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basal. Compztt. M~e~l~~g Vol. 21, No. 5, pp. l-30, 1995 Copy~ght~lQQ5 Elsevier Science Ltd
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0895.7177(95)00011-9 0895-7177195 $9.50 + 0.00
A Mathematical Model of the Activities for Public Acceptance and
the Resultant Reaction of the Public: An Application to the Nuclear Problem
T. OHNISHI CRC Research Institute, Inc., Nakase l-3-D16
Chiba 261-01, Japan
(Received and accepted November 1994)
Abstract-A model WM developed to qualitatively assess the effect of the activities for nuclear public acceptance (PA). In this model, the news media and PA activities wore assumed to have essentially the same characteristics as each other in changing public attitude toward nucfear energy. With the introdu~ion of advertisement theory, the changed part of attitude was supposed to be formed of two components; the one is the emotional component which changes directly following the stimuli by the media and PA activities, and the other is the rational component which is formed hierarchically by passing through the stage from a stimulus to understanding. The Japanese case was treated as a case study, where the public was categorised into five demographic classes with each gender, and the time-varying attitude to uuclear energy and the effect of PA activities were quantified with each demographic class. The time behavior of calculated attitude was found to well reproduce the observed one, indicating the values for the effect of PA activities derived by this model to be reliable. Future behavior of public attitude expected when continuous PA activities are made hereafter, and the effect of nuclear education to the minority, were also investigated. This methodology is applicable to estimate the effect of PA activities not only for nuclear energy, but also for any type of subject.
Ke~ords-Mathematical model, Public acceptance, Nuclear probhm, Society, News media.
1. INTRODUCTION
Throughout the years of the 1970s and 1980s antinuclear thought had propagated from country
to country, and a stagnant state has continued since then for the promotion of nuclear energy for
electricity generation. In every country, government organizations and electricity utilities have
expended a great effort to sustain and to obtain firmer public support to nuclear energy [1,2]
with various types of activities for public acceptance (PA). The public attitude to nuclear energy,
however, does not seem to be changed towards a pronuclear direction at present, and continuing
PA activities are required also in the future if we really necessitate nuclear energy. In assessing
the state of the public’s mind resulting from the activities and in estimating the effect of the
activities on the attitude change, on the other hand, participants in the PA activities do not
seem to make efforts with the same enthusiasm as the execution of the activities themselves.
This is mainly due to the difficulty in quantifying the attitude change of the public, because of
personal characteristics and social environment different from each people; the reaction to the
activities differs from people to people and can be never treated uniformly. There exist no firm
methods, therefore, to assess the effect of PA activities even now.
2 T. OHNISHI
The means of the activities adopted at present are widely distributed from advertisements
composed of writings, visual brochures, and audiovisual TV spots to various types of models which
are usually seen at visitor centers near nuclear stations. We should note that these communicating
media are essentially the same ones as those which are widely used in a commercial field, and
that the PA activities are executed with an advertising philosophy similar to the one used in
commercial advertisement. Assuming that the activities for nuclear PA can be regarded as one of
the types of commercial advertisement, a model to assess the effect of the activities is developed
in what follows by introducing the advertisement theory prevailing at present. Also investigated
in this paper is to what extent such a general method as a commercial advertising model can
mimic a situation as subtle as a nuclear problem.
Much research has been done for several tens of years for modelling the reactive patterns of
consumers to advertisement. The so-called hierarchical model is one of the conceptual models to
describe the consumer’s reaction [3,4]. Although this allows us to include feedback processes, it
linearly models the changing process of the consumer’s mind so that the stimulus to consumers by
advertising exposure is linearly followed by the formation of the motives which lead the consumers
to purchase, the experience of goods, and further motives to purchase. The intensity of the
stimulus which an individual consumer perceives is varied in terms of personal characteristics
and psychological attributes such as predisposition. According to Ray [5], the decision process
of attitude under the condition of high involvement to goods proceeds in such a manner as
the recognition of goods which results from an advertising stimulus, the understanding of the
efficiency and distinctive features of the goods, and the formation of attitude, i.e., the conviction
of the goods to be necessary for oneself, which finally leads purchase. Here the term involvement
is a sort of indicator showing the extent of recognition and interest with regard to goods [6]. In
the case of low involvement to goods, consumers take a process of the stimulus which is directly
followed by the trial of the goods, i.e., the purchase without any recognition and understanding.
Some nonlinear models have been proposed in such a low involvement case [7,8]. In quantifying
such conceptual models, the latent power for purchase, namely the attitude, is explicitly given by
a response function to the amount of exposure [9], because it seems difhcult to circumstanti~ly
model the psychologic~ processes of consumers. Moreover, to grasp the dynamical behavior of
consumers, the effects of the tim~dependent response and of the tim~dependent unde~t~ding
of consumers are also considered [lo].
In this paper, such a changing process of the understanding and attitude of consumers as
above is assumed equally adaptable also to the case of nuclear PA activities, and a model for
assessing the PA activities is developed in a manner of systems science by treating public reaction
globally. In Section 2, prerequisites for modeling are given, and a conceptual model is presented.
Formulation for this model is made in Section 3. A case study is made in Section 4 with the use
of the data in Japan, where discussions are made to what extent this model can simulate the
change of public attitude and estimate the effect of nuclear PA activities. Conclusions are made
in Section 5.
2. METHODOLOGY AND A CONCEPTUAL MODEL
The following prerequisites are introduced for modelling:
(1) The model is constructed with a method of systems science, assuming the society partic-
ipating PA activities to be a system. The society considered here is, therefore, of a sufficiently
large scale, of a nationwide scale or a scale of local self-government, but not of a scale of local
community. The public is divided into some demographic classes according to their gender and
age. Public reaction is treated macroscopically within each demographic class; various variables
are assumed to give average values for the public in an object region, not considering the statis-
tical distribution of the values. Characteristic reaction and ~ciopsychological behavior different
Activities for Public Acceptance 3
from person to person, such as the change of attitude towards the reverse direction to the average and as the behavior of radical component with a strongly anti-nuclear thought, are not modelled.
(2) The understanding and attitude of the public to nuclear energy are cultivated by the con- tents of information released by the news media, the PA activities, and school education. The public, in general, does not necessarily have a conversation with their surroundings concerning highly specified topics such as a nuclear problem; in this respect, they are in a state of indepen-
dence to each other in the society, being immersed in a social atmosphere common to all, only to which the public interact indirectly with each other. The social atmosphere is also cultivated mainly by the news media. For all events taking place in the society, every news media usu- ally watches the reportorial stance of the other media. Such mutual watch between the media rapidly leads the fixation of the meaning of the event, with which the media repeatedly reports the event. Social atmosphere uniformly prevailing in the society and commonly perceived to all people results from such information with only one meaning released from all news media at the same time [ll].
