Audience information needs assessment

According to the authors public involvement is absolutely indispensable to the successful implementation of waste disposal programs, and communication is absolutely indispensable for successful public involvement. Frequent, effective, and open two-way communication is the primary mechanism through which non-technical issues can be raised, discussed and eventually resolved. Public information programs developed by the agencies responsible for waste disposal are supposed to contribute to this process, but it is the authors contention that they frequently fall short for a simple reason they are insufficiently consumer oriented. They do not adequately assess the information needs of the various publics with which they are supposed to facilitate effective communication. In the language of communication models, attention is given to the messages the agency wishes to send, but not enough attention is given to feedback from the audiences the agency is addressing. A set of audience information needs assessment methods have evolved that can go a long way toward answering these questions. Seven of these methods are described and illustrated with examples from on-going radioactive waste management programs