White Paper Communicating Risk in the 21
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WHITE PAPER COMMUNICATING RISK IN THE 21ST CENTURY: The Case of Nanotechnology February 2010 By David M. Berube, Ph.D. With Brenton Faber, Ph.D. Dietram A. Scheufele, Ph.D. and Christopher L. Cummings, doctoral student Grant E. Gardner, Ph.D. Kelly N. Martin, doctoral candidate Michael S. Martin, PCOST assistant Nicholas M. Temple, doctoral student Illustration by Timothy Wickham An Independent Analysis Commissioned by the NNCO Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NNCO. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was supported by a supplement to grant #0809470 from the National Science Foundation, NSF 06-595, Nanotechnology Interdisciplinary Research Team (NIRT): Intuitive Toxicology and Public Engagement. Logistical and additional support was received from North Carolina State University, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHASS), and the Department of Communication. We especially appreciated the support of the Communication, Rhetoric and Digital Media (CRDM) doctoral program and the Public Communication of Science and Technology Project (PCOST). We thank the efforts of Vivian Ota Wang (National Human Genome Research Institute - National Institutes of Health of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (NHGRI-NIH-DHHS) and NIH Agency Representative to the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) and the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO), and Stephen Zehr (National Science Foundation- Science, Technology, and Society (NSF-STS) both of whom are associated with the Nanotechnology Public Engagement and Communications Work Group (NPEC) of the NSTC as Chair and Working Group Member respectively. In addition, two colleagues read through the paper and offered their insights: A. Celeste Farr and William Kinsella, Professors in the Department of Communication, NCSU. Two CRDM doctoral students, Jason Kalin and Daniel Sutko served as copy editors as well. All authors of this White Paper are members of PCOST. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary. 8 1. Introduction . 13 2. Societal issues. 18 3. Sources and media . 23 3.1. Sources, amplification, and attenuation . 23 3.2. Social amplification and attenuation. 24 3.2.1. Amplification and media: New technologies amplify risk . 26 3.2.2. Industry, government, non-industrial scientists and non-governmental organizations . 27 3.2.3. Mediation . 29 3.2.4. Opinion leaders: Amplifiers and attenuators . 30 3.3. The Role of traditional media: Priming, framing, and agenda setting. 31 3.3.1. Setting public agenda. 32 3.3.2. Framing . 34 3.3.3. Different effects on different publics: The role of perceptual filters and values . 36 3.4. Digital media: Participatory differences from traditional media . 37 3.4.1. Digital media and amplification. 38 3.4.2. Digital media and science . 42 3.4.3. Future of digital media . 42 3.5. Information overload . 43 3.6. Summary and conclusions . 44 3 4. Risk perception . 46 4.1. From risk assessment to risk perception . 46 4.2. Risk as a socio-psychological construct . 47 4.3. The risk perception gap between experts and inexperts . 48 4.3.1. Defining the expert sphere . 49 4.3.2. Defining the public sphere . 50 4.3.3. The “Big Sort” effect . 51 4.3.4. Interactions between expert and inexpert perceptions . 51 4.4. Rationality in risk judgments and decision making . 52 4.4.1. Heuristics and biases . 53 4.5. Heuristics and nanotechnology risk perception . 55 4.5.1. Affect heuristic . 55 4.5.2. Anchoring and adjustment heuristics . 55 4.5.3. Availability heuristic . 56 4.6. Biases and nanotechnology risk perception . 57 4.7. Challenges to nanotechnology risk communication . 58 4.7.1. Public knowledge of nanotechnology . 59 4.7.2. Experts and nanotechnology . 60 4.8. Summary and conclusions . 60 5. Trust, fear, and belief . 62 5.1. Trust based arguments . 62 5.1.1. Proclivity to trust. 63 5.1.2. Types of trust . 64 5.1.3. How the public determines trust . 66 5.1.4. Building trust . 67 5.1.5. Whom the public trusts . 69 4 5.2. Fear-based arguments . 71 5.2.1. Dread . 72 5.2.2. From social cascades to moral panics . 72 5.2.3. Vet and respond . 73 5.3. Belief based arguments . 73 5.3.1. Nanobiotechnology and synthetic biology: Horizon issues . 74 5.3.2. Visions of the nanobiotechnology future . 75 5.4. Summary and conclusions . 75 6. Public engagement . 77 6.1. Stakeholders . 77 6.2. Classifying engagement models . 78 6.2.1. Deliberative polling . 79 6.2.2. Consensus Conferences . 79 6.2.3. Citizen Technology Forums . 81 6.2.4. Citizen juries . 81 6.2.5. Science cafes . 82 6.2.6. Citizen school . 83 6.2.7. Assessing the models . 83 6.3. Public - Private interface . 85 6.3.1. Defining streams . 85 6.3.2. Downstream and upstream . 86 6.3.3. Midstream modulation . 87 6.4. Assessment approaches . 89 6.4.1. Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA) . 89 6.4.2. Real-Time Technology Assessment (RTA) . 89 6.4.3. Assessing the assessment . 91 6.5. Summary and conclusions . 91 5 7. New risk findings . 93 7.1. General approaches . 93 7.1.1. Scientiating the public: The deficit model . 93 7.1.2. Boomerang and backlash effects . 96 7.1.3. Uncertainty effects: Fuzzy risks . 98 7.1.4. Risk valence . 100 7.1.5. Narratives and anecdotes . .101 7.2. New theories and research findings . 102 7.2.1. Dosage/Exposure discounting effect . 102 7.2.2. Mini-Max or Maxi-Min Effects: Low probability – high consequence bias . 104 7.2.3. Rumor and fraud . 105 7.2.4. Risk profile shifts . 106 7.2.5. Power language . ..