The effect of mutual communication between the public has only a secondary contribution to the attitude change. This prerequisite may not be the case when a local community in a small scale is selected as a target region. The author has developed some models of nuclear PA which include the effect of mutual communication between the public [ll-131. By comparing these results with the ones obtained in this paper, the extent to which the effect of mutual communication plays a part in the process of attitude formation can be estimated.
(3) The extent of the influence which PA activities have on the public, that is, the sensitivity of the public to PA activities, is essentially the same as that of the news media on the public. A unit activity for the PA using a visual means such as brochures and the one using an audiovisual means such as video films have the same influence on the public as that of the media, such as visual photos and audiovisual television, respectively. According to this prerequisite, by analysing the secular variation of the public attitude to nuclear energy and of the amount of nuclear information released by the news media along with that of PA activities, the component of attitude change which has resulted only from the PA activities can be retrieved from the total change of attitude, which is a realization of the summed effect of the news media and the PA activities. Estimation can also be made as to what extent future PA activities will have an influence on the change of public attitude.
(4) Although the news media has an effect to shift the public attitude towards both positive (i.e., pronuclear) and negative (antinuclear) directions, PA activities have only a positive influence on the attitude change. The information by the media including pronuclear and antinuclear contents induce the movement of the attitude towards pronuclear and antinuclear directions, respectively. The final attitude of the public can be represented by a superposition of the changes in the pro- and antinuclear directions.
(5) Following the advertisement theories shown in Section 1, a part of the pro- and antinuclear attitudes is formed through the stage of understanding regarding pro- and antinuclear energy. This is called the rational component of attitude. In a given demographic class, the value of rational attitude can be given by a specific single-valued function, that is a response function, of the value of quantified understanding. The form of this function is assumed to be of a learning- curve type, i.e., a logistic function. The extent of understanding, or the amount of knowledge, is, in turn, explicit,ly determined in terms of the strength of the stimulus given from the outside, the functional form of understanding being assumed also to be of a logistic one. Such a rational component of attitude appears in correspondence to the case of strong involvement. The attitude component corresponding to weak involvement, on the other hand, is formed directly from t,he stimulus, not passing through the stage of understanding. This is called an emotional compo- nent of attitude which sways in a blind-following manner, being controlled by the contents of information by the media and PA activities.
4 T. OHNISHI
Three types of stimuli are given from the outside by
(a) the nuclear information released by the news media,
(b) PA activities, and
(c) school education.
In the case when the PA activities are made for school teachers and/or journalists as main
objects, feedback loops such ils the effects of teachers to school education and of journalists to
the amount of (pro- and antinuclear) information by the media are to be taken into account in
the model.
(6) Such a type of global model copes with wide ranges of both space and time. The effect of
a slowly varying sense of value with time is, therefore, to be taken into consideration, which is
due to the change of lifestyle, the renewal of generation, and the change of social environment
including politics and economics. Moreover, the recovery of changed attitude to the public’s
home style occurs with time. These effects have slowly but certainly changed the background of
attitude [14,15]. The final attitude is, therefore, given by the sum of the background component
slowly varying with time and two components given in the previous paragraph, varying rapidly
with time following time-varying stimuli.
A conceptual diagram is depicted in Figure 1. Here, several types of the news media together
with several types of PA activities are introduced, each of which is assumed to affect independently
an individual demographic class. The attitude averaged over the society, that is public opinion,
is given by averaging the attitude corresponding to all demographic classes with a weight of
population of each class. According to Figure 1, formulation is made in the next section.
l-------
: -------1
t_.__-____ 1 Nuclear Events , 7
1 --------_ J
-_-- i r,
z PA Activities z j tj = 1,.-J)
I 1
The Newsmedia r
--~;;iona;-~
System I i ci = l,...,I)
i I
I I L--- ---__I I
t t 1 ! I f I I
j /
’ I I 1
I ;
I 1 I 1
I I
f 1 i j
t L---_---_-L-r t
I I I 144
‘J --____-_--___I_-__--~~~~~~~~~~
I Social Environment
Object Society for PA Activities
Figure 1. Schematical diagram of model. Arrows by solid and dashed lines indicate, respectively, the directions toward which pronuclear and antinuclear effects propagate.
Activities for Public Acceptance 5
3. FORMULATION OF THE MODEL
In what follows, three types of news media, (i) the press, (ii) television and (iii) magazines
are considered as for the representatives of the media of literal, audiovisual and visual types,
respectively. As for PA activities, on the other hand, the following six types are introduced:
(a) advertising messages on the press as a literal type of PA activity,
(b) exclusive publicity as another literal type of PA activity,
(c) TV spots and/or video films as an audiovisual PA activity,
(d) visual brochures and comic books as a visual PA activity,
(e) model presentation and the so-called new media set in visitors centers, and
(f) public lectures and visit trips to nuclear facilities.
The public is divided into several demographic classes with gender and with age.
3.1. Stimuli Given by the News Media
The positive (with a superscript k being set as p : k = p) and negative (k = n) stimuli by the
pro- and antinuclear information, respectively, given by the press (i = 1) to the public belonging
to a demographic class f? at a given time t, &i(~ : t), is given by
sF(e : t) = 11 q(l : t) q(l : t) In (n(t)ft(t)) , (1)
where 1% is a transformation coefficient for the stimulus by the press to a stimulus common to all
media, which is introduced to level off the qualitative characteristics of the media different from
each other in influencing the public. The quantity cl(l : t) is the fraction of the public belonging
to the class C who peruse a newspaper at t, cs(! : t) the fraction of the public of the cl who read
articles concerning nuclear energy, n(t) the average number of newspapers which are perused per
person, and f:(t) the amount of information released by the press during a unit time around t.
The amount of information is proportioI1~ to the area of article which, in turn, is proportional
to the importance of event. In the case of perusal of newspapers, the public is considered to read
articles in accordance with their importance. In this case: the variable cs is given as a function of
both the perusal time of newspapers, r(! : t), and the amount of information ff. The following
functional form is adopted here for this quantity:
when f!(t) L fyi
otherwise,
where fyi = exp {ui . ~(l? : t)-““} . (3)
Here, ai and us are constants which are to be determined from observational data regarding
the contact degree with the press for the public. In equation (l), Fechner’s rule [16] was tacitly
used in that the stimulus the public really perceives from information, s, is proportional to the
logarithmic value of the physical intensity nf,k.
