KOREASCHOLAR

The main purposes of this study are to know the contents and forms of impressions that the general public, and the consumerists and environmentalists have of irradiated food, and to know what information of irradiated food influences their impressions. Other purposes are to know what sources those impressions derive from, to know which media they have recently been exposed to and paid attention to irradiated food through, to know which sources they trust of information regarding irradiated food most greatly, and finally to suggest policies and strategies of communication in order to shed positive impressions of irradiated food on people. This study was conducted through the person-to-person interview survey toward 1,200 adults, and 150 consumerists and environmentalists in 1999. Adults are sampled nationally in South Korea. Only 8.7% of the general public have heard of irradiated food. Impressions of irradiated food that the general public mentioned most frequently are: harmful, insecure, negative, etc. The consumerists and environmentalists were found to have the most inaccurate knowledge of irradiated food. Television and newspaper were the major sources of impressions of, exposure to and focus of attention on irradiated food. Based on these results, we seem to devise methods to enhance impression of irradiated food by disseminating information of advantages and benefits that irradiation provides food with and to promote the fact that irradiation on food is totally irrelevant to being radioactive, danger of a nuclear power plant, genetically modifying food, etc.

• 박성철 | Park, Sung-Chol
• 김학수 | Kim, Hak-Soo