Rischio, ambiente, società. La comunicazione come luogo della complessità

The emergence of risk as the dominant issue of the second modernity is primarily due to a crisis in scientific knowledge and the ability to foresee the consequences of human decisions on the socio-natural environment. The concept of risk highlights the limitations of deterministic approaches and the difficulty of recomposing disciplinary knowledge and decision-making criteria within a consistent epistemological framework, suitable to complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity. The apparent irreducibility of languages, scientific cultures and normative claims, along with the illusion of self-sufficiency of knowledge, have often amplified risks rather than mitigating them. Risk communication goes far beyond to be a set of messages conveyed by experts (scientists, public authorities), thus becoming a place of complexity, where the process of mediation of knowledge is aimed at inclusion, confidence building and the construction of rules and shared procedures for a more open, participatory and democratic management of risks. Keywords: Risk Communication, Risk Society, Risk governance, Complexity, Theoryof Systems