Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 087
Make the response feasible before raising the threat
Risk communication mobilizes action only when people see both a credible danger and a response they believe will work and can perform
Premise
A warning can increase urgency and still reduce useful action. When people believe a threat is serious and relevant but cannot see an effective, achievable response, they may protect themselves from the feeling rather than from the danger. Denial, avoidance, fatalism, source criticism, or reactance can become easier than acting on the risk.
Kim Witte’s Extended Parallel Process Model gives executives a sharper design test for safety, health, cybersecurity, crisis, and other risk communication. The question is not simply whether the message is forceful enough. It is whether threat and efficacy are established together, and whether the operating environment makes the recommended action genuinely feasible.
What the model is: Extended Parallel Process Model in Knowledge →
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- The essential model
- Why this matters
- Risks and limits
- Executive takeaway
- Key questions
- Selected sources
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- FamilyModel
- CategoryTheories & Explanatory Models
- DomainRisk, Crisis & Safety
What these mean
Editorial orientation · Family
Model
In this series, Model names the editorial family primarily used to understand and explain communication: theories, frameworks, effects, traditions, principles and other conceptual resources. It is an umbrella for a route into the field, not a claim that every included object is a predictive model.
Editorial orientation · Category
Theories & Explanatory Models
Explains how or why a communication process works by relating mechanisms, conditions or variables. Its value is an account that can guide inquiry into what produces an outcome, rather than a name for the outcome alone.
- KnowledgeExtended Parallel Process Model
- Related briefHealth Belief Model: Diagnose the Barrier Before Raising the Threat
- Key conceptFear Appeal
- Key conceptMessage Framing