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Dr. Peter M. SandmanOutrage Management(Low Hazard, High Outrage)The side of risk communication that built my reputation and sent my children to college was outrage management: what to do when people are excessively frightened or angry about a small hazard and you want to calm them down. Telling people to “Calm down!” is obviously not how this goal is best accomplished. The strategies that actually work turn out to be profoundly counterintuitive: apologizing for your mistakes, giving others credit for your improvements, acknowledging their grievances and concerns, etc. In the mid-1980s I coined the formula “Risk = Hazard + Outrage” to reflect a growing body of research indicating that people assess risks according to metrics other than their technical seriousness: that factors such as trust, control, voluntariness, dread, and familiarity (now widely called “the outrage factors”) are as important as mortality or morbidity in what we mean by risk. My clients tended to imagine that their neighbors, employees, or customers were upset mostly because of media sensationalism or activist distortions or their own ignorance; helping them understand the dynamics of stakeholder outrage was a prerequisite to helping them figure out how to reduce the outrage – mostly how to stop doing the things they were doing that provoked the outrage. Of course reducing outrage is a socially valuable thing to do only if the outrage is misplaced – that is, if the hazard, the technical risk, is genuinely small. (Similarly, increasing people’s outrage, as activists do, is socially valuable only if the hazard is genuinely big.) A recurring theme in my writing, and in others’ writing about me, is the ethical issues raised by outrage management, especially when deployed on behalf of huge multinational corporations. A lot of my writing on outrage management is repetitive. I have tried to pare down the lists below to reduce the repetition. For a more interactive learning approach, you might also want to download my OUTRAGE Prediction & Management Interactive Software. I think it’s wonderful – with the help of Australian programming experts, I managed to create software that would give a client the same advice I’d have given if I were there. But it’s labor-intensive (you have to answer a lot of questions about what’s going on). It never sold well, and in 2009 I got permission from my Australian co-owners to make it available as shareware on this website. Even for free it gets less use than I think it deserves. Several reviews of the software have been published; check out Spin doctors may be obsolete (May 1999) by Tim Radford, or We can work it out with Outrage (May 1999) by Duncan Graham-Rowe, or Running risk of public outrage (June 1999) by Joanna Pitman. Topical Sections in Outrage ManagementMy “Classic” Book and Video from the 1990s
Especially Important to Read
Key Aspects of Outrage Management
Applications to Specific Industries, Controversies, and Situations
Pesticide Outrage Management – Parts 1 and 2Webinar presented via Zoom to the Region One Pesticide Inspector Regional Training (PIRT) program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, February 23, 2021 I came out of retirement in January 2020 to try to help with the COVID pandemic. I wasn’t interested in any other work. But in early 2021, I was asked to do a two-hour Zoom training seminar for pesticide managers on how to cope with pesticide safety controversies. I thought it would be a nice change of pace from the pandemic, so I said yes. Part 1, 56 minutes long, is devoted mostly to the basics of risk communication: the distinction between hazard and outrage and the three paradigms of risk communication resulting from that distinction. Toward the end I focus on the paradigm most relevant to pesticide controversies, outrage management – beginning with some thoughts on how to stay empathetic in high-stress situations. Part 2 (65 minutes) includes more on outrage management and some Q&A on pesticide outrage management in particular. The training was sponsored by the Region One Pesticide Inspector Regional Training (PIRT) program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It was organized and hosted by the Pesticide Management Program of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. Other General Descriptions of the Outrage Concept and Outrage Management
Handout SetsResearch on Outrage Management
An Extended Critique of the Outrage Management ApproachPR Watch Volume 6, #1, First Quarter 1999 This is an entire issue of the quarterly PR Watch, devoted to a variety of articles critiquing me and my approach to risk communication, nearly all of them by Bob Burton. PR Watch watchdogs the public relations industry from a generally left perspective; Bob Burton writes mostly about the mining industry from that perspective. Obviously, I don’t share the author’s and publisher’s view that helping corporate polluters listen better is a dangerous new sort of “greenwashing” manipulation. But the quotes are all accurate and the description of my positions is mostly on-target. (Corporate dinosaurs also tend to see my approach as dangerous; maybe the polarizers always detest the compromisers.) Anyway, who wouldn’t be flattered to be the subject of a whole magazine issue?
