Exploring the Risk Discourse of Nuclear Waste: Media Coverage of Nuclear Waste Debates in Taiwan

There is an increasing media coverage and visibility on nuclear waste issues in Taiwan. Solving nuclear waste siting controversy will require not only technological methods but also take into account social、political and cultural dimensions as in our values of cooperation, respect for science and gender-equality. Few studies, however, have been done with regard to how siting issues of nuclear waste have been reported in the newspapers. Taking a discourse analysis approach, this paper intends to examine Taiwan’s major newspapers after Japan’s Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011. The paper attempts to examine how the risk of nuclear waste has been framed and represented, and how they interact or reflect national energy and nuclear power policies. It is to draw out some of the key lessons emerged from the experience in Taiwan and to identify barriers and opportunities in dealing with nuclear waste. It concludes with a discussion of how these findings help us understand the dimensions of power, science and ethics that affect national nuclear waste governance.