Public Engagement and Emerging Technologies

New technologies and the science that created them have transformed our lives, posing challenges as to how technological change can be better integrated in society. Recognition of these issues has led to different ways of engaging the public in the assessment and regulation of emerging technologies. However, there has been no single approach that characterizes the relationship between publics and new technologies.

This book puts the subject of publics and their engagement in emerging technologies on a robust theoretical footing. With a strong, though not exclusive, focus on genomic technologies, leading theorists and practitioners in the field provide precise and clear insights into the key issues in public participation studies, including ethics, process, and principles of knowledge distribution in democratic societies. The discussion is particularly pertinent and central to current concerns in health, technology, and public participation at a time when the reform of public and private sector health and social care services are being debated globally.

Introduction

Kieran O'Doherty and Edna Einsiedel

Part 1: The Purpose and Function of Public Participation

1 Giving Power to Public Voice: A Critical Review of Alternative Means of Infusing Citizen Deliberation with Legal Authority or Influence / John Gastil

2 Parliamentary Technology Assessment in Europe and the Role of Public Participation / Leonhard Hennen

3 Democracy, Governance, and Public Engagement: A Critical Assessment / Peter W.B. Phillips

Part 2: External Conditions for Legitimate Public Engagement: Ethics, Society, and Democracy

4 Trust, Accountability, and Participation: Conditions for and Constraints on "New" Democratic Models / Susan Dodds

5 Public Voices or Private Choices? The Role of Public Consultation in the Regulation of Reproductive Technologies / Colin Gavaghan

6 Challenges to Deliberations on Genomics / Michiel Korthals

Part 3: Internal Conditions for Legitimate Public Engagement: Lessons for the Practitioner

7 Deliberative Fears: Citizen Deliberation about Science in a National Consensus Conference / Michael D. Cobb

8 Theorizing Deliberative Discourse / Kieran O'Doherty

Part 4: Institutional Contexts of Public Participation

9 Public Engagement and Knowledge Mobilization in Public and Private Policy / David Castle

10 From Public Engagement to Public Policy: Competing Stakeholders and the Path to Law Reform / David Weisbrot

11 Participation in the Canadian Biotechnology Regulatory Regime é Andrea Riccardo Migone and Michael Howlett

Part 5: Modes of and Experiments in Participation

12 Swimming with Salmon: The Use of Journalism to Public Engagement Initiatives on Emerging Biotechnologies é David M. Secko

13 Science Media and Public Participation: The Potential of Drama-Documentaries / Grace Reid

14 N-Reasons: Computer-Mediated Ethical Decision Support for Public Participation / Peter Danielson

15 Contentious New Technology Introductions and e-Participation / Keith Culver

Part 6: Understanding Stakeholders and Publics

16 Rethinking "Publics" and "Participation" in New Governance Contexts: Stakeholder Publics and Extended Forms of Participation / Edna Einsiedel

17 Public Engagement with Human Genetics: A Social Movement Approach / Alexandra Plows

18 The Limits of Liberal Values in the Moral Assessment of Genomic and Technological Innovation / Chloë G.K. Atkins

Contributors

Index

Kieran O'Doherty is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Guelph. Edna Einsiedel is a professor of communication studies in the Department of Communication and Culture at the University of Calgary.