The Rashomon Effect in Risk Communication during and after Fukushima’s Daiichi Nuclear Accident: From Lessons Learned to Areas of Future Research

Abstract

The accident at the Fukushima nuclear complex in 2011 created an unstable decisionmaking environment in which incomplete information and irreconcilable perspectives converged and confronted each other. By starting with the different stakeholders involved, deploying their different "orders of discourse," as Foucault described, 1 and different narratives, or "intrigues" constructed by each of these perspectives, in Veyne's terms, 2 the stakeholders were sometimes in negotiation and sometimes in conflict. The National Diet's Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC) 3 elicited different perspectives and mistakes in communication and in the chain of command, from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), to the regulators, to the Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency (NISA), and from the electricity producer TEPCO headquarters to the operators on the ground.