Citizen satisfaction with public meetings used for risk communication

Journal of Applied Communication Research

Volumn 31, Issue 2, 2003, Pages 164-184

  McComas, Katherine A ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND   (United States)

Author keywords

Credibility; Public meetings; Risk communication; Risk perceptions; Satisfaction

Indexed keywords

EID: 0038107310     PISSN: 00909882     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/0090988032000064605     Document Type: Article

References (64)

1. Berry, J. M., Portney, K. E., Bablitch, M. B., & Mahoney, R. (1997). Public involvement in administration: The structural determinants of effective citizen participation. Journal of Voluntary Action Research, 13, 7-23.
2. Bohman, J. (2000). Public deliberation: Pluralism, complexity, and democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
3. Boulter, J. (1996, May). Should your company hold a public meeting? Aggregates Manager, pp. 88-89.
4. Checkoway, B. (1981). The politics of public hearings. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 17, 566-582.
5. Chess, C., & Purcell, K. (1999). Public participation and the environment: Do we know what works? Environmental Science & Technology, 33, 2685-2692.
6. Chess, C., Salomone, K. L., & Sandman, P. M. (1991). Risk communication activities of state health agencies. American Journal of Public Health, 81, 489-491.
7. Cole, R. L., & Caputo, D. A. (1984). The public hearing as an effective citizen participation mechanism. The American Political Science Review, 78, 405-416.
8. Cooper, M. R., & Wood, M. T. (1974). Effects of member participation and commitment in group decision making on influence, satisfaction, and decision riskiness. Journal of Applied Psychology, 59, 127-134.
9. Dandoy, S. (1990). Risk communication and public confidence in health departments. American Journal of Public Health, 80, 1299-1300.
10. DeValk, K. (1999, October 20). Landfill cleanup ideas discussed in Waterloo. The Finger Lakes Times, p. 3.
11. Dillman, D. A. (1978). Mail and telephone surveys: The total design method. New York: Wiley & Sons.
12. Dillman, D. A. (1991). The design and administration of mail surveys. Annual Review of Sociology, 17, 225-249.
13. Downs, C. W., & Hazen, M. D. (1977). A factor analytic study of communication satisfaction. Journal of Business Communication, 14, 63-73.
14. Fessenden-Raden, J., Fitchen, J. M., & Heath, J. S. (1987). Providing risk information in communities: Factors influencing what is heard and accepted. Science, Technology, and Human Values, 12, 94-101.
15. Fiorino, D. J. (1990). Citizen participation and environmental risk: A survey of institutional mechanisms. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 15, 226-243.
16. Friedlander, F. (1966). Performance and interactional dimensions of organizational work groups. Journal of Applied Psychology, 50, 257-265.
17. Frewer, L. J., Howard, C., Hedderley, D., & Shepherd, R. (1996). What determines trust in information about food-related risks? Underlying psychological constructs. Risk Analysis, 16, 473-500.
18. Goodnight, G. T. (1982). The personal, technical, and public spheres of argument: A speculative inquiry into the art of public deliberation. Journal of the American Forensic Association, 18, 214-227.
19. Gouran, D. S. (1973). Correlates of member satisfaction in group decision-making discussion. Central States Speech Journal, 24, 91-96.
20. Gouran, D. (1997). Communication in groups: The emergence and evolution of a field of study. In L. R. Frey, D. S. Gouran, & M. S. Poole (Eds.), The handbook of group communication theory and research (pp. 3-36). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
21. Grunig, J. E., & Grunig, L. A. (1992). Models of public relations and communication. In J. Grunig (Ed.), Excellence in public relations and communication management (pp. 285-326). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
22. Gundry, K. G., & Heberlein, T. A. (1984). Do public meetings represent the public? Journal of the American Planning Association, 50, 175-182.
23. Heath, R. L., Seshadri, S., & Lee, J. (1998). Risk communication: A two-community analysis of proximity, dread, trust, involvement, uncertainty, openness/accessibility, and knowledge on support/opposition toward chemical companies. Journal of Public Relations Research, 10, 35-56.
24. Heberlein, T. A. (1976). Some observations on alternative mechanisms for public involvement: The hearing, public opinion poll, the workshop and the quasi-experiment. Natural Resources Journal, 16, 197-212.
25. Hecht, M. L. (1978a). The conceptualization and measurement of interpersonal communication satisfaction. Human Communication Research, 4, 253-264.
26. Hecht, M. L. (1978b). Toward a conceptualization of communication satisfaction, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 64, 47-62.
27. Hon, L. C., & Grunig, J. E. (1999) Guidelines for measuring relationships in public relations. Gainesville, FL: Institute for Public Relations, Commission on PR Measurement and Evaluation.
28. Jarboe, S. (1988). A comparison of input-output, process-output, and input-process-output models of small group problem-solving effectiveness. Communication Monographs, 55, 121-142.
29. Johnson, K. N., Johnson, R. L., Edwards, D. K., & Wheaton, C. A. (1993). Public participation in wildlife management: Opinions from public meetings and random surveys. Wildlife Society Bulletin 27, 218-225.
