Managing issues in the face of risk uncertainty: lessons 20 years after the Alar controversy

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to take a 20‐year perspective to revisit the Alar controversy, one of the most hotly argued public issues of the late 1980s, and to explore what fresh conclusions can be drawn for modern risk and issue managers.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper reviews contemporary reports and analysis, along with subsequent retrospective opinions from some key participants and commentators, and examines those conclusions in the context of current communication practice.

Findings

The Alar case triggered a major reassessment of risk communication and the role of activists and the news media in amplifying issues. But even today some facts of the case remain in dispute and some of the purported lessons have been blurred by history or appear to have had little lasting impact.

Practical implications

Issue managers increasingly find themselves defending reputation in the face of public issues which focus on scientific uncertainty, and the Alar case provides vivid examples of both what to do and what not to do.

Originality/value

While most scholarship on the case discusses the implications for scientists, regulators and journalists, this paper throws fresh light on the case from the corporate perspective of the manufacturer of Alar, and the apple growers who found themselves in the eye of the storm.

Citation

Jaques, T. (2011), "Managing issues in the face of risk uncertainty: lessons 20 years after the Alar controversy", Journal of Communication Management, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 41-54. https://doi.org/10.1108/13632541111105240