The Contribution of Social Context to Participatory Planning Processes Within a Japanese Community

The concerns of diverse members in the community should be considered in the process of generating various alternatives. This requires a participatory process; a typical example being a small group discussion format such as a workshop. In small group discussions, understandability of participants’ opinions can be affected by the wording of their opinions. Our hypothesis in this study is, “The higher the similarity of wording between an expressed opinion and its wording in the media, the higher the likelihood of opinion adoption”. The hypothesis is examined and tested. In this study, we use the term “social acceptability” to denote the similarity of the wording of participants’ opinions with that used in media articles. To test this hypothesis, we proposed a methodology for evaluating the wording of a WS discussion and applied the methodology to the dialog data of two types discussions held in Ube, a Japanese city located in Yamaguchi Prefecture. Our analysis showed a positive correlation between social acceptability and adoption rate. To improve social acceptability, we suggest that a facilitator should frame the wording used by participants.