30. Juanillo, N. K., Jr., & Scherer, C. W. (1995). Attaining a state of informed judgments: Toward a dialectical discourse on risk. In B. Burleson (Ed.), Communication yearbook 18 (pp. 278-299). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
31. Kasperson, R. E. (1986). Six propositions on public participation and their relevance for risk communication. Risk Analysis, 6, 275-281.
32. Kemmis, D. (1990). Community and the politics of place. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
33. Keyton, J. (1999). Relational communication in groups. In L. R. Frey, D. S. Gouran, & M. S. Poole (Eds.), The handbook of group communication theory and research (pp. 192-222). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
34. Kihl, M. R. (1985). The viability of public hearings in transportation planning. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 21, 185-200.
35. Klumpp, J. F., Riley, P., & Hollihan, T. A. (1995). Argument in the post-political age: Emerging sites for a democratic lifeworld. In F. H. Van Eemeren, R. Grootendorst, J. A. Blair, & C. A. Willard (Eds.), Special fields and cases: Proceedings of the third ISSA conference on argumentation (pp. 318-328). Amsterdam: Sic Sat.
36. Kunreuther, H., Easterling, D., Desvousges, W., & Slovic, P. (1990). Public attitudes toward siting a high-level nuclear waste repository in Nevada, Risk Analysis, 10, 469-484.
37. Laird, F. N. (1989). The decline of deference: The political context of risk communication. Risk Analysis, 9, 543-550.
38. LeClair, M. (1998, January 23). Landfill discussed: Residents complain of odors at Seneca Meadows. The Finger Lakes Times, p. 3.
39. Ledingham, J. A., & Bruning, S. D. (2000). Public relations as relationship management: A relational approach to the study and practice of public relations. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
40. McCallum, D. B., Hammond, S. L., & Covello, V. T. (1991). Communicating about environmental risks: How the public uses and perceives information sources. Health Education Quarterly, 18, 349-361.
41. McComas, K. A. (2001a). Theory and practice of public meetings. Communication Theory, 11, 36-55.
42. McComas, K. A. (2001b). Public meetings about local waste management problems: Comparing participants to non-participants. Environmental Management, 27, 135-147.
43. McComas, K. A., & Scherer, C. W. (1998). Reassessing public meetings as participation in risk management decisions. Risk: Health, Safety, and Environment, 9, 347-360.
44. McComas, K. A., & Trumbo, C. T. (2001). Source credibility in environmental health-risk controversies: Application of Meyer's credibility index. Risk Analysis, 21, 467-480.
45. Meyer, P. (1988). Defining and measuring credibility of newspapers: Developing an index. Journalism Quarterly, 65, 567-574, 588.
46. Mitchell, J. V. (1992). Perception of risk and credibility at toxic sites. Risk Analysis, 12, 19-26.
47. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. (1994). Guide to permit hearings. Albany, NY: Office of Public Affairs.
48. Pincus, J. D. (1986). Communication satisfaction, job satisfaction, and job performance. Human Communication Research, 12, 395-419.
49. Rosenbaum, W. A. (1978). Public involvement as reform and ritual: The development of federal participation programs. In S. Langton (Ed.), Citizen participation in America: Essays on the state of the art (pp. 81-96). Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
50. Slovic, P. (1987). Perception of risk. Science, 236, 280-285.
51. Slovic, P. (1992). Perception of risk: Reflections on the psychometric paradigm. In S. Krimsky & D. Golding (Eds.), Social theories of risk (pp. 117-152). Wesport, CT: Praeger.
52. Slovic, P., Flynn, J. H., & Layman, M. (1991). Perceived risk, trust, and the politics of nuclear waste. Science, 254, 1603-1607.
53. Sunwolf, & Seibold, D. R. (1997). The impact of formal procedures on group processes, members, and task outcomes. In L. R. Frey, D. S. Gouran, & M. S. Poole (Eds.), The handbook of group communication theory and research (pp. 395-431). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
54. Surtel, M. (1998, April 5). Contamination fear discussed. The Finger Lakes Times, p. 7A.
55. rd ed.). New York: Harper Collins.
56. Taylor, C. B. (1997). Communication satisfaction: Its role in church membership satisfaction and involvement among Southern Baptist churches. The Southern Communication Journal, 62, 293-304.
57. Toombs, M. (1995, May 18). Landfill critics told to be specific. The Finger Lakes Times, p. 7.
58. Trettin, L., & Musham, C. (2000). Is trust a realistic goal of environmental risk communication? Environment and Behavior, 32, 410-426.
59. Trumbo, C. W. (1996). Examining psychometrics and polarization in a single-risk case study. Risk Analysis, 16, 423-432.
60. US EPA. (2001). Federal Register, Environmental Documents: FR 2001. Retrieved April 22, 2002, from: http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-MEETINGS/2001/
61. Wall, V., & Nolan, L. (1986). Perceptions of inequity, satisfaction, and conflict in task-oriented groups. Human Relations, 39, 1033-1052.
62. Wall, V., Galanes, G., & Love, S. (1987). Small, task-oriented groups: Conflict, conflict management, satisfaction, and decision quality. Small Group Behavior, 18, 31-55.
63. West, M. D. (1994). Validating a scale for the measurement of credibility: A covariance structure approach. Journalism Quarterly, 71, 159-168.
64. Yin, R. K. (1994). Case study research: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.