风险不单纯指对客观世界的描述，更是社会建构的产物,媒介描绘的风险图景成为大众最直接的感知来源,是显著的风险放大站。在风险传播的视觉化表征中，儿童影像成为定义与描绘风险的重要符号。本文从媒体“放大”的视角来关注儿童影像在风险传播中的特殊效应。儿童影像在风险放大的过程中发挥着特殊的传播效力：担任风险的文化之眼，激发大众情感共鸣，强化批评场域，并沉淀为风险记忆。此外，儿童影像通过具象化风险，争夺话语权，展现政治立场与道德关怀的方式，表现出其在风险放大中的影响力。但是大众媒体在运用儿童影像放大风险的过程中，仍存有绑架儿童做风险代理人、娱乐化情感消费以及违背新闻伦理等一系列问题。聚焦国内风险图景，儿童影像的风险放大效果并未被清晰认知，审视儿童影像的特殊传播效果，把握适当的风险放大尺度成为媒体不可忽视的问题。

The risk does not simply refer to the description of the objective world. Rather, it is a socially constructed product.socially constructed product. Media representations of the risk have become the most obvious site where the social amplifcation of risk takes place. On the visual and representative level of risk communication, child image has become a key symbol to defne and elaborate the risk. From a perspective upon media’s “amplifcation”, this essay pays particular attention to the specifc effects that the child image has over the course of risk communication. To put it differently, this essay explores how the child image performs as a cultural eye on the risk, arouses the public emotional resonance, consolidates the field of public criticism and shapes collective memory. Moreover, a wide range of images of children have engaged with the construction of risk society through embodying the risk, holding the discourse power and indicating political standpoints and moral concerns. However, a number of problems still lie in mass media representations of children including the overuse of children as risk proxies, exploitations of children’s sentimental values, violations of journalism ethics and so forth. Focusing on the risk landscape in China, this essay suggests that the social amplifcation of risk that the child image has brought about has not been clearly recognized and paid enough attention to. Besides, a critical re?ection on the child image’s social function and the measurement of social amplifcation of risk should be necessary for any newsroom.