The stimulus given by television (i = 2) to the class e, .$=s(e : t), is given by
where Is is the transformation coefficient of the stimulus given by television, cs the fraction of
television receivers which are turned on at the time of TV news, c4 the fraction of the public who
can see television in the broadcasting hour of TV news, c5 the fraction of the public of the cq who
really see TV news, es the fraction of the public of the cs who watch nuclear news when events
concerning nuclear energy are telecasted as TV news, and f,$ the amount of information released
6 T. OHNISHI
by television. Here the nuclear information such as nuclear accidents and nuclear development was assumed to be telecasted only in the form of TV news. If the public who see television always receive all images and information sent by TV stations without any selection, then the value of the quantity ce is unity.
The stimulus given by magazines (i = 3), .&(l: t), on the other hand, is given by
s$(e : t) = 13 q(l : t) cs(C : t) c9(1! : t) c& : t) In (f,“(t)) , (5)
where 1, is the transformation coefficient of the stimulus given by magazines, c7 the fraction of the public who have a custom to read magazines, cs the fraction of magazines which tend to print nuclear problems as articles, ce the fraction of the public of the c7 who really read nuclear articles, cl0 the average number of mag~ines which are read in a unit time per person, and fi the amount of nuclear information per magazine where nuclear articles are printed. Here it was tacitly assumed that the public reads only articles in which they are really interested when they peruse magazines.
3.2. Stimuli Given by PA Activities
The stimuli by PA activities can also be quantified with the same method as the above. Namely, the stimulus given by the advertisement on the press (j = 1) to the demographic class k’ at a
time t, ,!&(a : t), is calculated as
Sr(C : t) = II cl(l : t) ci(-t : t) CI(! : t) Cz(t : t) C3(l : t) ln(~(~)~~(t~), (6)
where II, cl and n are the quantities already defined in equation (l), c$_ is the same quantity as c2 given by equation (2) but ff replaced by FI, Cl the ratio of the circulation of the news- paper on which the advertising messages are printed to the circulation of all newspapers, C2 the fraction of the public who read the advertising messages, C3 the fraction of the public of the C2 who understand the contents of the messages, and Fi the amount of information given by the sdvertising messages. Here it should be noted that the advertising messages are read only by the people who are really interested in the subject, contrary to the case of the general article on the
press. Exclusive publicity (j = 2) and visual brochures (j = 3) give respective stimuli S.&e : t) and
Sj,e(a : t), to the public such that
Ss(f? : t) = 11 C&f!! : t) Cs(l: t) CT&!: t) ln(~2(~)), (7)
S3(.t : t) = 13 C7(t : t) C3(8 : t) C9(t : t) ln(Fs(t)) , (8)
where Cd (and C7) are the circulations of exclusive publicity (brochures) per person dwelling in an object region, Cs (Cs) the fractions of the public who read the exclusive publicity (brochures), which include the effect of reading in turn, C’s (C’S) the fractions of t,he public of the C’s (Cs) who really understand the contents of the respective material, and FZ (Fs) the amounts of information.
The stimulus given by TV spots (j = 4) is, on the other hand, given by
S’d(e : t) = 12 C&J : t) ck(k’ : t) Crl(t : t) c@ : t) C&t : t) ln(F~(~)~, (9)
where 12, ci and c& are the similar quantities as q and cs but for TV spots, 6’10 the fraction of television receivers which are turned on at the broadcasting hour of TV spots, Cri the fraction of the public who really see the TV spots, which is a quantity corresponding to cs in equation (4), Cis the fraction of the public of the Cii who understand the contents of the message, and F4 the amount of information.
Moreover, the stimuli given by the PA activities of the types (e) and (f), S+s(e : t) and Sj=o(! : t), are respectively given by
Ss(8 : t) = 14 C13(.t : t) C14(e : t) In (F5(t)), (10) S’,(l : t) = 1, &,(t : t) Cls(l : t) in (F,(t)), (11)
Activities for Public Acceptance 7
where 14 and I5 are the transformation coefficients to the stimulus common to all activities, Crs
(and Crs) are the fractions of the public who are affected by the respective PA activity during
a unit time, C14 (Crs) the fractions of the public who really understand the contents of those
activities, and F5 (Fe) the amounts of information given by those respective activities.
3.3. Degree of Understanding
The tim~variation of the degree of understanding with regard to pro- and antinuclear energy
(k = p and n, respectively) for the demo~aphic class C, Us s Ut, is given by the sum of the
following five terms:
(1) an oblivion term of understanding,
(2) a varying term of understanding governed by the stimuli from the media,
(3) an increasing term with stimuli by PA activities,
(4) an increasing term by school education only for the demographic class of minority, and
(5) a varying term of understanding owing to the gradual change of constituents of a given
demographic class by shifting an older class with time.
The oblivion of understanding is simply assumed to be of an exponenti~-type, and a logistic
function is used as a response function of the understanding to an input stimulus, as prerequisited
in the previous section. Then, the following differential equation is obtained:
@ = -cYu~ + Q(l - U,“) 5 { 1 1
dt i__l 1+ exp{& + r&l : t)} - 1+ exp(b)
+ce(1 - vi> S(k = p) f: { 1 1
j__l I+ exp(Pe + reSj(L : T)) - I+ exp(&)
S&[(l - U,“) S(k = p) s(e = er) 1 1
1 + exP{/% + %s8(4 : t>) - 1 f %@d
where GE, ,$, yt and ee are e-dependent constants, 5(.) is Kronecker’s delta, Ss(C : t) the stimulus
given by school education whose formula will be given in Section 3.5, er the demographic class
just corresponding to the age of school education, and Pe the population of L. The factor “~~
represents the fractional rate of the population of .! which shifts to the adjacent class (e + 1)
during a unit time. The values of constants are to be determined so that the understanding U/ becomes to be a variable with a value in the range [O, 11. The factor (1 -U,“), which appears in the
second, third and fourth terms on the right-hand side of equation (12), was introduced to give an
effect of saturation of the understanding. Owing to that factor, the variation of Up” can become
quite small in a case of the approach of Ut to unity, even if stimuli become extraordinarily high.
This mimics the real situation such that the degree of public understanding has an upper limit.
3.4. Attitude
The time-variation of the attitude, At(t) E A!, can be given by the sum of terms corresponding to the following six effects;
(1) an effect to recover the attitude of the public’s home style Af(0) with the elapse of time,
(2) an effect to change the attitude by the rational mode,
(3) an effect to change the attitude by the emotional mode,
8 T. OHNISHI
(4) an effect to reform the attitude due to PA activities,
(5) an effect to change the attitude slowly with time due to the change of the public’s sense of value, and
(6) an effect to change the attitude for a given demographic class due to the gradual shift of population to an older class adjacent to it with time.
