Padraig Murphy

Advertisements for high-technology products and services visualize processes and phenomena which are unvisualizable, such as globalization, networks, and information. We turn our attention specifically to the case of nanotechnology advertisements, using an approach that combines visual and sonic culture. Just as phenomena such as complexity and networks have become established in everyday discourse, nanotechnology seizes the social imaginary by establishing its own aesthetic conventions. Elaborating Raymond Williams’ concept of structures of feeling, we show that in visualizing nanotechnology, its stakeholders employ spaces, verbs, and objects of feeling. These favorable nanotechnology structures of feeling are woven into the social imaginary, recursively producing the reality they describe.

Public perceptions of nanotechnology are shaped by sound in surprising ways. Our analysis of the audiovisual techniques employed by nanotechnology stakeholders shows that well-chosen sounds can help to win public trust, create value and convey the weird reality of objects on the nanoscale.

Advertisements for high-technology products and services visualize processes and phenomena which are unvisualizable, such as globalization, networks, and information. We turn our attention specifically to the case of nanotechnology advertisements, using an approach that combines visual
and sonic culture. Just as phenomena such as complexity and networks have become established in everyday discourse, nanotechnology seizes the social imaginary by establishing its own aesthetic conventions. Elaborating Raymond Williams’ concept of structures of feeling, we show that in visualizing nanotechnology, its stakeholders employ spaces, verbs, and objects of feeling. These favorable nanotechnology structures of feeling are woven into the social imaginary, recursively producing the reality they describe.

Nanotechnology talk is moving out of its comfort zone of scientific discourse. As new products go to market and national and international organizations roll out public engagement programs on nanotechnology to discuss environmental and health issues, various sectors of the public are beginning to discuss what all the fuss is about. Non-Governmental Organizations have long since reacted; however, now the social sciences have begun to study the cultural phenomenon of nanotechnology, thus extending discourses and opening out nanotechnology to whole new social dimensions. We report here on these social dimensions and their new constructed imaginings, each of which is evident in the ways in which discourses around nanotechnology intersects with the economy, ecology, health, governance, and imagined futures. We conclude that there needs to be more than just an ‘environmental, legal and social implications’, or ‘ELSI’, sideshow within nanotechnology. The collective public imaginings of nanotechnology include tangles of science and science fiction, local enterprise and global transformation, all looking forward towards a sustainable future, while looking back on past debates about science and nature. Nanotechnology is already very much embedded in the social fabric of our life and times.

In recent decades, much ground has been lost in terms of the public realm; that shared essential space of scholarly discourse and contestation of an independent people free to participate and change their circumstances, to imagine their future – be it in Ireland, Europe or at global level has to be reclaimed by generous and open scholarship. . . The challenge is to ethically reconnect economy, culture, science and society and in the process of so doing, to recover or reinforce an ethos of emancipatory scholarship.
Independent thought, from home and abroad, and scholarly engagement with our current circumstances are crucial (Higgins, 2012, p. 1).

