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Social Contexts and Responses to Risk

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Researchers from Cardiff University are presenting their research findings and hosting a round table discussion on these issues in London, at the The Royal Society, 10.00-12.00 on Friday, the 16th of May.

Programme
10-10.15am: Coffee and welcome
10.15-11am: Presentation of research findings
11-12 noon: Discussants, questions and discussion

Speakers:
Emma Hughes and Jenny Kitzinger (Cardiff University, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies)
(Co-author of Human Cloning in the Media: from science fiction to science practice, Routledge, 2008)

Discussants:
Bob Ward, (Director, Global Science Networks, Risk Management Solutions Ltd)
Katrina Nevin-Ridley, (Head of Media Relations, The Wellcome Trust)
James Stewart (Journalist)

• How do the media and ‘the public’ discuss diverse technologies such as GM crops, stem cell research or nanotechnology?
• What shapes debates about risk, and what commonalities and differences emerge?  
  

The ESRC-funded research involved 20 in-depth focus groups, and 40 follow-up interviews with diverse ‘publics’,  as well as interviews with scientists, policy makers and NGOs and analysis of six months of media coverage.

The findings explore the relatively marginal status of traditional risk assessment data in discussions about the future of science and technology and highlight the role of different values, aspirations, associations and identities.

The research examines:

• the importance of different framings of new technologies (e.g. as led by industry or developed for ‘public good’)
• the rhetorical struggles involved in the debates (involving contest over images, labels and historical analogies.)
• the deep cultural values which can come into play  (including values about kinship, national identity or ‘natural boundaries’).

The research demonstrates the significance of the interplay between framing and values. It shows, for example, how associations such as Nature=Goodness can be very fluid. Although ‘the natural’ is often presented as an absolute value by those resisting GM, for example, it has a much more unstable status in debates about stem cell research with its promises of cures.

The role of the media is crucial in how emerging technologies are introduced and understood. However, media influence operates in a much more complex way than is sometimes assumed. For example, the researchers argue against the notion that science fiction creates irrational fears of scientific and technological innovation. Although fiction offers a ubiquitous reference point in debates about emerging technologies, such references often serve as hooks for concerns about the social and political context of science/technology, rather than being used as a direct sources of information about ‘the facts’. The research also highlights the role that some science fiction has in underwriting fundamentally utopian visions of progress.

Finally, the researchers reflect on the significance of people’s experience of citizenship in mediating their trust in, or resistance to, new science and technologies and the importance of placing ‘public engagement with science’ in a broader context of science, and political, engagement with publics.

Closing Date Friday 9th May 2008
This event is limited to 30 participants reserving a place is necessary
Registration Form
Email to register interest