Risk and the Public Acceptance of New Technologies

283 Pages·2007·1.07 MB·English

by  Rob Flynn

Risk and the Public
Acceptance of New
Technologies
Edited by
Rob Flynn and Paul Bellaby
0230517056_01_Prexviii.pdf 12/7/07 11:39 AM Page i
Risk and the Public Acceptance of New Technologies
0230517056_01_Prexviii.pdf 12/7/07 11:39 AM Page ii
Also by Rob Flynn
CONTRACTING FOR HEALTH (co-editor)
MARKETS AND NETWORKS (co-author)
STRUCTURES OF CONTROL IN HEALTH MANAGEMENT
Also by Paul Bellaby
SICK FROM WORK
0230517056_01_Prexviii.pdf 12/7/07 11:39 AM Page iii
Risk and the
Public Acceptance of
New Technologies
Edited by
Rob Flynn and Paul Bellaby
Institute for Social, Cultural and Policy Research
University of Salford
0230517056_01_Prexviii.pdf 12/7/07 11:39 AM Page iv
Selection and editorial matter © Rob Flynn and Paul Bellaby 2007
Chapters © their authors 2007
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90
Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors
of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
First published 2007 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
Companies and representatives throughout the world
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.
Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom
and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European
Union and other countries.
ISBN 13: 978–0–230–51705–9 hardback
ISBN 10: 0–230–51705–6 hardback
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Risk and the public acceptance of new technologies / Edited by Rob Flynn
and Paul Bellaby.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–230–51705–6 (alk. paper)
1. Technological innovations–Social aspects. I. Flynn, Rob. II. Bellaby,
Paul.
T173.8.R57 2007
303.48'3–dc22 2007022512
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne
0230517056_01_Prexviii.pdf 12/7/07 11:39 AM Page v
Contents
List of Figures and Tables vii
Notes on Contributors ix
Chapter 1 Risk and the Public Acceptance of New
Technologies 1
Rob Flynn
Chapter 2 Public Dialogue and the Scientific Citizen 24
Alan Irwin
Chapter 3 On the Signature of New Technologies: Materiality,
Sociality and Practical Reasoning 41
Tom Horlick-Jones
Chapter 4 Public Acceptance of New Technologies in Food
Products and Production 66
Arnout R.H. Fischer and Lynn J. Frewer
Chapter 5 Making Sense of Uncertainty and Precaution:
the Example of Mobile Telecommunications 86
Julie Barnett and Lada Timotijevic
Chapter 6 Against the Stream: Moving Public Engagement on
Nanotechnologies Upstream 107
Alison Mohr
Chapter 7 Public Acceptability of Hydrogen Fuel Cell
Transport and Associated Refuelling Infrastructures 126
Tanya O’Garra, Peter Pearson and Susana Mourato
Chapter 8 Social Representations of Hydrogen Technologies:
a Community-Owned Wind-Hydrogen Project 154
Fionnguala Sherry-Brennan, Hannah Devine-Wright
and Patrick Devine-Wright
Chapter 9 Stakeholders’ and Publics’ Perceptions of Hydrogen
Energy Technologies 175
Miriam Ricci, Paul Bellaby and Rob Flynn
v
0230517056_01_Prexviii.pdf 12/7/07 11:39 AM Page vi
vi Contents
Chapter 10 Technological Transitions and Public Engagement:
Competing Visions of a Hydrogen Fuel Station 198
Mike Hodson, Simon Marvin and Victoria Simpson
Chapter 11 Towards a Sustainable Energy Future: Participatory
Foresight and Appraisal as a Response to Managing
Uncertainty and Contested Social Values 221
Malcolm Eames and William McDowall
Chapter 12 Conclusions 248
Paul Bellaby
Index 261
0230517056_01_Prexviii.pdf 12/7/07 11:39 AM Page vii
List of Figures and Tables
Figures
3.1 Appeals to sources of knowledge in accounts of three risk
issues 54
3.2 An illustration of the dynamics of talk about GM issues 56
3.3 A second illustration of the dynamics of talk about
GM issues 58
3.4 An example of playful and imagination talk about
GM issues 59
7.1 Attitudes towards the large-scale introduction of
hydrogen buses 141
7.2 Comparing existing attitudes to H2 vehicles and
H2 storage at refuelling stations in London 143
7.3 Distribution of attitudes towards H2 storage development
going ahead in three months’ time at the respondent’s
local refuelling station 144
8.1 Structure of the social representation of hydrogen based
on word associations 170
10.1 Representing the CUTE project in London 206
