What Cultural Objects Say About Nuclear
Accidents and Their Way of Depicting
a Controversial Industry
Aurélien Portelli
Abstract Nuclear accidents have prompted the creation of numerous cultural
objects such as novels, films, cartoons, or posters. Here we show what these objects
can teach us about the social representations of nuclear power. The object is both a
product and a representation. It can influence attitudes and partially contributes to
the cognitive context of controversy about atomic power. Consequently, it leads to
diverse practices defined by the interests and goals of the groups that own it. French
documentaries on Fukushima Daiichi constitute a coherent corpus that makes it
possible to identify both ruptures and continuity in the story that is told. These films
borrow from the symbols, myths, and analogies provoked by Chernobyl to evoke
Fukushima. They also show that the accident ends the myth of ‘Soviet neglect’ and
creates a form of social resilience that has changed the way the Japanese population
is seen in France.
Keywords Cultural object Á Representation Á Socio-technical controversy Á
Nuclear disaster Á Citizen mobilization
1 Introduction
A monumental tower occupies the center of the picture. To the left, the viewer can
discern a city; to the right, a body of water and a dock with ships. In the foreground,
stonemasons pay homage to King Nimrod; behind them, there is a denselypopulated city. A multitude of tiny workers are working on the tower, which is still
under construction. The people decided to build a city, “with a tower that reaches to
the heavens” [1]. But God intervenes, He garbles the words of the workers, work
stops and the city is named Babel. In this picture, painted by Bruegel the Elder in
1563 [2], the tower is “the spiral of knowledge, the relentless swarm and the image
A. Portelli (&)
Centre for Research on Risks and Crises (CRC),
MINES ParisTech/PSL University Research, Paris, France
e-mail: aurelien.portelli@mines-paristech.fr
© The Author(s) 2017
J. Ahn et al. (eds.), Resilience: A New Paradigm of Nuclear Safety,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58768-4_11
137
Accidents and Their Way of Depicting
a Controversial Industry
Aurélien Portelli
Abstract Nuclear accidents have prompted the creation of numerous cultural
objects such as novels, films, cartoons, or posters. Here we show what these objects
can teach us about the social representations of nuclear power. The object is both a
product and a representation. It can influence attitudes and partially contributes to
the cognitive context of controversy about atomic power. Consequently, it leads to
diverse practices defined by the interests and goals of the groups that own it. French
documentaries on Fukushima Daiichi constitute a coherent corpus that makes it
possible to identify both ruptures and continuity in the story that is told. These films
borrow from the symbols, myths, and analogies provoked by Chernobyl to evoke
Fukushima. They also show that the accident ends the myth of ‘Soviet neglect’ and
creates a form of social resilience that has changed the way the Japanese population
is seen in France.
Keywords Cultural object Á Representation Á Socio-technical controversy Á
Nuclear disaster Á Citizen mobilization
1 Introduction
A monumental tower occupies the center of the picture. To the left, the viewer can
discern a city; to the right, a body of water and a dock with ships. In the foreground,
stonemasons pay homage to King Nimrod; behind them, there is a denselypopulated city. A multitude of tiny workers are working on the tower, which is still
under construction. The people decided to build a city, “with a tower that reaches to
the heavens” [1]. But God intervenes, He garbles the words of the workers, work
stops and the city is named Babel. In this picture, painted by Bruegel the Elder in
1563 [2], the tower is “the spiral of knowledge, the relentless swarm and the image
A. Portelli (&)
Centre for Research on Risks and Crises (CRC),
MINES ParisTech/PSL University Research, Paris, France
e-mail: aurelien.portelli@mines-paristech.fr
© The Author(s) 2017
J. Ahn et al. (eds.), Resilience: A New Paradigm of Nuclear Safety,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58768-4_11
137