Stakeholder understandings of wildfire mitigation: a case of shared and contested meanings.

This article identifies and compares meanings of wildfire risk mitigation for stakeholders in the Front Range of Colorado, USA. We examine the case of a collaborative partnership sponsored by government agencies and directed to decrease hazardous fuels in interface areas. Data were collected by way of key informant interviews and focus groups. The analysis is guided by the Circuit of Culture model in communication research. We found both shared and differing meanings between members of this partnership (the "producers") and other stakeholders not formally in the partnership (the "consumers"). We conclude that those promoting the partnership's project to mitigate risk are primarily aligned with a discourse of scientific management. Stakeholders outside the partnership follow a discourse of community. We argue that failure to recognize and account for differences in the way risk mitigation is framed and related power dynamics could hamper the communicational efforts of the collaborative partnership and impact goals for fuels reduction. We recommend ways that both groups can capitalize on shared meanings and how agency managers and decision makers can build better working relationships with interface communities and other external stakeholders.

Good Grubbin': impact of a TV cooking show for college students living off campus.

OBJECTIVE: To determine if a series of 4 15-minute, theory-driven (Social Cognitive Theory) cooking programs aimed at college students living off campus improved cooking self-efficacy, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors regarding fruit and vegetable intake. DESIGN: A randomized controlled trial with pre-, post- and follow-up tests. SETTING: University campus. PARTICIPANTS: Students (n = 101) from upper-level nonhealth courses (n = 37 male and n = 94 living off campus). INTERVENTION: The intervention group (n = 50) watched 4 weekly episodes of the cooking show, Good Grubbin'. The control group (n = 51) watched 4 weekly episodes on sleep disorders. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Demographic information; knowledge, self-efficacy, motivations, barriers of eating fruits and vegetables; self-efficacy, motivations, barriers and behaviors of cooking; fruit and vegetable intake food frequency questionnaire. ANALYSIS: Repeated-measure analysis of variance and chi-square analyses were used to compare outcome variables. RESULTS: There were significant improvements in knowledge of fruit and vegetable recommendations in the intervention group compared to the control group postintervention and at 4-month follow-up (P < .05). There were no significant changes in fruit and vegetable motivators, barriers, self-efficacy or intake. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: A television show on nutrition and cooking may be influential in changing students' knowledge, but it seems to have little impact on dietary behaviors. With a recent increase in popularity of cooking shows, future research should investigate the impact an extended cooking and nutrition show series might have on young adult viewers.