Selected Guestbook Comments and Responses2018Climate change precaution advocacy may be the biggest challenge – but climate change outrage management is hugely neglected (December 2018) Dengvaxia and the vaccination crisis in the Philippines (November 2018) An outrage assessment of nuclear power (November 2018) Extremely high, polarized outrage and the Kavanaugh nomination (October 2018) Oppression damages self-esteem: the greed-outrage-ego triangle (October 2018) Outrage about refugee shelters in Europe (May 2018) The most pressing research priority for precaution advocacy, outrage management, and crisis communication (January 2018) 2017How good and bad regulations affect stakeholder outrage (March 2017) Why do outrage management when you can coerce or deceive people instead? (March 2017) Possible kratom ban: what kind of risk communication? (February 2017) 2016Coping with a disruptive committee member (December 2016) Labeling a risk: scary words versus neutral words versus euphemisms (September 2016) Remembering Enron: law versus ethics versus outrage (July 2016) Property value protection programs (May 2016) Delivering outrage-arousing news (May 2016) The key role of communication and reputation in food recalls (March 2016) 2015Analyzing wind farm outrage well … and addressing it badly (November 2015) The Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal (November 2015) What kind of risk communication is Donald Trump doing – and why don’t politicians do outrage management? (October 2015) Outrage about Brian Williams’s lies and his sort-of apologies (July 2015) “Stop being so emotional!” – playing the rationality card (July 2015) Mismanaging one controversy worsens the next controversy: an example from school district drug policies (June 2015) Belatedly telling utility customers there was uranium in their drinking water: where regulatory compliance and outrage management intersect (June 2015) Living without trust (June 2015) A hazard response to an outrage problem: Pepsi’s decision to abandon aspartame (May 2015) Why I think trust is not central to negotiating a Social License to Operate (May 2015) Convincing the CEO to give outrage management a try (March 2015) Accommodating hostile stakeholders: dialogue, demonstrate, or disrupt (February 2015) 2014How should health officials handle off-the-wall social media responses to their Ebola posts? (October 2014) Responding to a claim for damages you consider bogus (October 2014) Should a manager respond to the complaints of a demoted employee who quit? (August 2014) Responding to videos of people in your industry torturing animals (July 2014) “Don’t clean up the carcinogens in our park!” neighbors demand (July 2014) Drinking water contamination in West Virginia: A badly managed crisis becomes an ongoing controversy (May 2014) What to say when a chemical that’s outlawed in some countries is legal in yours (April 2014) Why you should never give up on working with fanatics (January 2014) 2013Prescribed burn outrage management and wildfire precaution advocacy (October 2013) When stakeholders think your engagement process is a farce (Sepember 2013) Where my three risk communication paradigms fit in conventional issues management models (September 2013) Racial justice and white outrage (August 2013) Outrage at the Rolling Stone Dzhokhar Tsarnaev cover (July 2013) (1) What to do about anticipated audience reactions; (2) The role of denial in precaution advocacy (willed apathy) (July 2013) Messaging for a health department under pressure to recommend meningococcal vaccination to all men who have sex with men (May 2013) Delivering disappointing news: How to tell people you’re not going to do what they want (April 2013) Using the Sandy Hook shootings to promote gun control (January 2013) 2012Stigmatizing smokeless tobacco – and how to fight back (December 2012) Revealing a problem that’s merely possible: good risk communication or self-destructive overkill? (November 2012) The L’Aquila case: Is criminalization a good way to discourage bad risk communication? (October 2012) Labeling foods with genetically modified ingredients: California’s Prop. 37 (October 2012) What should Penn State say in alumni fundraising appeals about its child molesting scandal? (September 2012) How should Mexican tourism officials address fears of drug violence? (July 2012) Persuading the Boy Scouts of America to accept atheists (July 2012) Arousing “counter-outrage” about where your activist opponents get their funding (May 2012) How should Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson have apologized for padding his résumé? (May 2012) Apologizing for your predecessors (April 2012) Pink slime (March 2012) The widespread insistence that sources should “speak with one voice” (March 2012) Outrage about cell tower/mast/antenna EMFs (February 2012) 2011Occupy Wall Street messaging – and Wall Street responsiveness (November 2011) Layoffs as a risk communication challenge (October 2011) Getting your organization to use information you have gleaned from public participation exercises (September 2011) Getting apathetic or resentful health department people interested in crisis communication (September 2011) Research on the trust/communication relationship – and the paradoxical role of trustworthiness and accountability (June 2011) Pushing for a new murder investigation: precaution advocacy or outrage management? (June 2011) Outrage management for a mining company in the Maghreb (May 2011) Unempathic over-reassurance re Japan’s nuclear power plants (March 2011) Will the shale gas industry try risk communication? (March 2011) How not to play into the hands of extremists (February 2011) Humility: why senior executives have trouble addressing their misbehaviors (February 2011) The reputation “bank account” and reputational redemption (February 2011) Outrage at nuclear power versus the “solar power halo” – and a postscript on carbon capture and storage (January 2011) 2010Talking about CEO compensation (December 2010) “Corn sugar” and other euphemisms (September 2010) Did the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico create a crisis for the oil and gas industry? (September 2010) President Obama’s handling of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (August 2010) Why aren’t people more worried about cell phone health risks? (August 2010) The ethics of risk communication consulting and the BP oil spill (June 2010) Jim Joyce, Tony Hayward, and how to apologize (June 2010) The role of public affairs professionals in enterprise risk management (May 2010) The Catholic Church’s pedophilia scandal: contrition, dilemma-sharing, and accountability (April 2010) Applying “Risk = Hazard + Outrage” to financial markets (March 2010) Intentionally irritating opponents as a tactic (March 2010) Outrage at proposed wood burning regulations (March 2010) Talking about uncertainty when hazard levels are unclear (February 2010) Outrage management via online social media (February 2010) 2009Research to prove that outrage management works (September 2009) Coping with the outrage at healthcare reform “town hall meetings” (August 2009) Outrage management for receptionists and operators (June 2009) Managing the outrage of extremists (May 2009) Credit default swaps, financial meltdown, and risk communication (March 2009) Apologizing to outraged people (when they don’t even know you) (March 2009) Does lack of control raise outrage and thus motivate action, or does it reduce self-efficacy and thus prevent action? (March 2009) Using risk comparisons to show a catastrophe is unlikely (February 2009) 2008Which media work best in different kinds of risk communication? (October 2008) Should you tell bystanders about a crisis (or a controversy)? (October 2008) Pesticide spraying against West Nile Virus (May 2008) Convincing people incinerators have improved (May 2008) Labeling BGH in milk (April 2008) Good reputation and bad reputation: Are there positives that can offset the negatives of outrage? (April 2008) Responding to damaging rumors when the information is confidential (March 2008) Alberta’s oil royalty: The industry’s risk communication mistakes (February 2008) Honesty as strategy (January 2008) 2007What can you say when you want to work with groups that detest each other? (December 2007) Managing outrage about the release of a convicted rapist (December 2007) Helping drinking water systems talk about serious and not-so-serious violations (December 2007) Outrage about depleted uranium (December 2007) Origins of the risk communication seesaw principle (December 2007) Does taking the thimerosal out of vaccines reassure people or scare them? (October 2007) Working with inexperienced regulators (September 2007) Fischhoff’s seven stages of risk communication (August 2007) Christine Todd Whitman’s defense of EPA re: post-9/11 air quality (June 2007) When a regulator is making “impossible” demands(June 2007) 2006Talking about animal culls (December 2006) The role of outrage in regulatory reform (November 2006) Lessons of the O.J. Simpson/Rupert Murdoch/Judith Regan controversy (November 2006) Risk communication in facility siting controversies (October 2006) Putting extremists on a Community Advisory Panel (October 2006) Aren’t the outrage factors just aspects of risk perception? (October 2006) Telling 9/11 emergency responders to wear their masks – and explaining later what went wrong (September 2006) Outrage about risk to the elderly (February 2006) 2004The “outrage” concept and black-and-white thinkers (August 2004) Is outrage part of risk or part of risk perception? (April 2004) Over-reacting to risk and irrationality (March 2004) 2003Telling corporations obvious things (December 2003) Some knotty dilemmas of public consultation (November 2003) Philanthropy, Bribery, Blackmail, Reparations, and Penance (July 2003) Talking about dioxin (June 2003) GM foods and risk communication (January 2003) 2002Dealing with abusive stakeholders (November 2002) Misleading connotations of the word “outrage” (April 2002) 2001Risk to children and other specially vulnerable populations; also environmental justice (December 2001) Guilt and ego as drivers in environmental risk controversies (October 2001) Community right to know – how activists use it and how companies respond (April 2001) Outrage and outrage management in other cultures – international risk communication (April 2001) Copyright © 2020 by Peter M. Sandman Which of the following is the best strategy to try if there is an echo on the call quizlet?Which of the following is the best strategy to try if there is an echo on the call? Ask the other person to speak louder into their microphones.
Which of the following is the best strategy to try if one person on a call Cannot hear the other?Which of the following is the best strategy to try if one person on a call cannot hear the other? The person who isn't being heard should turn up his or her microphone.
Which behavior signals the likelihood of unethical communication quizlet?an unethical listening behavior: when you become impatient or bored with someone's communication messages. pretending to listen saying "uh-huh" when you're not paying attention at all.
Which of the following is a disadvantage to using audio for business communication?Which of the following is a disadvantage to using audio for business communication? Audio calls do not allow participants to see facial expressions or body language.
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