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Journal of Nanoparticle Research
Erschienen in: Journal of Nanoparticle Research 4/2011

01.04.2011 | Special focus: Governance of Nanobiotechnology

Creating informed public opinion: citizen deliberation about nanotechnologies for human enhancements

verfasst von: Michael D. Cobb

Erschienen in: Journal of Nanoparticle Research | Ausgabe 4/2011

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Abstract

Many people believe that ordinary citizens should influence scientific and technological developments, but the American public is routinely uninformed about these issues. As a solution, some scholars advocate creating informed public opinions by encouraging citizens to deliberate about the issues. Although this idea is currently widely applauded in the science and technology literature, deliberative outcomes are infrequently measured and the practice of deliberation is routinely criticized in other disciplines. This research contributes to our understanding of the effectiveness of citizen deliberation as a method for increasing public engagement with science. I report data measuring results of deliberation in a national citizens’ technology forum (NCTF) about nanotechnologies for human enhancement. The NCTF was a month-long process involving six groups of 9–15 ordinary citizens who deliberated in different locations across the United States with the goal of reaching consensus about policy recommendations within their groups. I find that structured deliberation generated informed opinions, sometimes meaningful shifts in preferences, and increased trust and internal efficacy among the participants. Nevertheless, the NCTF has important shortcomings, and it is not obvious that consensus conferences should be preferred over other mechanisms for creating informed opinions. Future research is needed to corroborate the findings of this study and to systematically compare outcomes of structured citizen deliberation to other less resource intensive forms of engagement.
Vorheriger Artikel Nanotechnology as an experiment in democracy: how do citizens form opinions about technology and policy?
Nächster Artikel Commentary: Roles, opportunities, and challenges—science museums engaging the public in emerging science and technology

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Fußnoten
1
In addition to knowledge as a barrier to effective citizen input, there are other systematic barriers to citizens’ participation on these kinds of issues, but a discussion of these factors is beyond the scope of this research (see Fischer 2000).
 
2
It is difficult to measure whether group decisions are “better” as a result of deliberation because this judgment requires an independent, objective standard to evaluate the deliberative decision against and we normally lack appropriate measures. Instead, group-level outcomes are labeled “better” because procedurally they incorporate the normative standard that including more voices in the decision making process confers greater legitimacy on binding decisions (Gutmann and Thompson 2004).
 
3
A critical question that has been raised about the practice, not the concept, is whether the “top-down” structure of deliberative events means they are problematic because organizers determine who gets to deliberate and what they deliberate about (Powell and Kleinman 2008).
 
4
One unresolved issue when evaluating deliberative effects is that the science and technology literature often conflates deliberation, properly defined, with almost any kind of group talking about an issue. Some studies dubiously take for granted that their study design, which encourages citizens to discuss the issues, is equivalent to generating deliberation (see Sprain and Gastil 2006).
 
5
Although I do not present direct evidence that citizens deliberated in line with theoretical descriptions, there are at least two reasons to believe it happened. The first reason is that consensus conferences are intentionally designed to foster deliberation and not mere discussion. Their very structure is developed from theory to support the occurrence of deliberation. Secondly, participants scored near the maximum on a scale measuring a personal willingness to deliberate, both prior to and after deliberating.
 
6
Organizers at each site location made the recruitment decisions, but all were in agreement that balancing socio-economic characteristics was a priority. Given the skewed demographics among the volunteers, random selection of panelists was impossible. Additional details are provided in Hamlett et al. (2008).
 
7
For example, half the originally selected panelists were women, 65% were white, and the median age and income were, respectively, 39 years old and $50,000–$75,000. However, panelists were unevenly distributed political partisanship and political ideology (e.g., while 44% identified as Democrats, just 9% said they were Republicans and 36% reported being independent). During the recruitment of applicants (of which only 11 were Republicans), attempts were made to encourage non-Democratic applicants to take part in the NCTF, but these efforts were unsuccessful.
 
8
The content experts included technical specialists, a philosopher, and a specialist in regulatory processes.
 
9
Each site had different facilitators to manage the face-to-face deliberations. While the primary NCTF organizers gave instructions and advice for how to maintain consistent and professional facilitation, variation in the actual management of deliberation could have occurred and contributed to occasional differences in outcomes across site locations.
 
10
The role of consensus is disputed in debates about definitions of deliberation. The pressure to reach consensus outcomes in deliberative settings is thought by some to exacerbate conformity effects and produce group delusion that “overwhelms the perspectives” of individual members (Mackie 2002).
 
11
Importantly, it should be recognized that this research design is quasi-experimental. Participants were not randomly selected or assigned to conditions, and there are unmeasured influences arguably affecting behaviors beyond the treatment of deliberation, such as anticipation of the conference and informal conversation outside of the conference meetings with non-participants.
 
12
Most of the people that did not take the post-test dropped out before the final meeting, but sometimes a panelist simply failed to answer the identical question at both points in time.
 
13
Although I do not report the actual consensus reports of the six groups in this research, they provide solid evidence that thoughtful learning took place (Hamlett et al. 2008), and are accessible to general public at http://​www4.​ncsu.​edu/​~pwhmds/​final_​reports.​html.
 
14
Imagine, for example, that before deliberation ten out of fifteen people thought Hitler’s rise was a catastrophe, and that after deliberating all fifteen agreed it was a catastrophe. While the shift in opinion is consistent with the process of polarization cascades, it is unlikely that anyone would seriously object to the substantive shift in opinions.
 
15
Many more people changed their opinions over time than these results indicate, but I am more concerned with the potential for “net attitude change” than with measuring response variation for its own sake (see Luskin et al. 2007). The reason for this emphasis is because democratic outcomes are not affected by equal percentages of the population changing their minds in opposite directions, no matter how large the magnitude of gross opinion change.
 
16
As was almost always the case for within site analysis of opinions, the directional change of opinion on all five applications was identical, except once when panelists at Santa Barbara became more supportive of nanotechnologies to prevent prisoner escapes.
 
17
One problem is that this comparison is based on just three individuals who expressed feelings at both points in time. Yet, when I examined the distribution of opinions among panelists with no feelings at first compared to their reports after deliberating, the same pattern occurs. The panelists who only took a position at the end expressed more worry than their fellow group members who had answered the question at the beginning. This pattern is replicated within sites with low response rates for feeling hopeful.
 
18
As before, I did not find any significant differences within sites compared to the overall movement of opinions.
 
19
Several scholars involved with project gave a briefing about the citizens’ reports to the U.S. Congressional Nanotechnology Caucus, Washington, D.C., March, 2009.
 
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Metadaten
Titel
Creating informed public opinion: citizen deliberation about nanotechnologies for human enhancements
verfasst von
Michael D. Cobb
Publikationsdatum
01.04.2011
Verlag
Springer Netherlands
Erschienen in
Journal of Nanoparticle Research / Ausgabe 4/2011
Print ISSN: 1388-0764
Elektronische ISSN: 1572-896X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-011-0227-0

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