NER: Building Capacity For Understanding and Assessing the Impact of Nanotechnology Media Messages: Long-Term Strategy for Improving Public Communication About Emerging Technology

这个实验研究项目将探索媒体信息如何影响公众对新纳米技术的风险、监管充分性和公平性的看法。公众对新技术的看法在重要方面继续受到大众传播媒介信息的影响，尽管传播渠道正在改变，新的战略正在形成，以加强公众对技术政策讨论的参与。新闻机构并非独立于更广泛的社会之外行事，新闻受众也会主动解读他们收到的信息。尽管如此，新闻报道仍然是普通人获取新兴技术信息的主要来源。该项目有可能增强我们对新闻媒体如何描述与技术有关的风险、监管和正义问题的理解，以及对公众舆论和态度形成的影响。我们也试图更好地把握公众讨论、媒体信息和大众思维之间复杂的相互作用。对技术风险的认知、对监管机构的信任和对公平的认知似乎也密切相关，但我们还没有完全掌握其中的关系。虽然我们建议从单独研究这些领域开始，但我们的最终目标是提高我们对它们相互联系的理论理解。这项研究计划还旨在建立能力，以便更好地了解公众对未来新兴技术的反应。这种能力建设不仅涉及项目负责人和联合项目负责人及其直接合作者，而且还涉及对媒体在传播新兴技术方面的作用感兴趣的研究人员组成的更广泛的网络——该网络将在项目年度的早期通过一个国际跨学科讲习班得到进一步加强。这次研讨会将建立在2006年春季举行的早期研讨会的基础上，并将把更广泛的学者社区的思想带到该项目中。

This program of experimental research will explore how media messages influence public perceptions of riskiness, regulatory adequacy, and fairness for new nanotechnologies. Public opinion for new technology continues to be influenced by mass media messages in important ways, even while the channels of communication are changing and new strategies are evolving to enhance public engagement in discussions of technology policy. News institutions do not act independently of the broader society, and news audiences actively interpret the messages they receive. Despite this, news accounts remain primary sources of the information available to ordinary people about newly emerging technologies.The project has the potential to enhance our understanding of how news media portray issues of risk, regulation, and justice with respect to technology, as well as the consequences for public opinion and attitude formation. We also seek to better grasp the complex interactions among public discussion, media messages, and popular thinking. Perceptions of technological risk, trust in regulatory authorities, and perceptions of fairness also appear to be closely interrelated, but we do not yet fully grasp how. While we propose to begin by studying each of these areas individually, our ultimate goal is to improve our theoretical understanding of their interconnectedness.This research program is also intended to build capacity to better understand public responses to emerging technology more generally in the future. This capacity building involves not only the PI and co-PI and their direct collaborators, but also a broader network of researchers interested in the media''s role in communicating emerging technologies - a network that will be further strengthened by an international, interdisciplinary workshop early in the project year. This workshop will build on an earlier one that took place in spring of 2006 and will bring the thinking of a wider community of scholars to bear on the project.