Healthy mistrust or complacent confidence?: civic vigilance in the reporting by leading newspapers on nuclear waste disposal in Finland and France

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• dc.contributor.author Lehtonen, Markku
• dc.contributor.author Kojo, Matti
• dc.contributor.author Kari, Mika
• dc.contributor.author Litmanen, Tapio
• dc.date.accessioned 2024-05-14T06:21:51Z
• dc.date.available 2024-05-14T06:21:51Z
• dc.date.issued 2021
• dc.description.abstract Trust and confidence have been identified as crucial for efforts at solving the conundrum of high-level radioactive waste management (RWM). However, mistrust has its virtues, especially in the form of “civic vigilance”—healthy suspicion towards the powers that be. This article examines civic vigilance in the form of “watchdog journalism,” as practiced by the leading Finnish and French newspapers—Helsingin Sanomat (HS) and Le Monde (LM)—in their RWM reporting. Although both countries are forerunners in RWM, Finland constitutes a Nordic “high-trust society” while France has been characterized as a “society of mistrust.” Employing the methods of frame analysis, key RWM-related news frames were identified, consisting of varying combinations of confidence, skepticism, trust, and mistrust. LM's mistrust-skepticism-oriented framings reflect the classical watchdog role, in sharp contrast with the confidence oriented framings of HS, which tends to reproduce government and industry framings. Explanations for the observed differences can be sought in historically constituted political and media cultures, as well as national nuclear “regimes”. For further research, we suggest two alternative hypotheses concerning the implications that these distinct models of civic vigilance have for democracy.
• dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
• dc.identifier.citation Lehtonen M, Kojo M, Kari M, Litmanen T. Healthy mistrust or complacent confidence?: civic vigilance in the reporting by leading newspapers on nuclear waste disposal in Finland and France. Risk Hazards Crisis Public Policy. 2021;12(2):130-57. DOI: 10.1002/rhc3.12210
• dc.identifier.doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/rhc3.12210
• dc.identifier.issn 1944-4079
• dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10230/60133
• dc.language.iso eng
• dc.publisher Wiley
• dc.relation.ispartof Risk Hazards Crisis Public Policy. 2021;12(2):130-57.
• dc.rights This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2021 The Authors. Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Policy Studies Organization
• dc.rights.accessRights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
• dc.subject.keyword media frames
• dc.subject.keyword radioactive waste management
• dc.subject.keyword trust
• dc.title Healthy mistrust or complacent confidence?: civic vigilance in the reporting by leading newspapers on nuclear waste disposal in Finland and France
• dc.type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
• dc.type.version info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion