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3 Messages and Heuristics: How Audiences Form Attitudes about Emerging Technologies 'cradle to Grave' and the Wellcome Trust Gallery at the British Museum
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Abstract | centrepiece of the Wellcome Trust Gallery. Under one of the largest single pieces of glass to occupy a gallery, the monolithic case houses two pieces of fabric, each 13 metres long – one for the man and 21 Messages and Heuristics: How audiences form attitudes about emerging technologies How do people form opinions about scientific issues? It is, suggests Dietram A Scheufele, unrealistic to expect people to sift through masses of information to draw up a reasoned conclusion. We are mostly 'cognitive misers', drawing upon a minimum amount of information. What is crucial is how an issue is 'framed' – the context in which it is communicated and how it fits with people's pre-existing thinking. Understanding these aspects is crucial to effective science communication. Many of the academic debates about how citizens form attitudes about scientific issues come down to a conflict between ideals and realities. On one side, many of the recent public outreach efforts are based on somewhat idealistic views about a 'scientific citizen' who forms attitudes based on an in-depth understanding of scientific controversies, or should do. On the other, we have decades of research in social psychology, political science and risk communication that suggests that knowledge plays a marginal role at best in shaping people's opinions and attitudes about science and technology. In fact, many researchers have suggested that the way media present an issue, and people's value systems and predispositions, play a much greater role in shaping citizens' attitudes toward new technologies. Scientific literacy versus low-information rationality The two models that have come to represent this tension between ideals and realities have been labeled science-literacy or knowledge-deficit models on the one hand, and models based on low-information rationality on the other hand. Knowledge-deficit models assume that audiences can and should acquire as much information as possible about new technologies. Their adherents therefore often attribute the lack of public support for emerging technologies to lack of information among the public. As a result, many researchers and practitioners in this area also argue that a more informed public would be more supportive of scientific enquiry and of emerging technologies, such as nanotechnology or agricultural biotechnology. Unfortunately, knowledge-deficit models are problematic for a number of reasons. First, empirical support for the relationship between information and attitudes toward scientific issues is mixed at best. Over time, different researchers identified both positive and negative links between levels of knowledge among … |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/stellent/groups/corporatesite/@msh_publishing_group/documents/web_document/wtx032691.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
