Paper long abstract:

Public/publics - reflections on the multifarious nature of a powerful political actant

Judith Tsouvalis, Sarah Hartley, Eleanor Hadley Kershaw, Roda Madziva, Carmen McLeod, Alison Mohr, Warren Pearce, Stevienna De Saille, Alexander Smith and Adam Spencer

Science-public interactions lie at the heart of STS's deep-seated interest in the dynamics and interrelationships between science, technology and society. This entails the long-standing, critical analyses of forms of public engagement and their rationales, and public rationalities in techno-scientific debates. In this paper, we want to turn this critical lens on concepts or social imaginaries of the 'public' or 'publics' themselves. As well as considering how understandings of 'the public' have evolved theoretically in recent years, we wish to consider the multifarious roles that this imaginary can assume in the shaping of science-society relations, in specific contexts and situations. This reveals the imaginary of the public/publics as a powerful political actant that, depending on the forms and guises it assumes, can, for example, impose boundaries, enable inclusion or effect exclusion, and convey status (eg. 'the citizen' or the 'ignorant mass'). The paper arises from a collaborative effort of researchers working on the Leverhulme Trust-funded 'Making Science Public Programme' and draws on a broad range of empirical cases, including environmental research policy, religious controversies, genetic modification, climate change, animal experimentation, food provisioning, and immigration.

Paper long abstract:

This paper considers the governance of science in relation to principles of participatory and representative democracy. The relationship between the governance arrangements in the European Union's European Research Area and the mode(s)of science communication is explored. The persistence of elements of the traditional 'deficit model' of science communication is identified within EU policy discourses and is contrasted with modes of science communication that promote the active engagement of citizens ('the public') and scientists in the science governance process. To illustrate these issues an overview of the newly introduced ERICs (European Research Infrastructure Consortium), key pillars of the European Research Area, is presented.

Paper long abstract:

The intention to actively integrate citizen into science has already a long history and was inspired by the idea, that "normal" science can no longer deliver appropriate results for societal problems, e.g. Funtowicz & Ravetz 1993. This paper will discuss current scientific and political practices of involving public actors in science policy and research. Based on results from the ENGAGE2020 project (FP7), it will provide a structured overview of current literature as well as own empirical observations.

We will discuss relevant literature from five streams: democratic and political thinking; sociology of scientific knowledge and STS; participatory approaches in innovation studies; societal empowerment through scientific support; toolkit literature. Our empirical results are derived from desktop research and interviews with stakeholders focusing on (1) policies and activities supporting societal engagement in Europe and beyond and (2) different methods, e.g. hearings, funding mechanisms, expert forums, science shops or citizen science activities.

Analytically, we distinguish four different levels of engagement: policy formation, research program development, project definition and research and innovation activity. Additionally, we differentiate the public actors included in policy and research activities: Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), citizens, affected, users and consumers.

These insights will provide an overview of current policies and activities for societal engagement in Europe. Finally we will identify new trends of public involvement, discuss major barriers and highlight potential enablers of engaging various public actors in addressing current and foreseen social problems.

Funtowicz, S.O. & Ravetz, J.R. (1993): Science for the Post-Normal Age, Futures, 25/7, pp. 739-755

Paper long abstract:

The paper is concerned with the communication of results and outcomes in so-called transdisciplinary research - which is characterized by the collaborative production of knowledge between scientists, practitioners, as well as diverse kinds of publics. In a mode of knowledge production that does not keep up to a producer-user distinction, in which both scientific and societal actors are considered both knowledge producers and target audience, the communication of findings is certainly not trivial.

From a dramaturgical perspective I will explore how evidence is performed in such moments of communication, and which transformations it undergoes when travelling from one stage to another. Concretely, I will examine the performances of evidence on three different stages: scientific journals, newspaper articles, and presentations on webpages. In doing so, I will not only gain insights on the persuasive registers that are mobilized to convince a certain audience. As 'acts of persuasion' the performances of evidence will also shed light on the situated ways in which different actors are cast respectively cast themselves. This will allow to reflect on the ways how diverse actors are empowered and disempowered in participatory research.

The material is stemming from a research project that aims to produce an empirical understanding of participatory engagements by investigating transdisciplinary projects as funded by an Austrian research scheme in sustainability research.

Paper long abstract:

The idea of science at the service of the public has now been made explicit through the framework of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), which urges public involvement in all stages of the innovation process. Although this can include a call for inclusion of oppositional or dissenting publics, these still tend to be understood as represented by civil society (CSOs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth. Overall, the result has been a systematic exclusion of those deemed not versed in the rules of public engagement - the 'unruly' public(s) of activists, bloggers, alternative journalists, independent researchers and others who have self-educated, on the grounds that they have already formed an opinion which cannot be changed. Additionally, there is a tacit equation of 'unruly' with 'uncivil', suggesting that such publics cannot or will not engage in structured consultation.

This paper draws upon ethnographic research and interviews carried out as part of the Leverhulme Trust project Making Science Public, during a four-day gathering on democratic control of technology organised by activists in the UK. It asks how/ does/should/can RRI engage with and be engaged by unruly publics, how does this particular unruly public understand the concept of 'responsible innovation', and what can be learned for RRI from the ways in which they envision or reject the possibility of democratic control of technological innovation. The result should be of interest to current discussions in scientific policy-making, as well as to STS scholars.

Paper long abstract:

This paper starts with an account of the use of large-scale surveys about scientific engagement and the production of publics based on them (think Eurobarometer ). In such surveys, categories of respondent based on interest or engagement are created, which, as we will show, then produce an array of publics for science.

