ABSTRACT
The industrial and information ages have created a whole new range of risks and crises, while advances in communication and information technologies have increased people’s awareness of these risks as well as increasing the opportunities for dialogue and shared decision making based on risk assessment and associated political and social discussions. As the factors that have a propensity to increase risk and crises proliferate and as headlines shout out newsworthy crises such as increasing population density, increased settlement in high-risk areas, increased technological risk, aging U.S. population, emerging infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance, increased international travel and increased terrorism (Auf def Heida, 1996), risk and crisis communications will play a larger role in Quintilian’s (1951) principle of the good person communicating well as a foundation for fostering enlightened choices through dialogue in the public sphere.
