Document Type
Presentation
Publication Date
8-2000
Publisher
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
Source Publication
AEJMC Annual Convention
Abstract
In 1993, Milwaukee-area residents experienced a nationally publicized outbreak of cryptosporidium, a parasite, which infested the metropolitan drinking supply and sickened some 400,000 people. Using survey data gathered from 610 adult residents in the wake of that outbreak, this study looks at predictors of the complexity of people’s understanding of two causal components of the outbreak: 1) how the parasite got into the water supply and 2) how it causes illness once in the human body. Analysis of open-ended data indicated that, consistent with the knowledge gap hypothesis, socioeconomic status is a significant predictor of differences in explanatory complexity. And, consistent with the literature on motivation and knowledge seeking, experience with and worry about the parasite also served as predictors of explanatory complexity under certain circumstances. We were unable to establish a relationship between complexity and media use.
Recommended Citation
Kahlor, Lee Ann; Dunwoody, Sharon; and Griffin, Robert J., "Accounting for the Complexity of Causal Explanations in the Wake of an Environmental Risk" (2000). College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications. 659.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/comm_fac/659
Comments
Accounting for the Complexity of Causal Explanations in the Wake of an Environmental Risk. A paper presented at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, annual convention. Phoenix, AZ, August 9 - 12, 2000. DOI. ©2000 The Author. Used with permission.