From Cyclones to Cybersecurity: A Call for Convergence in Risk Communications Research

Risks and crises occur across disciplines, e.g., from natural hazards to cybersecurity to public health. A huge body of literature investigates mechanisms for improving risk communication because effective risk communication saves lives. However, the extent to which risk communication experts utilize the “lessons learned” from disciplines outside their own is suspect. Therefore, we hypothesized that risk communication research is siloed according to scientific disciplines at the detriment to the advancement of the field of risk communications research writ large. We tested this hypothesis by evaluating the disciplinarity of 5,264 published papers using natural language processing. Finding that the risk communication research is siloed, we present a discipline-agnostic framework for risk communication research as a first step towards breaking down the silos that segregate risk communication research.