For the recovery of attitude to that of home-style, an exponentiai behavior with time is also supposed as for the oblivion term of understanding. Setting the rational component of attitude as A’, a functional form of a learning-curve type is assumed here aa a response function of A’ to the understanding U;
A’ = E 1+ exp( tc + XV) ’ (13)
where K, X, and 5 are constants. Equation (13) means that the A’ varies monotonically with the increase of U, becoming an increasing function with an asymptotic value of < when X < 0, and a decreasing function with an asymptotic value of zero when X > 0. Moreover, the time-variation of the emotional component of attitude is also assumed to be of a learning-curve type with the stimulus as an independent variable. The time variation of the variable Ai is then given by
f$f = 4e (At(O) - A;) -t 72 di$
2{1 +cosh;it +A,U,k)) dt
f&(1 - Ai) E +=r i
1 1
1 + exp (Bt -I- IT&C : t)) - 14 exp(&)
s&(1 - A:) S(k = p) 2 { 1 1
j=l 1 + exp (Be + P&(e : t)) - 1 + exp(&)
+@glk + A;__, dlnz’l _ A; !&$. (14
where Qr, Ke, At, Se, Et, Be, II’! and @ are constants to be determined so that the A,k takes a value within a range [0, 11, V is a variable quantifying the public’s sense of value whose formula will be given in Section 4.1.5, and the quantity 1” represents a function defined such that lk = 1 when k = p and 1" = -1 otherwise. The second term on the right-hand side was obtained by differentiating a form of equation (13) with respect to time.
Average values for the pronuclear and antinuclear attitudes, A” (k = p and n, respectively), for the inhabitants in an object region is simply given by
(15)
By using these quantities, the public attitude A(t) corresponding to observed public opinion is defined by
A(t) E AP(t) - An(t). (16)
In the same way as this, the average attitude At(t) only for the public in a specified class e can be drawn by
Al(t) = As(t) - A;(t). (17)
These variables A(t) and At(t) are within the range [-l,l]. The condition A(t) = -1 (and 1) correspond to the society completely negative (col~p~etely positive) to nuclear energy, whereas A(t) = 0 to the society with a neutral stance to nuclear energy.
Activities for Public Acceptance 9
3.5. Effects of PA Activities to School Teachers and Journalists and of School Edu-
cation
When specific activities to school teachers (with a symbol T) and journalists (J) are executed
in such forms as briefings, lectures and visit trips to facilities, further stimuli &(T : t) and
&(J : t) due to the activities are added to them together with the stimuli given in Section 3.2.
These are given, respectively, by
S7(T : t) = 16 Cl7(t) cl,(t) In (F7(t)) , (18)
87(J : t) = 17 &(t) C20(t) ln(Fs(t)) 7 (19)
where Is and I7 are the transformation coefficients for the stimuli, Ci7 (and Cis) are the fractions
of school teachers (journalists) who become the object of the activities at a time t, Cis (Csc) the
fractions of school teachers (journalists) of the Ci7 (Cm) who really understand the contents of
information given by the activities, and FT (Fs) the amounts of information. Their understand-
ings, .!Jg and UJ”, and their attitudes, A$ and A;, can be given by integrating equations (12)
and (14), respectively, with the second summation from j = 1 to 7 in these cases.
The public who belong to the demographic class Ci corresponding to the age of school education
receive a further stimulus Ss(!i : t) due to the nuclear education;
SS(tl : t) = IS C21(& : t) C22(11 : t) C23(t) In(Fs(t)) 7 (20)
where Is is the transformation coefficient, Csi the fraction of pupils who are educated on nuclear
energy at t, C’s2 the fraction of pupils at the Csi who really understand the contents of informa-
tion, C23 the ratio of the stimulus given by a teacher who was subject to PA activities to the
stimulus by a teacher who was not enlightened, and Fg the amount of information given by the
education. The quantity C23 may be simply given by
C23(t) = 1 + G(t) - Wt)) u*(t) ’ (21)
where Up(t) is the understanding averaged over all demographic classes.
The effect of enlightened journalists to the information of the media, on the other hand, may
be estimated through the change of the amount of information to be released hereafter, Ah, as
E!(t) = 1 + 1k (u:(t) - u”(t)) up(t) . m. (22)
3.6. Determination of Constants
To determine the attitudes At(t) and A(t), ’ f m ormation is required on variables c,(n = 1. . . lo),
C&v= 1.. .23) mainly regarding the contact degree with the media for each demographic class,
together with the amount of information released by the news media, f!(t) (i = 1.. .3), and by
the PA activities, Fj(t) (j = 1. . . 9), both during a unit time around t. Transformation coefficients
for stimuli, I, (m = 1 . . .8), and constants appeared in equations (12) and (14), Q? Se,. . . , I’e and
0 are to be determined by the method of nonlinear least-squares so that the calculated attitude
A(t) fits most satisfactorily the observed real-value Aobu(t) in the past. Once the values for those
coefficients and constants are fixed, the independent effect of each PA activity to public opinion
can be retrieved, and the effect of the activit,y expected in the future can also be estimated.
Figure 2 shows the procedure for numerical calculation as a flow diagram.
In a subsequent section, a case study is made for a Ja.panese case by the use of the formulae
given above.
10 T. OHNISHI
Start
t
Readin of Trial Values for Variables
Stimuli on the Subject k by the Media and PA Activities s i ‘@:t), S i k( 2 :t)
I Understanding for t$l~mographic Class 8 I I
o) c
I 1 ’ I . I
I Attitude for the Demographic Class@ Aek(t) I I
I ’ I
I 4
Public Opinion at t A(t) 1
Do A,,I’s Fit Real Values A&is ? -3
Rearrangement of Trial Values by E Non-Linear Least Squares
I Increments of Understanding and Attitude A&(t) and AA&) by PA Activities II I
o? *
I 1
I 1
Figure 2. Flow chart showing computational procedure
4. A CASE STUIIY
Investigations are made here to what extent our model can simulate the actual phase of attitude
change, and by what manner the attitude of the Japanese to nuclear energy has been changed
since the early 1970s in accordance with the change of the amount of nuclear information by the
media. Also made are the studies to what extent PA activities endeavoured especially since the
late 1980s have contributed to the change of public opinion, and by what extent public opinion
will be ameliorated hereafter when PA activities are continued to be exerted in the future.
4.1. Data
The public of the age older than eleven is demographically divided into five classes for each
gender as shown in Table 1. To derive the attitude for each demographic class and the attitude
averaged over all classes, the following four types of time-sequential data are required:
(1) the observed value of attitude for the public, that is public opinion, concerning nuclear
energy,
(2) the amount of news concerning nuclear energy released by the news media,
Activities for Public Acceptance
Table 1. Demographic classification.
11
(3) the contact degree with the news media for the public of each demographic class, and
(4) concrete values of the PA activities and school education.
