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In the wake of COVID-19, the field of risk communication must engage in more meaningful research and advocacy to support the systemic changes that are necessary for improving our pandemic response. Risk communication can also learn from cultural studies, using a more critical lens to study underlying inequalities and power structures, and the role of culture and politics in shaping risk perceptions and behaviours. Reputational management and public wellbeing are commonly stated goals. Yet COVID-19 has underscored the fractured identity and purpose of the field, and risk communicators need to be honest about whether they are working to protect the public or protect reputations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For several decades, the 1918-20 global influenza outbreak has been called "the forgotten pandemic." Although recent scholarly and public interest in the pandemic has complicated the narrative of forgetting, the label has stuck. Highlighting historical evidence of influenza's long-term impact upon survivors, family, and community in Canada, the flu stories presented here, diverse in form and content, verify that a key question in pandemic influenza history is not whether the pandemic was forgotten or remembered, but by whom, and in what ways, it has been suppressed - or foregrounded. By moving beyond the classic epidemic plot line, with beginning, middle, and end, historians can find new methodologies and evidence with which to more fully understand the influenza pandemic's unfolding intersection with colonialism, war, social inequality, and labour struggles in the 20 th century.