Society for Risk Analysis 2008 – © Cummings 2008 December 10 2008 – Boston Nano: Risk and Deliberation A critique of current public engagement models Christopher

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Nano: Risk and DeliberationA critique of current public engagement models

Christopher L. Cummings

•Lecturer, Department of Communication

North Carolina State University

•Project Assistant DirectorNCSU Public Communication

of Science and Technology Project

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•Risk Communication: “an exchange of information about risk among decision makers, stakeholders, and the public which is intended to supply people with the information they need to make informed and independent decisions about risk” (Morgan et al., 2002)

•Communication often lies at the intersect between:•governing bodies •Industry• public

•Who decides how much risk is acceptable?

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Jackson, Barbagallo & Haste (2007)

•Public has rarely been involved in agenda setting and regulation•Voice through protest, CAGs, and NGOs

•Concerning nano:Engage public participation before innovation processes

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Foundations of public engagement models:•Originated from the “Deliberative Democracy” Movement •Voice through direct deliberation– not through representation•Seeks inclusion of full population– include marginalized, unheard voices

•Habermas’ 3 “Rules” of deliberative conversation:•Logical & Semantic: participants must strive to use similar predicates- avoid contradictions and polysemes (reciprocity)•Consensus Builders: participants must sincerely wish to reach an agreement•Inclusive: all competent to speak must be heard, question, introduce assertion (Habermas, 1990)

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Proponents of deliberative processes suggest:•Increase empathy and tolerance for other views•Increase trust in government•Improve deliberative skills•Produce better informed opinions

Critics of deliberative processes suggest:•Fairness and equality cannot be guaranteed- information inequalities

may sway process in favor of elites•Bias exist•Large scale deliberation could lead to entrenched conflict and polarization

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Real-life deliberation can:•Fan emotions unproductively, •Exacerbate rather than diminish power differentials, •Cause frustration with the system that made them deliberate, •Can lead to worse decisions than would have occurred if no deliberation had taken place (Hibbing & Theiss-Moore, 2002).

“citizens who engage in deliberation get a training for democracy” (Gastil, 2000,).

Alternate denotation of “model”:•Not solely as procedural forms and styles, but also as smaller experimental representations of deliberation and democracy.

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Deliberative Polling:•James Fishkin 1988•measures attitudinal and information change in a quasi-experiment•Seeks to demonstrate what informed public opinion would be if true deliberative democracy were enacted across a population•Not engaged in group deliberation:

“insulate the participants as much as possible from the social pressures of reaching a consensus” (Fishkin, 1995, p. 185)

•Goals:•Disperse findings and raise public awareness •Provide public recommendation to decision-makers

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Method:•Solicit and pay random sample of citizens to respond to a poll concerning a topic (pre- test)•Smaller sample from large poll is invited to F2F workshops•Hear testimony from competing experts, decision-makers •Q & A session•Participants respond to poll for the second time (post- test) •Produce video for public consumption through national television broadcast or internet casting

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Consensus Conferences:•Follows the Danish Board of Technology’s format, 1987•Overtly seeks full-consensus between 12-15 solicited members

•Goals:•Increase public awareness of science issues•Produce a democratic mode of “upstream” public voice concerning R & D agendas and policy-making

Method:•Recruited members are provided with background information•First meeting– led by a trained facilitator, define, describe issue, choose experts•Second meeting– balanced experts debate, participants free to question•Third meeting– participants deliberate, come to consensus, craft written report that concludes findings and provides recommendations

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Citizen’s Technology Forums:•Follow the Danish Consensus Conference Model•Integrate K2K as well as F2F communication

•Most recently involved six locations: New Hampshire, Georgia, Wisconsin, Colorado, Arizona and California

•Model:• Solicits and pays larger sample– roughly 75 in most recent group• In each location participants meet F2F twice– at beginning and conclusion• All participants meet K2K ten times in two-hour periods led by trained facilitators to discuss issues•Final F2F meeting in each location participants craft written findings and recommendations

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Issues:•Expense– hosting national conferences and producing materials to be disseminated in large scale in no simple task•Deficit model- fails to achieve the goal of informing the greater population•sampling- stratified random samples may not represent organizations and groups with the population at large, sample sizes may not be appropriate• Artificiality- loss of ecological validity•Little evidence that activities:

• generate long-lasting attitudinal change• produce significant impacts on R & D agendas and policy• produce community leaders

Future empirical study:• longitudinal impacts• participant motivation• ethnographic methods of enclaves

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This work was supported in part by grants from the National Science Foundation, NSF 06-595, Nanotechnology Interdisciplinary Research Team (NIRT): Intuitive Toxicology and Public Engagement.

[email protected]

http://communication.chass.ncsu.edu/nirt/Home.html

THANKS!

Documents

Society for Risk Analysis 2008 – © Cummings 2008 December 10 2008 – Boston Nano: Risk and Deliberation A critique of current public engagement models Christopher