4.1.1. Trend of public opinion
Nuclear electricity generation in a commercial scale began in the early 1970s in Japan, from
whence many opinion surveys have intermittently been done concerning the propriety of the
development and of the peaceful use of nuclear energy by government agencies, broadcasting
services, newspaper offices, electricity utilities, and so on. The extent of public attitude for and
against nuclear energy was judged in this paper by using the opinion polls on the use of nuclear
energy in electricity generation. Although choices to the questionnaire slightly differ from each
opinion poll, the selection of the choices such as “yes for the use of nuclear energy,” “should
develop it more” and “inevitable for the use of nuclear energy” were all regarded as belonging to
the positive side for nuclear energy (its fraction being set CP), whereas the selection such as “no
for the use of nuclear energy, ” “prefer to stop it” and “oppose it because of possible radioactive
contamination and/or nuclear weapons” to the negative side (C”). By the use of these fractions,
the observed attitude of the public at t, Aobs(t), is calculated as
Aobs(t) = {Cpct> tp(t) - Cnct) tn(t>) {P(t) + P(t)) ’
where cp*“(t) are correction factors for the slow variation with time of the strength of the public’s
feeling for the approval and the disapproval to nuclear energy [ll]. The &,bs’s were thus derived
at fourteen discrete points of time after 1973. It should be noted that these Aobs’s are not the
ones obtained with a certain definite manner of survey throughout the entire period of time by
a single research agency, but with various manner by various agencies; an accurate comparison
between any two absolute values of &bs’S may not be meaningful. The A,-&‘S as a total, however,
seem to well represent the global behaviour of public opinion in a long time scale.
4.1.2. Released amount of nuclear news
The time series of the amount of news released by the media were made out by summing the
amount of information released as news during one month. Two types of time series with a time
width of one month, the one for the information with positive contents to nuclear energy and the
other with negative contents, were made for three types of the news media-the press, television,
and magazines. Here the positive and negative information was defined, respectively, as follows.
Positive information: the information concerning the success and advancement of the research
and development of nuclear energy, the start of operation of nuclear facilities and their related
explanations, nuclear policies, internal and international negotiations on nuclear energy, com-
mentaries and documentations on a positive stance to nuclear policy, and all other general news
and information on nuclear energy on a neutral stance.
12 T, OHNISHI
iVe@&e ~~fo~u~~on: the information concerning the accidents, impediments and troubles
at various nuclear facilities and their related news, antinuclear movements and lawsuits against
nuclear facilities, the failure or unsuccess of nuclear research and development, nuclear regulations,
and critical commentaries and documentations on a negative stance to nuclear policy.
As for the condition of media vehicles from which the data are retrieved, they are required to
be the ones to inform the public in the whole country of an identical content at the same instant.
In the case of the press, The Mainichi (setting the value of the subscript L to be l), The Asahi
(L = 2) and The Yomiuri (L = 3), each of which is issued in a nationwide scale, were adopted
to obtain the amount of information ff (k: = p and 9~);
where pi is the perusal rate of newspaper L (the sum C i=ip~(t) at 1990 being 0.772), and
qi is the sum of the area of articles of type k appeared in L during one month in a unit of
[column. cm/month]. The total number of articles on nuclear energy appeared in L = 1,2 and 3
during [1973,1993] are about 4900, 5300 and 3000, respectively.
In the case of television, information common to all people is telecasted by a broadcasting
agency NHK (being set the subscript L as l), together with several private companies for broad-
casting service (L = 2) by means of nationwide networks. The amount of information &$ (k = p
and n) given as nuclear news by television during one month is given by
(25)
where pi is the fraction of the public who usually see TV news telecasted mainly by L, qi the
time in a unit of [minute/month] for which nuclear news are telecasted during one month, and Y
the ratio of the time for TV news telecasted by private companies to that by NHK.
On the other hand, about 160 magazines (being set the subscript L) which can easily be
obtained by the public from any book store were surveyed to derive the amount of information
released by magazines, f:(t);
&) = c;:“p PLW qZ(t>
c;:y PLW ’ (26)
where pi is the circulation of L per month, and qi the number of pages on the subject k per month
printed in L. Total number of nuclear articles printed in the magazines amounts to about 2800
in the period [1973,1993].
4.1.3. Contact degree with the media
Using various statistics, reports, public opinion surveys and inquiries about the time share for
living of the public, the time variation of the quantities c, (n = 1. . . lo), and C~J (N = 1. . .23),
most of which are related to the contact degree with and to the responsive state to the media for the public, were derived with each demo~aphic class. Inter- and extrapolations were made
in cases of incomplete data, whereas time-variability was neglected when time-sequential data
are unavailable. Moreover, the dependence only on gender was considered in cases of the lack of
detailed data with age. These quantities c, and C’N thus obtained show clear gender-dependence
along with a meaningful difference with age and with the era. These trends of quantities indicate that the difference in the contact degree with the media is one of the important factors which bring the divergence of the public attitude to some specific subject. In Figure 3, the secular
variation of the quantity cl(!Z : t), the fraction of the public of the class -!? who peruse newspapers,
is shown as an example [1’7].
Activities for Public Acceptance 13
0.' 7-
0.5 -
B S
F I%
0.3,-
0.1 -
Figure 3. Secular variation of the perusal rate of newspaper for the public to each demographic class.
4.1.4. PA activities
Up to the mid 198Os, PA activities to promote nuclear use had aimed mainly at the inhabi-
tants dwelling very near specific nuclear facilities, and had hardly been exerted to the general
public over the country. After the mid 1980s with the Chernobyl accident as a turning point,
‘however, criticism to nuclear energy rapidly grew in the public. Although the government, local
governments and electricity utilities have made an effort for activities intended for the general
public since then, detailed documents and statistics are not available at present on what extent
of manpower and in what scale of object region these organizations have continued to execute
the activities. In the following Sections 4.2.1 and 4.2.2, therefore, two cases are, respectively,
investigated:
(a) a case where no PA activities in a nationwide scale have been enforced, and
(b) a case where the same scale of PA activities as that executed by a local government in
1990 [18] have been continuously enforced since 1985 in a nationwide scale.
A real situation is within the range determined by these two extremes. The amount of information
9 (k= I... 6) in the case of (b) are, respectively,
Fl = 420 column. cm/month, Fz = 16 page/month, F3 = 16 page/month,
F4 = 20 minute/month, F5 = 20 minute/month, and Fe = 50 minute/month. (27)
- :Men n-----o : Women
I I I I I I
ml, B ma, f2 ml, f3 m4, f4 ms, f5
14 T. OHNISHI
As for the transformation coefficients for the PA activities of the types (e) and (f), they are simply assumed as I4 = Is = Is, because the characteristics of those activities seem to be of the audiovisual ones somewhat similar to television. PA activities objected to school teachers and journalists are neglected for simplicity together with the effect of feedback by them.
