth and duty is so disgraceful to our military.

Another topic that interests me is Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath on America (see http://hurricanekatrinarelief.com . What is so disturbing about it is that there are still so many things that have not been resolved and it has been 2 years. When I went to CCAC I remember I sat next to a girl in my English class. It was the first day of class and the professor wanted to get to know everyone, so we all to introduce ourselves. It was this girl’s turn; she started to tell where she was from and her story for being in Pittsburgh. She started crying and told us that all she wanted to do was to be successful and to have a college degree. She went on to tell us that this was her 3rd attempt at finishing college because the 1st time she was not ready and dropped out, the 2nd she was displaced by Hurricane Katrina and the college she went to was destroyed and there was no more records of the students and she had to start over, and finally with it being her 3rd attempt she ended up transferring to Pittsburgh until she found the rest of her family. With that in my mind I want to research and review what happened and how it could have been prevented.

These topics affect us today and there are so powerful it is hard not to notice them. I want to do my part and learn how these things can be avoided and how I could affectively communicate my ideas and concerns as far as risk communication (more so the crisis communication branch of risk communication).