This EPA STRIVE research fellowship report presents
a literature review and fieldwork data for a project that
investigated how the topic of nanotechnology can be
engaged with by both experts on the topic and nonexperts.
The first objective was to map out what can be said about
knowledge of nanotechnology in contemporary Ireland.
All perspectives on nanotechnology were taken on
board, analysed and synthesised, including deviations
from the accepted truths about nanotechnology. While
perspectives on environmental and health implications
were of particular interest, they were not the primary
focus in discussions, unless raised by participants and
commentators. Methods used for this study included an
awareness survey and media and document analyses.
The second objective was to pilot a series of
nanotechnology communication events, which
would provide the basis of a future communications/
consultation strategy for policy-makers. The types of
activities used in these events included focus groups,
a ‘citizens’ jury’, online forums and an installation in the
Science Gallery in Dublin. The contributions from these
activities also added to the first objective of addressing
nanotechnology knowledge.
The third and final objective was to report to the EPA, in
order to aid future environmental research associated
with public communication and wider science
communication and technology assessment policy by
the Irish government.
The following was concluded from this project:
• Scientists were the most prominent voices in public
discourse about nanotechnology, but mostly in the
context of commercial exploitation and innovation.
• Environment and health risks and benefits were tied
to social and ethical considerations very closely and
participants in public engagement activities were at
least as concerned about governance and equity
issues (in terms of how nanotechnology is controlled)
as they were about the environmental and health
implications.
• Where nanotechnology was described in the media,
it tended to be either framed in commercial terms,
or in basic, scientific, didactic terms for education
and outreach, for example, ‘nanotechnology
is …’ Both representations reduce the chances
for nanotechnology risks, of any kind, to be
discussed, and are at odds with policy measures
of nanotechnology public engagement in other
countries.
• Dialogicality (expressing multiple voices and views
on a topic) was weak in many official nanotechnology
texts, new media approaches provided more
opportunities for dialogue.
• The concept of nanotechnology as an ‘entity’ was
important – for young participants in particular.
• Levels of attendance at public engagement events
were low for the open-invitation focus group and the
citizens’ jury pilot especially.
The following recommendations are made:
• Establish a Convergence Technologies Forum;
• Ensure that dialogue initiatives are included for future
nanotechnology;
• Use all communication channels, including new Web
2.0 media;
• Learn from the public engagement mistakes of other
emerging technology debates, such as genetically
modified organisms (GMOs);
• Link to global networks already involved in
nanotechnology and emerging technology public
engagement;
• Include social sustainability as a criterion in
future EPA- and exchequer-funded research and
technology assessment.
Even though there is little media or public interest,
Nano-Innovation discourses are growing. In any future
campaign for nanotechnology, media exposure and
public relations require considerable investment. In
other countries, dialogue is considered as important
as promoting the technology itself. This report offers a‘menu’ of dialogue models for policy-makers to address
the many objectives of nanotechnology strategy, from
less dialogic information transfer to public-led dialogue
and the public imagining of a future with nanotechnology.
If only some of the predictions are accurate,
nanotechnology will have many social implications.
Much work is necessary to ensure nanotechnology
public engagement is taken seriously in Ireland if the
technology is an economic priority, or indeed if it has
some bearing on progress in health, environment
and technology. This report confirms what is found in
international studies of science and society – public
engagement needs to be about what can be accepted,
not what can be sold. This report recommends that, for a
more inclusive approach to nanotechnology knowledge
– and to avoid another ‘GM scenario’ – dialogue must
form the basis of the communication strategy with
embedded ‘triple bottom line’ values, that is, where
society and environment are given the same level of
importance currently granted to the economy.

Advertisements for high-technology products and services visualize pro- cesses and phenomena which are unvisualizable, such as globalization, networks, and information. We turn our attention specifically to the case of nanotechnology advertisements, using an approach that combines visual and sonic culture. Just as phenomena such as complexity and networks have become established in everyday discourse, nanotechnology seizes the social imaginary by establishing its own aesthetic conventions. Elaborating Raymond Williams’ concept of structures of feeling, we show that in visualizing nanotechnology, its stakeholders employ spaces, verbs, and objects of feeling. These favorable nanotechnology structures of feeling are woven into the social imaginary, recursively producing the reality they describe.

: On 2–3 November 2015, participants of the NUCLEUS project gathered in Budapest to investigate, as one of six field trips, how Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) spreads and interacts as processes of communication and mutual learning between research–intensive insitutions—such as universities—and the rest of the components of society. For Budapest, we investigated one of those components, or “cells” in the overall research “organism”, Media. The barriers examined in Budapest were those in media that may prevent RRI in societal discourse. The goal is to set out a roadmap, providing practical guidelines for Higher Education Institutions and funding agencies across Europe and beyond to facilitate RRI. Day 1 was divided between a briefing session among NUCLEUS partners, and a second session where local experts were invited to contribute to the discussion. Day 2 covered the Annual Conference of the European Unions of Science Journalists’ Associations (EUSJA). EUSJA is a partner within the NUCLEUS project who are developing a network to address RRI. The conference itself contained many themes of relevance to RRI and media. The following is what was learnt in Budapest to contribute to the NUCLEUS RRI Roadmap:
• Realisation of the growing interactions between scientific knowledge and expertise and interactions with popular culture; within this realisation is a warning to address polarised and highly invective language use in new social media
• the changing professions and roles of science journalism—the relationships and tensions between HEIs and journalists in combined and contrasting practices of  promotion, dissemination and engagement; yet the need for critical journalism remains
understanding of the contextualised scientific culture of particular regions