4.1.5. Other data
For the variable V representing the public’s sense of value, which appeared in equation (14), the fraction of the public who support spiritualism rather than materialism [19] was adopted as an indicator. This fraction was found to vary in the following manner with time:
0.17 ‘(‘) = o-3’ ’ 1+ exp(2.268 - 0.252(t - 1973)) ’
where t is a calendar year. As already shown in Section 4.1.1, the number of real attitude which is to be compared with the
calculated attitude is only fourteen, and therefore, the number of constants whose values can be fixed by the procedure shown in Figure 2 is quite restricted. Constants ,&, 7gye, Q, Ke, Al, Et, El, Be and l’e in equations (12) and (14) were all replaced by the constants a, p, E, K, E, E, I3 and b all independent on e, newly introducing, in turn, a l-dependent function ga;
Be = ,he, ^le = -(2Pe -t a), ee = E, Ke = Kge, Ae = -(2Ke + a), z? -3 (29) -e - -, Ee = E, Be = Bge, and I’e = -(2Be + a),
where (0.378 + 0.0172 xl)‘, when 4 = ml . . . rn5 and t 5 1985,
ge =
(0.192 + 0.0197 Xe)b, when & = fi . . , js and t I: 1985,
(0.439 + 0.0131 xl)‘, when e = ml.. . m5 and t > 1990,
(0.081 + 0.0198 Xl)‘, when & = jr . . . js and t > 1990.
(30)
Here, xc is the average age of the public belonging to the class ?., and the value of se at t E [1985,1990] was derived by linearly interpolating the above formulae. The magnitude of the l-dependent mantissa of equation (30) was taken to be equal just to the fraction of the public of e who have a deep distrust of the news media, namely who do not accept the contents of information released by the media, not simply believing the contents to be true [20].
&uations (12) and (14) were numerically integrated from January 1973. The initial values for I$ and Ai were estimated from the results of public opinion polls exerted in the early 1970s on nuclear energy. The terms Ut__r d In Pe<,/dt and A!__, d In Pe<_,/dt in equations (12) and (14), which represent the inflow from the adjacent younger class, should be paid attention when the effect of elementary education for the pupils younger than twelve to the status of public opinion in a later era is inv~tigated. In this paper, the understandi~ and the attitude for the public younger than twelve were assumed to be constant with time, their values being set equal to the respective values which the public of the classes ml and ji initially has (in Sections 4.2.1 and 4.2.2), or being set null (in Section 4.2.2).
4.2. Results and Discussion
4.2.1. Reproductivity of public opinion in the past
The values of constants used in this section were determined by assuming that the real values of attitude Aobs’ s are attained only by the effect of the news media without any influence of PA activities. Calculations were performed within t&he years [1973,1993] with a time step of one month.
Figure 4 shows the
demographic classes;
Activities for Public Acceptance 15
time variation of negative stimulus by the media s?(t) averaged over all
(31)
Throughout the range of years considered, the stimulus by the press has always exceeded the ones
by the other two media; the stimulus by television is only a third to a fifth the stimulus by the
press in the 1970s. After the mid 1980s however, the contribution from television has gradually
increased finally to become about a half the one from the press in 1993. Although the press
may probably be an important medium also, hereafter as it is heretofore, relative significance of
television to the press in forming public opinion is expected to grow in the future. It is noticeable
that these media have impulsively given strong stimuli to the public especially in cases of every
serious nuclear accident. As compared with these media, the contribution from magazines is
an order of magnitude lower, being negligibly small. Several reasons for this are thought of:
magazines are the media prevailing mainly in urban communities, and therefore, all of the public
does not necessarily contact with them with an equal opportunity; the main role of magazines
is to cover the background of events and to report commentaries on the issues rather than to
promptly inform the public of newly occurred events, and therefore, they only give a weaker
impact to the public than the others; and the contents of information by magazines are apt to
follow commercialism, and therefore, they are not necessarily believed to be really true by the
public.
Figure 5 shows the time variation of the understanding for negative nuclear information U?(t)
for some demographic classes. The understanding strongly depends on the demographic class.
Such a divergent feature of understanding originates from the contact degree with the media
different with the demographic class. Namely, both a relatively low level of understanding for the
class fi and the rapid decrease of understanding after around 1980 for fz come mainly from the
low opportunity for these classes in contacting news provided by the media. The understanding
corresponding to the classes ms . . . m5 and fs . . . f5, on the other hand, has been almost constant
except for the mid 1980s so that the average understanding with all classes also has been almost
constant except for those years. The average understanding did not necessarily become high
even when the stimulus grew high. In general, the amount of knowledge of the public grows to
a state of saturation under the condition of continuous release of information by the media so
far as the information is not of an extremely low amount: Nonvariability of the average negative
understanding seen in Figure 5 originates from the saturation of negative knowledge. Since such a
saturated condition holds also for the case of positive understanding, the state of over-information
seems to prevail regarding nuclear energy at present.
Figure 6 shows the time variation of average attitude together with real values. Although the
average attitude gradually decreased in the 197Os, it ceased to decrease in the 1980s and the
attitude to nuclear energy seems to have been ameliorated with time in the early 1980s. It got
worse rapidly, however, after the Chernobyl accident to reach minimum in mid 1987, after which
it has been recovered slowly. The value of an index 0, defined by
; 5 (&al(h) - A~,(ti))~ 112
, t=l
(32)
is 0.019, which gives the extent of fit for the model attitudes A,,13 to the real ones Aobs’s. All
of the &bs’S are within the range encompassed by two curves of attitude corresponding to each
gender. Taking into account the ambiguities of the values &,bs’S just cited in Section 4.1.1, the
model can be said to well reproduce the observation.
The extent of attitude change at the Chernobyl accident is much larger than that of any
other accident. As shown in Figure 5, even a large-scale accident does not essentially affect the
L I
1 I
I I
I t
1 I
I I
, I
1 I
I I
, I
1975
19
80
1985
19
90
Yea
r
Fig
ure
4.
T
ime
vari
atio
n
of n
egat
ive
stim
ulu
s av
erag
ed
over
all
dem
ogra
phic
cl
asse
s.
Dat
a po
ints
ar
e n
ot
plot
ted
wh
ere
reli
able
da
ta
are
un
avai
labl
e.
Ser
iou
s n
ucl
ear
acci
den
ts
are
indi
cate
d by
arr
ows
wit
h k
eyw
ords
, w
her
e M
uts
u
is t
he
acci
den
t of
nu
clea
r p
ower
ed
ship
M
uts
u,
and
the
oth
ers
are
the
acci
den
ts
at r
espe
ctiv
e n
ucl
ear
stat
ion
s fo
r
elec
tric
ity
gen
erat
ion
.