10.2 Technology ‘pathways’ in hydrogen energy 207
11.1 Overview of the UKSHEC scenarios project 226
11.2 The Multi-criteria mapping process 230
11.3 Central Pipeline 231
11.4 Forecourt Reforming 231
11.5 Liquid Hydrogen 232
11.6 Synthetic Liquid Fuel 232
11.7 Ubiquitous Hydrogen 233
11.8 Electricity Store 234
11.9 Final weighted scores for all participants 235
11.10 Weight extrema for all participants 236
11.11 Weighted scores and weightings for the Energy Policy
Researcher, Environmental CampaignerandRegional
Government Policy Maker 242
11.12 Weighted scores and rankings for other participants 243
vii
0230517056_01_Prexviii.pdf 12/7/07 11:39 AM Page viii
viii List of Figures and Tables
Tables
7.1 Summary of survey data collection for the AcceptH2
project 130
7.2 Socio-demographic characteristics and attitudes of
AccceptH2 study bus user samples 131
7.3 Socio-demographic characteristics of samples from
acceptability of H2 infrastructure studies 133
7.4 Summary of data collection statistics 135
7.5 Multinomial regression on attitude to large-scale
introduction of H2 vehicles: pooled model results for
Havering and Bromley 139
7.6 Mean willingness to pay extra bus fare for introduction
of H2 buses 142
8.1 Comparison between two studies of the numbers of
participants who associated at least one, two or three
words with the stimulus word ‘hydrogen’ 169
8.2 Examples of words found in the positive, negative,
and neutral categories of word associations 169
10.1 Actors, expectations and ‘publics’ 210
10.2 ‘Forms of participation’ in the Hornchurch case 215
11.1 Composition of expert panel 228
12.1 Difference and deficit in knowledge: type of actor and
form of knowledge 251
12.2 ‘Risk signatures’ of the new technologies covered in the
book 253
12.3 Consequences of consultation for publics’ acceptance of
new technologies 257
0230517056_01_Prexviii.pdf 12/7/07 11:39 AM Page ix
Notes on Contributors
Dr. Julie Barnettis Senior Research Fellow, Department of Psychology,
University of Surrey, UK. Her research interests concern changing pat-
terns of appreciation of risks in publics, organisations and institutions;
communicating risk; expert understandings of publics; processes of
public engagement and dialogue; and the role of public and stakeholder
engagement in evidence-based policy-making. Her recent major publi-
cations include: Barnett J. and Breakwell G. (2003) ‘The social amplifi-
cation of risk and the hazard sequence’, Health, Risk and Society, 5, 3,
301–313; Barnett J., Carr, A. and Clift, R. (2006), ‘Going public: risk,
trust and public understandings of nanotechnology’, in G. Hunt and
M.Mehta (eds), Nanotechnology: Risk, Ethics and Law; and Timotijevic, L.
and Barnett, J. (2006) ‘Managing the possible health risks of mobile
telecommunications’,Health, Risk and Society, 8, 2, 143–164.
Professor Paul Bellaby is Professor of Sociology, and Director of the
Institute for Social, Cultural and Policy Research, University of Salford,
Greater Manchester, UK. He took his first degree and PhD at University
of Cambridge, and has held posts at the Universities of Keele and East
Anglia. His current research interests lie in the sociology of health, such
new technologies as hydrogen energy and the internet, and how risk is
conceived and trust is at issue between science, policy makers and
publics. Publications include (2007) with Eames, M. (eds) special issue
ofEnergy Policyon ‘Trust among stakeholders in managing uncertainties
on the way to sustainable energy’; (2006) ‘Can they carry on working?
Later retirement, health, and social inequality in an aging population’,
International Journal of Health Services, 36.1: 1–23; (2003) ‘Communica-
tion and miscommunication of risk: understanding UK parents’ atti-
tudes to combined MMR vaccination’, British Medical Journal, Vol. 327:
725–728; (1999)Sick from Work.
Dr. Hannah Devine-Wright is a Research Fellow in environmental
psychology at the University of Manchester, UK working on social
aspects of evolving electricity systems and demand-side participation,
within the EPSRC-funded ‘Supergen’ Future Networks project. She holds
Master’s and PhD degrees from the University of Surrey and is a gradu-
ate member of the British Psychological Society. Her multi-methods
ix