Posted By Raymond Rapp James I doubt if anyone can answer these questions, particularly with regards to accidents. Negative media coverage is very annoying for those working in the profession. Partly because many stories have been twisted beyond the true facts and also it undermines much of the good work that goes into protecting peoples' health, safety and welfare. No profession wants to be the butt of constant jokes - whether it is deserved is a moot point. Ray

Posted By martinw Not in all cases. The publicity regarding MPs and their expenses has not exactly been beneficial to them, but it could be argued that it has been beneficial to the majority of us if the worst offenders have effectively been named and shamed so that we do not vote for them or they do not stand at the next election. As regards health and safety, positive messages only come from interested parties such as IOSH or ROSPA. The tabloids use it as a source of ridicule and the other media only report the worst cases and the associated deaths and jail sentences.

Posted By James Denman But does that ridicule is some way promote more awareness of the subject and raise greater debate that otherwise wouldn't be there?

Posted By Swis Yes, certainly evidence includes; Available statistics More companies with competent H&S professional More legislation

Posted By James Denman Thank you for that, I will check those out.

Posted By Eddie James, I often use a discussion around the media and people's perceptions of health & safety as a sort of ice breaker on IOSH Managing Safely and Risk Assessment courses. From my experience, most people's perception of H&S is formed by negative press coverage. I can think of very few instances where anyone has quoted a positive story as determining how they feel about the topic. Plus of course most of the press stories tend to be around very emotive subjects - cancelled parades, banning Christmas decoration, suncream in children's nurseries etc etc. Which helps to fuel the negativity. Would be very interested in your research. Regards E

Posted By James Denman I did see that episode of Dragron's Den and am as guilty as everyone else for not commenting on the positive side that it showed for our profession. It is curious that people don't like discussing positive stories. Why is that?

Posted By James Denman But wouldn't spreading the word of positive stories and talking about them help cancel out some of the negative ones? Or is it that we all would rather be moaning? (I say that lightheartedly)

Posted By Kieran J Duignan The observation 'Positive stories on the other hand are for information where no discussion is necessary' is a revealing illustration of signal theory, which assumes that there is only one meaning of the word 'positive'. The unavoidable difficulty about communicating about safety lies in the nature of leadership and, even more especially, of followership in organsiations. Educating all employees, including managers, to follow the leadership of safety profesionals is a path for positive transformation of safety at work and is only possibe through discussion about positive achievements rather than injuections of lagal and technical information .

Posted By John A Wright Along with others on this thread, I don't agree that 'Positive stories on the other hand are for information where no discussion is necessary'. As a consultant I am constantly gathering positive stories from customers that I can share with other customers to encourage good practice that will reduce chances of injury/accidents etc. A simple one: one customer put a pair of goggles in a glass case in their main foyer with a little plaque. The point being that the goggles were damaged - one lense was severely cracked due to a projectile impact, the goggles had saved an employee's sight in one eye, possibly saved his life. I don't expect the company and the local newspaper ran a story about the goggles saving an employee's sight, but I expect if he hadn't worn the goggles there would have been a story there! John Wright

Posted By Swis 'Positive stories on the other hand are for information where no discussion is necessary' I think the words ‘information’ and ‘necessary’ are invisible to some people..

Posted By Swis 'Positive stories on the other hand are for information where no discussion is necessary' I think the words ‘information’ and ‘necessary’ are invisible to some people..

Posted By Kieran J Duignan James At one point watching last night's broadcast of 'Dragon's Den' on BBC2, I thought of your original question, 'Does the media's presentation of H&S stories really affect the view of safety any more than any other profession such as traffic wardens, police etc and does this have a measurable influence on accidents?' Again in the course of this broadcast, a constructive, intelligent, brief reference to 'safety' emerged in an entirely positive and appropriate way. It occurred when Ballantyne said he wouldn't invest in a product on safety grounds, based on the illustration offered by the bidder. I'm bringing this to your attention for 3 reasons: 1. the BBC(and possibly some other media) does invest considerable care to how safety is constructed in its programmes, as you can check by talking to its own safety specialists. 2. 'H & S stories' include discusssions, documentaries and dramas in which safety is represented as an integral, organic part of the story and its a matter for research to determine how influential these are by contrast wtih biased, ill-informed reports 3. Adopting a set of mindsets (or 'theories') larger than the dominant theory espoused within the safety profession, enables you to pay due attention to the full range of media representations of safety and health matter and the scale of possible influence on accidents you may wish to research.

Posted By Bob Youel advertising via whatever source must have a great effect on any subject it concentrates on as if it did not the marketing industry would collapse / use other media The point here is that if those with influence want to do something they use the tools at their disposal to do it and people respond accordingly e.g if we had a appropriate celebs advocating good H&S practice attitudes would change overnight & VV

Posted By John J Yes it does and a good example is breast cancer studies. Surveys found that 56% of members of public estimated that age was not a factor in breast cancer. Only 0.7% correctly identified that is was more likely in women 80+. One of the reasons behind this is that the media stories generally portay a picture of a young woman along with the article (cancer groups do the same) or focus on the rarer cases where a young women is, sadly, affected. Our perception of the risk has been massively schewed in order to sell papers