Activities for Public Acceptance 17
_*-c-----
0
5 _--_a =~-zz,,-z_ _ - - -
;2 2 _________---------
--------““_z~_=_
7 ”
18 T. OHNISHI
Activities for Public Acceptance 19
understanding when it becomes saturated. In such a condition of understanding, the rational
component of attitude is not changed; the attitude change is owed only by the change of emotional
component. This necessarily leads a low level of attitude change. In our model, the Three Mile
Island (TMI) accident in 1979 corresponds to such a case. It was pointed out that, also in
Europe, TM1 gave only limited influence on public opinion as compared with Chernobyl [21,22].
Our result is not, inconsistent with this trend.
The author previously developed microscopic social-models such that the attitude of an indi-
vidual is changed, also being affected by the attitudes of people surrounding him- or herself in
the case of the existence of mutual communication between them Ill-131. According to these
models, large-scale accidents affect the attitude change much more remarkably than our results
here. Moreover, the changed attitude is recovered in a comparatively short time after the ac-
cident,. Such a behavior of attitude is of a characteristic to the people with a blind-following
style, indicating that the exaggerated fluctuation of attitude in accidents is owed mainly to the
blind-following behavior of the public originated from the mutual communication between people.
The values of the attenuation constants Q and 3 in equations (12) and (14) are calculated
to be 0.83 (monthf-1 and 1.25 x 10m3 (month)-I, respectively. These values indicate that the
understanding, i.e., the amount of knowledge, decreases rapidly with time, whereas the attitude,
once it, is formed, can hardly be changed. These trends are totally consistent with the ones
for the public to take for commercial advertisement [23]. Since the oblivion rate of knowledge
is so high as such, it is required the continuous provision of stimulus to sustain a certain level
of unde~tanding of the public. It should be noticed just to correspond to such a condition
of durable negative attitude as above in spite of the almost complete distinction of negative
memory concerning serious nuclear accidents that the public has a feeling of vague anxiety and
an unaccountable fear against nuclear energy.
Figures 7 and 8 show the time variation of the attitude for some demographic classes, where
clear difference of attitude between the classes is observed. The effect of the media on the attitude
change becomes small with the increase of age so that the public belonging to the middle to old-age
classes 7n3-m5 and fs have continued to be friendly to nuclear energy regardless of the occurrence
of various nuclear accidents; especially on the eldest classes m5 and f5, Chernobyl seems to have
had no serious influence. Age-dependence of attitude is large for women as compared with men.
In the case of women, the attitude for young and middle-aged classes fi and fs rapidly got
worse just after Chernobyl, and the number of the public who opposed to nuclear energy greatly
surmounted to the pronuclear public in these classes. Such a trend has been recovered slowly
with time to barely attain a neutral state at around 1993.
The value of the critical fa&or fyi defined by equation (3) becomes large for the public whose
perusal time of newspaper is small. They, therefore, perceive a sufficient stimulus to change
the attitude only in the case of a large-scale event when the amount of information grows large.
Since positive news is scarcely released with such a great amount of information as that of a
large-scale accident, its amount can hardly exceed the critical value fyi as contrary to negative
news. Hence, the negative attitude, once it is formed by an intense negative stimulus as the
accident, is sustained for a long time without any cancellation by positive stimuli. This explains
the distinctive feature of the attitude for fi. The aggravation of attitude after Chernobyl is also
observed in the young class of men m2. Although the extent of the aggravation for 7n2 is not so
tremendous as for f2, the recovery of attitude was achieved somewhat more slowly with time as
compared with fz.
It is notable that none of the trends of public attitude shown in this subsection are inconsistent
with the ones which we Japanese have qualitatively surmised.
4.2.2. Effect of PA activities
In what, follows, investigations are made on the public attitude attained in the case when PA
activities have been executed with condition (27) since 1985.
20 T. OHNISHI
Activities for Pubiic Acceptance 21
22 T. OHNISHI
-2 \ ‘v.* w\ .V\
dL& ----~~A~_--_________-._ __
fJ-
_-__-----
1 ii \
‘\\\ \
‘, I’/4 \
q ‘\
-7 - I yf2
,,):; “: \ \ \ \ \ ‘,
\ \ \ \ ‘,
I I \ I ----__ __ ___ ___- --_ --- --.
-8’ I 1985 1990 1995
Year
Figure 9. Time variation of the increment of understanding attained by PA activities.
Activities for Public Acceptance 23
m3,
-
ml/
I I I I I I I I I I I
.985 1990 1995
Year
Figure 10. Time variation of the increment of attitude attained by PA activities for the demo- graphic classes of men.
log
(Inc
rem
ent o
f Atti
tude
)
Activities for Public Acceptance 25
26 T. OHNISHI
Curve FI c2 F2
1 420 0.33 0 2 42 0.33 0 3 420 0.1 0 4 0 0 20 5 0 0 200 6 0 0 2000
I ! I I I I I I I I I I I t
1985 1990 1995
Year
Figure 13. Effects of the advertisements by the press and by TV spots for the case of women’s js class. 4: the amount of advertisement by the press in a unit of columns~cm/month, Cz: the rate of the public who pays attention to the advertisement on the press, and F2: the amount of released TV spots in units of minutes/month.
Activities for Public Acceptance
b L
27
28 T. OHNISHI
Figure 9 shows the time variation of the increment of positive understanding, AU:(t), due to the PA activities, where
AU;(t) 3 {
U:(t; with all terms on the right hand side of equation (12)) -U:(t; without the 3’” and 4th terms on the r.h.s. of equation (12)). (33)
It is found from this figure that the value of AU: for women is, in general, smaller than for men, and that for a given gender the AU! decreases with the decrease of age. The extent of the increase of underst~ding by the activities at a given time is dependent both on the state of the understanding at that time and on the contact degree with the media for the pubhc. In the case of the near saturation of understanding, therefore, a large value for the AU; cannot be expected even if the PA activities become strengthened. Both the positive and negative understandings were relatively low in the mid 198Os, but had gradually increased towards 1990 to become almost saturated in the early 1990s. The time behavior of the AU: seen in Figure 9 well anticorrelates to such a behavior of understandings.
Figures 10 and 11 show the increment of attitude AAe(t) attained only by PA activities, where
AA&) z i
Af(t; with all terms on the right hand side of equation (14)) -Af(t; without the 4th terms on the r,h.s. of equation (14)). (34)
Similar to the case of AUF, the different time behavior of AAp with demographic classes depends both on the value of the attitude A:(t) and on the contact degree with the media for the public. F’rom these figures, the following can be pointed out:
(1) PA activities do not lead an instantaneous effect on attitude change, but only a delayed effect which appears noticeable from one to several years after the beginning of the activities.
