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THE PUBLIC PERCEPTION OF RISK
Abstract
There is growing debate about the release of genetically modifed organisms to the Australian environment, and current concern about the lack of a national approach to biotechnology regulation. The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology set up an inquiry into genetically modified organisms in October 1990, and called for public submissions. The submissions are a valuable resource for research into the public perception of risk with respect to a new technology which has developed very rapidly, and in advance of an adequate regulatory framework.
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NOTES AND REFERENCES
Martin Rein. . 1976. . Social Science and Public Policy . , p. 98 Harmondsworth : : Penguin. .
Australia, House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, Inquiry into Genetically Modified Organisms, p. 347.
Ralph J. K. Chapman, ‘Information diffusion: reconciling scientific knowledge and public policy’, Prometheus, 8, 2, December 1990, p. 241.
Ole R. Holsti, Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass., 1969, p. 38 and James N. Rosenau, Public Opinion and Foreign Policy, Random House, New York, 1961, pp. 35–41.
House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, Inquiry into Genetically Modified Organisms, Submissions 3, 26 and 104.
Submissions 60, 62 and 69.
Submissions 3, 54 and 106.
Submission 18.
Submission 26.
Australia, House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, op. cit., p. 550.
Submissions 2, 8, 11, 41, 111, 119 and others.
Submissions 2, 20, 29, 92, 107, 113.
Submissions 125, 129, 137.
Submissions 84, 95, 96, etc.
Submissions 5, 20, 56, 85, etc.
Brian Wynne. . 1988. . Risk Management and Hazardous Waste: Implementation and the Dialectics of Credibility . , p. 11 Berlin : : Springer-Verlag. .
Submission 107.
Submission 68.
Submission 115.
Submission 70.
Australia, House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, op. cit., p. 1082.
Brian Wynne, ‘Knowledges in Context’, Science, Technology, and Human Values, 6, 1991, p. 113.
Ibid., p. 116.
Ibid., p. 114.
Submission 35.
Submissions 50, 54, 62, 69, 138. The Waite Institute, Submission 26, stated that “invalid emotive arguments are used to antagonise the population” but this is still to a very limited extent in Australia, but more so overseas.” CSIRO, Submission 107, stated that “media reports have tended to focus on one side of the debate or the other … [some] arguing total opposition to genetic manipulation”. Richard Hindmarsh has analysed 70 items in the Australian print media on the theme of genetic engineering 1987-1990. Of these 70 items, 51 were positive, two were critical, and 17 explored both sides. Hindmarsh also includes the electronic media in his analysis, and suggests that the coverage there is fairer, and more balanced (personal communication). A good example of media polarisation of the debate occurred in the ABCTV Monday Conference, October 23, 1988, where the participants simply did not listen to each other. See Rosaleen Love, ‘Talking past each other’, Australian Society, 7/8, December/January 1988/89, pp. 14–15.
Age, 14 April 1990; Australian, 17 April 1990.
Canberra Times, 28 July 1987. In this analysis I am following Sheldon Krimsky and Alonzo Plough, Environmental Hazards: Communicating Risks as a Social Process, Auburn House, Dover, Mass., 1988, p. 92.
Times on Sunday, 14 June 1987, p. 5.
The Age, 20 June 1987, p. 2.
Sydney Morning Herald, 11 April 1990.
The Australian, 17 April 1990.
The Australian, 14 April 1990.
The Age, 14 April 1990.
The Age, 12 April 1990.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 May 1987.
The Australian, 24 July 1987, letter to the editor.
Adelaide Advertiser, 30 September 1987. This was a letter to the editor from Ian Grayson, Friends of the Earth, South Australia.
Ibid.
Ibid, and The Times on Sunday, 14 June 1987.
The Australian, letter to editor, 24 July 1987.
The Times on Sunday, 14 June 1987, p. 5.
The Age, 12 April 1990.
Submission 26.
Ian Anderson. . 1990. . ‘Genetically altered meat slips through the net’. . New Scientist . , 12 May;: 3
The Age, 28 April 1990.
The Australian Rural Times, 3 May 1990.
Adelaide Advertiser, 28 April 1990.
The Age, 2 May 1990, p. 13.
The Age, 2 May 1990, p. 13.
The Age, 8 May 1990
The Age, 28 April 1990.
The Adelaide Advertiser, 28 April 1990.
Brett Wright, ‘Gene spliced pesticide uncorked in Australia’, New Scientist, 4 March 1989, p. 23.
Australia, House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, op. cit., p. 422, 456 and 1113.
Langdon Winner. . 1986. . The Whale and the Reactor . , p. 146 Chicago : : University of Chicago Press. .
Sheldon Krimsky. . 1983. . Genetic Alchemy: The Social History of the Recombinant DNA Controversy . , p. 1 Cambridge, Mass. : : MIT Press. .
Australia, House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, op. cit., p. 571, 996 and 1118.
J. Ravetz, somewhere.
Submission 54.
Submission 35.
Submission 106.
Submission 107.
Martin Rein, op. cit., p. 98.
Ian Barns, Conference Abstracts, Ecopolitics V, Sydney, 1990.
Ralph J.K. Chapman, loc. cit., p. 254.
Brian Wynne, Risk Management and Hazardous Waste, p. 15.
Graeme O'Neill, ‘Keeping fantasy out of biotech debate’, The Age, 1 March 1991, p. 20.
William R. Freudenburg, ‘Perceived risk, real risk: social science and the art of probabilistic risk assessment’, Science, 242, 1988, pp. 44–9 at 48. Another paper which deals with risk perception with some reference to Australia is S. Martin Taylor, ‘Environmental contaminants as public health risks with particular reference to electric transmission lines’, briefing paper submitted to the Brunswick-Richmond Transmission Line Review Panel, Office of the Commissioner for the Environment, Melbourne, Victoria. Other useful references include Dorothy Nelkin, Controversy: Politics of Technical Decisions, 2nd ed., Sage Publications, Beverley Hills, California, 1984, p. 15; J. Cramer, R. Eyerman and A. Jamison, ‘The knowledge interests of the environment movement and its potential for influencing the development of science’, in S. Blume et al., The Social Direction of the Public Sciences, Reidel, Dordrecht, 1987, pp. 89–115; J. Boyle et al., The Politics of Technology, Longman, London, 1977; Susan Wright, ‘Molecular biology or molecular politics? The production of scientific consensus on the hazards of recombinant DNA technology’, Social Studies of Science, 16, 1986, pp. 593–620.