Barbara M. Miller, assistant professor in the School of Communications, had an article published in the March 2012 edition of Risk Analysis (Vol. 32, Issue 3) titled “Risk perceptions in a resource community and communication implications: Emotion, stigma, and identity."
The article examined risk perceptions among residents living within resource communities, or sites of potentially damaging industries, such as forestry, mining and logging. Among concerns facing these communities is social stigmatization, an actual or feared negative psychological experience associated with living in a community with an undesirable industry.
This study of a coalmining resource community was conducted with the purpose of exploring a range of perceptions associated with on-going exposure to a resource industry, including the experience of social stigma. The article highlights the personal voices of the resource community experience and discusses implications for communicating with resource communities.