(2) The activities affect most remarkably the public belonging to the middle age ms and fs,
especially for women.
(3) For the old belonging to m5 and fe, the increment of attitude AAe grows slowly with time findly to become saturated with a relatively low value, although the increment of their underst~ding AU: is large as seen in Figure 9.
(4) PA activities objected to the young women belonging to $1 and fs are inefficient. The relatively low increment of attitude by the activities is not owed to the increment of the rational component of attitude, but to that of emotional component led directly from the stimuli given by the activities, since the increment of their understanding is also low as seen in Figure 9.
(5) Although a rapid reaction of young men belonging to ml and rn2 to the activities is ex- pected, the final increment of their attitude does not necessarily becomes iarge.
Figure 12 shows a future trend of attitude in t > 1994. The value of background attitude, i.e., the value without any PA activities, given in Figure 12(a), was obtained by supposing that the amount of info~ation by the media and the values of quantities c, (n = 1.. . IO) and CM (N = 1 . . .23) are all sustained constant in future with the vahres just of the average ones during January to March 1994. According to this model, the attitude for the class A becomes to be ameliorated, whereas the public belonging to f3 and f4 gradually grows to be antinuclear. Figure 12(b) is a result of superposition of the effect of PA activities upon the background, where the activities are assumed to be executed with constant strength since 1985. A remarkable effect of the activities can be seen, especially for men.
Figure 13 shows examples for the increment of attitude AAe attained by individual activities of advertising messages on the press and of TV spots. According to the result for the class fs, the effect of TV spots with a strength of 2000 ~nutes/mo~lth is about equal to the effect of the case where one third of the public observes the advertising messages with a strength of 420 columns. cm/month on the press. This, in turn, is about ten times the effect by TV spots with
Activities for Public Acceptance 29
20 minutes/month, two times the effect with 200 minutes/month, and two times the effect by the press with 42 columns -cm/month. Estimation of the amount of AA! from the intensity
of an individual activity by using a method of linear interpolation, however, does not seem to be feasible because the AAe has dependence on the stimulus and on the value of background attitude in a complex manner. On the other hand, plainly from these examples, there seem to exist optimum conditions for PA activities which can lead a maximum effect under a given man-
power or budget, or a minimum resource under a given level of expected effect. These conditions must be determined numeric~ly when the values of various constants and of b~k~o~d attitude are given.
Figure 14 shows the time variation of attitude for the minorities ml and fi. Both the un- derstanding and the attitude of the public younger than twelve (called the classes ms and f. hereafter) flow in the classes ml and fi with time, and the attitudes of ml and fr vary depend- ing on what magnitudes of understanding and attitude the classes of mc and fc have. Solid lines in Figure 14 represent the attitude in the case where the public of the classes mc and fc has sus- tained a state of constant understanding and attitude with initial values, which are equal to the respective values the public in ml and fi has in January 1973; tJ%,” = UT;” = 0.16, A& = 0.400, Ap = 0 291 A”
f0 * 7 mo = 0.015 and A;b = 0.042. On the other hand, the dashed lines show the results where all the values for the classes ms and $0 are null; Ug = UT;” = A%: = A$= = 0. The former corresponds to the case where the public in ms and fc has a certain sense of value with regard to nuclear energy, that is, are in an enlightened state by some type of education, whereas the latter to the case where they are in a state of innocent of nuclear energy. Figure 14, therefore, can also be interpreted as a representation of the effect of education in the elementary school. The opportunity is scarce for the public in ml and fr to obtain information on current events from the media, especially for the public in fi, as is easily imagined from Figure 3. The attitude regarding a specific social problem such as the use of nuclear energy, once it is formed, is therefore sustained in ml and fi for a long time after that because of the lack of stimulus on the problem. Namely, the attitude formed in the classes mc and fc is sustained after the flow of the public in the classes ml and fr without major modification, strongly affecting the average attitude of ml and $1.
Dash-dot lines in Figure 14 show the effect of school education after January 1985. fn deriving this result, constants for the education were assumed as Czr = O.O28month-’ and Fg = 120 minutes/month without including any activities objected to school teachers. These val- ues of C21 and Fg are corresponding to the case where all of the public in ml and fi is educated on nuclear energy for a time 120 minutes once every three years. The effect of such education results in the increment of understanding in December 1993 by AU& (1993/12) = 9.8 x low3 and AU,g (1993/12) = 4.6 x 10m5, and the increment of attitude by AA,, (1993/12) = 1.1 x 10-l and AA,,(1993/12) = 2.1 x lo- 3. The relatively low efficiency of education for women is mainly due to low reactivity to stimulus, which is indicated by a low absolute value of ye for fr. With the lapse of time, the educational effect to the minorities is propagated to the elder classes. In Decem- ber 1993, the attitudes of the classes m2 and A have increased by AA~~(l993/12) = 3.8 x 10B2 and AA~~(l993/12) = 2.0 x 10w3, respectively, and average attitude with respect to all classes by AA(1993/12) = 1.2 x 10e2 by this educational effect.
5. CONCLUSIONS
A model t.o estimate the effect of PA activities was developed, supposing that the activity to promote the use of nuclear energy is one of the types of advertisement and therefore, that the same characteristics of reaction for the public as to commercial advertisement is expected also to nuclear PA activities. The attitude to nuclear energy was assumed to be formed of the emotional component which varies directly in response to a given stimulus, and of the rational component which is formed through the stages from stimulus to underst~ding. The stimulus was
30 T. OHNISHI
also assumed to be given by three types of the news media-the press, television and magazines,
and by PA activities and school education. The public was divided into some demographic classes
with different characteristics from each other. Prom a case study using data in Japan, it became
clear that the attitude derived by this model can well reproduce the real trend. The different
feature of attitude with gender and with age was found to be originated from different living
customs regarding the contact degree with the news media. The effect of PA activities at a given
time was also found to be determined depending again on the living customs and on the state of
understanding and attitude at that time.
The public attitude changes nonlinearly with respect to a given stimulus. The effect of PA
activities, therefore, differs with time and with object society, and cannot easily be estimated by
some method using simple extra- and/or interpolations. The methodology applied here can well
overcome this difficulty, so that it is useful to derive optimum conditions such as the minimum
amount of resources required for gaining a given level of effect, or as the maximum effect of the
activities to be expected under a given amount of resources. Although the PA activities only
for nuclear energy were treated in this paper, such a methodology as this should be noted to be
applicable not only to nuclear but also to any PA activities. In applying this model to a limited
object region such as a local community, inclusion of the effect of mutual communication between
the public seems to be required, with which the effect of more definite features of the fluctuating
attitude originating from blind-following people can be reproduced.
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