In the fields of Science Communication/Public Engagement (PUS/PEST), the disengaged has always been a category of interest. Under the PUS agenda, the concern was how to "convert" them. With the focus on dialogue, the concern has shifted towards how to understand and interact with this disengagement (such as Mike Michael's work). But there is a whole other section of the world that fits neither in the disengaged nor in the engaged categories, namely the non-respondants. In this paper we read non-response as an issue that furthers the complexity of understanding these large-scale surveys.

The classic move is to dismiss non-response. This presents a skewed picture of the world. If the concern is dialogue, then those assessed as "disengaged" as well as other assessed categories should sit comfortably; the fact that they are responding to the surveys places them in some form of dialogue with the researchers. The non-respondants, on the other hand, through their lack of interaction, sit outside the dialogue dynamics. But it would be naive to read non-response as non-communicative. Drawing on literature from the political sphere, we want to suggest that non-reponse should itself (at least sometimes) be read as a form of engagement.

Paper long abstract:

This paper discusses how UK surveys of public attitudes to science have attended to ethno-religious diversity. It addresses a current STS concern with how the public is defined and constituted (in this case, in surveys of public attitudes). The paper is based on an analysis of documents from the last two Public Attitudes to Science reports (PAS2011 and PAS2014). The aim is to examine how ethno-religious differences are constructed, characterized and explained. It is shown that one objective of PAS2011 was to explore variation across demographic subgroups, and that it contained 21 comments relating to ethnic differences. These were boiled down to two key messages: people from ethnic minority backgrounds: 1) have a greater desire to be involved in public consultations on science, but 2) this is motivated by a distrust of science due to cultural or religious factors. In contrast, PAS2014 no longer aimed to understand demographic subgroup differences and routine references to ethnicity all but disappeared. However, PAS2014 became the first survey in the series to ask respondents about religious beliefs. Notably, in PAS2011 an 'attitudinal segment' termed the 'Concerned' had been characterized by their ethnicity; in PAS2014 the 'Concerned' were defined by religiosity, with particular attention given to Muslims. This paper considers what this shift from ethnicity to religiosity reflects and represents. Furthermore, it argues that inclusive public engagement with science would be better achieved by improving understanding of ethnicity, not by expunging it from the picture.

Paper long abstract:

Energy transitions are commonly understood as radical, systemic changes that render many elements obsolete, even though they are internal to the system. Because of the complete entrenchment of modern cultures with energy use, such transitions are deeply political. Yet, studies in energy transitions have hitherto built upon notoriously straightforward and unreflexive notions of 'politics', largely construed as some residual category where issues find recourse that cannot be solved along technical or technocratic terms. For example, the various ways of mobilizing energy provision include staging it as an object in need of securitization, as a fundamental right, as critical for the smooth operation of society, etc.. Energy thus becomes many different objects: not only political objects, but also objects of scientific inquiry, objects of engineering and construction, objects of consumption, and objects of cultural value. Importantly, it becomes an object that connects to particular political memberships. This paper discusses how below the surface, objects connected to 'energy transitions' in fact serve as a site of constructing categories such as the technical, the political and the natural. Each construction comes with a particular perspective on public relevance, and hence particular publics and their inclusion and exclusion from power. The paper will present work-in-progress at the conceptual as well as the empirical level.

Paper long abstract:

Online tools are now a common means of scientists and science communications 'engaging' with the public. Some believe such tools may even engage people who are not otherwise engaged in science. The Australian National Audit of Science Engagement Activities (2012) showed that almost 60% of the 416 activities recorded used social media as a tool for engaging the public.

When there is public controversy about science, such as climate change, views become polarised and the blogosphere offers a 'soapbox' for such views. In the context of the climate change science controversy, it is interesting to investigate how open people are to learn from and interact with each other through social media outlets such as blogs. This case study has selected blogs set up by two Australians with polarised views on climate science: www.joannenova.com.au and www.skepticalscience.com. Both blogs, while being written in Australia and often coloured by local political and social debates on climate change, purport to have a global reach.

This paper reports on analysis of recent (Nov 15 2013-March 15 2014) blogs that are about the links between climate extremes (such as floods, droughts, heat waves and cyclones) and climate change science. The reason for this topic is that it is controversial to link climate extremes to climate change and this topic if of high public interest in Australia which, except for Antarctica, has the world's most variable climate and is used to droughts, heat waves and floods.

Paper long abstract:

The debate on agricultural biotechnology has largely been characterised in the literature as being polarised between the "triumph narrative" (Stone, 2012) of biotechnology and the "hazy romanticism" (Irwin, 1995) of the so-called neo-Luddites. This seeming polarisation has been made possible in part by the obscuring of the term agricultural biotechnology, which has lent itself to many interpretations and significations. Drawing from academic literature, publicly available government and private reports as well as popular media accounts, I argue that pro and anti biotechnology groups in India often employ similar language and appeal to similar sentiments and principles, but to different and contradictory ends in the public meaning making process. Further, I examine the manner in which regimes of truth(s) about agricultural bio-technology in India have been discursively constituted in keeping with perceived public interests to privilege particular characterisations of the term and consequently some discourses of agricultural biotechnology over others. Unravelling how some narratives gain prominence over others requires however, that we turn towards the politics of their production: who are the truth-tellers, what do they say, and how do they try to speak the loudest? And what does this mean for transformative public deliberation?