Abstract


The general public in Japan remains unfamiliar with the issues of high level radioactive waste (HLW) geological disposal although the disposal policy has been clearly stated. If Japan is to be successful in implementing HLW disposal then its society must gain an understanding of the task and it is essential that a positive attitude toward this effort develops. The purpose of this research was to develop a HLW risk communication model on the Web that would result in introspection and instill problem awareness, involvement, and a sense of responsibility in those who visited the website. In order to achieve this purpose, a new model which presented HLW topics with a form of dialog based on Norm Activation Theory with environmental ethics as meta-cognition has been developed. To confirm the effect of this model, a psychological experiment was conducted. It could be seen that subjects who browsed this model became interested in an unfamiliar topic (HLW), and posted their own opinions actively on the Bulletin Board System (BBS), compared to those with conventional knowledge-based content. Therefore, it was confirmed that the dialog content was effective in promoting introspection and a positive attitude, leading to prosocial behaviour.

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(C) 2020 Hirotake Ishii