Unit Two: Summary

The Social Problem To Be Addressed

How can societies inform citizens about complex and potentially controversial new technologies?

Globalization

The research and development, dissemination of information about, and adoption or rejection of new technologies takes place within the context of a global capitalist marketplace. To understand public responses to new technologies it is necessary to understand some central features of globalization.

1. Here, globalization refers to the rules for trade in the global capitalist marketplace. We want to understand why the rules were developed and their consequences on the economies of nations and global environmental quality.
2. The rules of trade rely upon the principle of comparative advantage, the relative ratio of effiency in the production and distribution of good and services. Theoretically, if nations produce and sell those goods and services for which they have a ratio relative advantages over other nations, and then trade with other nations who also produce and sell according to their ratio relative advantages, then all nations benefit.
3. In practice, the fruits of globalization can be hindered overall and lessened for some nations because of economic leakage. Because profit margins increase from primary to secondary to tertiary economies, nations that rely mostly upon raw commodity production (i.e., primary) "lose" potential profits to nations that further process, finance, and trade raw commodities.
4. Also, enforcement of the rules of trade sometimes decrease environmental quality even when nations attempt to improve it.
5. The rules of trade in some instances make it difficult for nations to advance their economies from primary to secondary to tertiary because the rules prohibit government subsidies that often are needed to advance local industries.

Approaches to Risk Assessment

1. Technical approaches to risk assessment attempt to identify hazard, the probability of technology failure.
2. Cost-benefit approaches estimate potential costs, including the costs of potential technology failure, in relation to potential benefits of a technology.
3. Psychological approaches focus on how knowledge acquisition and emotions affect public perceptions of technology risk.
4. Sociological approaches note that risks are socially constructed through people's interactions with others. Perceived social acceptability plays an important role in public risk assessments.
5. Cultural approaches point out that moral and ethical issues affect public perceptions of a technology.
6. All approaches to risk assessment have benefits and drawbacks.
   
7. All approaches are necessary for a complete understanding of risk.

Critiques of Risk Assessment

Can we assess risk better? John Adams notes that sometimes the public and scientific experts differ in their evaluations of technology risk. This disagreement occurs, in part, because the public uses a wide variety of criteria, including some nonscientific criteria, in its evaluations of risk. Adams suggests keeping in mind the following observations on the evaluation of risk by technical experts:

1. Remember, everyone else is seeking to manage risk, too.
   
2. They are all guessing; if they knew for certain, they would not be dealing with risk.
   
3. Their guesses are strongly influenced by their beliefs.
   
4. Their behavior is strongly influenced by their guesses and tends to reinforce their beliefs.
   
5. It is the behavior of others, and the behavior of nature, that constitute the actual risk environment.
   
6. It will never be possible to capture "objective risk."

The approach taken to risk assessment influences what is assessed and the outcome of the assessment. How do approaches to risk assessment differ?

1. The technical approach implies communication strategies that educate the public about technical risk assessments. When risk assessments become public and consumer perceptions do not coincide with actual risk, then, from the technical perspective, acceptance of a new technology can be unnecessarily delayed or implementation can become more expensive than necessary. Thus, public rejection of the logic of technical risk assessments is considered to be irrational. Risk communication strategies focuses upon educating an ignorant and sometimes irrational public about actual risk. Strategies seek to reduce outrage based upon inaccurate perceptions so as to retain a focus on actual risk.
2. The psychometric approach seeks to identify the cognitive, emotional, and social-demographic determinants of public perceptions of risk. Why do we respond to risks in the way we do? Why do public perceptions of risk differ so greatly from those of technical experts? The psychometric approach has discovered how outrage factors affect public responses to risk and developed strategies for overcoming public resistance to new technologies. Risk communication strategy seeks to reduce outrage by appealing to the public's sense of voluntariness, control, fairness, and moral responsibility in technology development and dissemination.
3. The social process approach begins with the premise that risk and technology are social processes rather than physical entities that exist independently of the humans who assess and experience them. Risk communication is viewed as interactive among technicians, the public, and organizations that have a vested interest in gaining either adoption or rejection of the technology. This approach thereby emphasizes the free exchange of ideas and mediation of sometimes competing agendas regarding risk assessment and management. The focus is more upon the quality of discourse rather than the substance of the arguments themselves.

Risk and Public Policy

1. Public policy is formulated within the context of risk perceptions, which, in turn, reflect the public's opinions of the quality of risk assessment.
2. Risk assessors and the public face dilemmas (i.e., fact-value, standardization, contributor's, de minimis, and consent) in their attempts to balance technical evaluations with the public's desires for nontechnical input into risk assessment.
3. Accusations directed at a skeptical public delivered by technical experts assert that the public is anti-technology, are remote from power and influence, will never be satisfied with anything but 100% safety.
4. Attributions of motives to laypersons oftentimes are inappropriate and unfounded.
5. Sometimes developed countries explain away unethical dissemination of known hazardous technology to developing nations with rationalizations (i.e., isolationist, social-progress, countervailing benefits, and consent) about their efforts at promoting progress.
6. The government and industry should recognize that minimizing harm is more important than providing good, protect the public, assist consumers in their self-determination, and stress the importance of values and long-term economic gain vs. short-term economic benefits.

The Media and Risk Management

1. The Natural History Explanation posits that risk communication occurs in four stages: pre-problem, alarmed discovery, awareness of technological fixes, and loss of interest in the topic.
2. The Public Arena Model posits that risk issues must compete with other newsworthy items for mass media exposure. Risks associated with complex and controversial technologies might be covered in the media, but their length of coverage and degree of exposure depends upon other topics of the day.
3. The Hoopla Effect refers to heightened awareness of controversy due to media reports of controversy.
4. Research shows that negative media information carries disproportionate weight in influencing initial public opinions of technology.

Risk Communication: Theories

1. Risk management has become increasingly politicized and contentious. Controversy and conflict might have become too pervasive. It might be that the quality of society erodes with too contentious public discourse about technology policy.
2. Risk controversies are not about science versus misguided public perceptions of science, wherein the unwashed public needs to be educated about "real" risks. Rather, risk controversies are struggles over whom will define risk.
3. Disparities between "real" and "perceived" risk might engender public discourse that, itself, is a risk to the social fabric of society.
4. The pervasiveness of media attention to technology and risk assessments destroys trust because most of what the media reports is trust-destroying news.
5. The increasing complexity of technological innovations and societal division of labor leaves citizens in a position of not knowing much about highly complex and potentially dangerous technologies. They must rely upon their judgments about whom to trust.
6. The public is not irrational in their skepticism about complex technologies, but rather cautious in deciding whom to trust in their understandable state of ignorance about these technologies.
7. The public and scientists rely upon social as well as technical criteria to evaluate risk.
8. Claims that the public is irrational in part are responsible for increasingly contentious debate about complex technologies.
9. Some special interest groups profit from fear mongering within this atmosphere of ignorance and fragile trust.
10. The media have a difficult job of presenting varying viewpoints on technical issues.
11. The concept recreancy refers to institutional failure resulting either from lack of competence and/or fiduciary responsibility, to refer to societal-level inadequacies in risk assessment, management, and communication.
12. Improving societal-level capacity in risk assessment, management, and communication requires social scientists to assess the level of recreancy in American society, become more aware of societal-level influences on risk assessment, management, and communication, and build institutional capacity to facilitate wise technology policymaking.