cc  >> Cassie Immel: Hello, thank  you for coming to Wednesday Nite  @ the Lab tonight.  Tonight we will have  Dr. Dominique Brossard.  She's an associate professor  here at the Department of Life  Sciences and Communication.  She has affiliations with the  Global Studies and the Holtz  Center for Science and  Technology Studies.  She's the leader of the Societal  Implications of Nanotechnology  Group in the NSF-funded  Nano-scale Science and  Engineering Center.  And she teaches courses in  strategic communication theory  and research with special  emphasis on science and risk  communication.  She got her BS in biology in  France and also her Master's in  plant biotechnology in France.  She got her MPS and her PhD at  Cornell in communications.  And with that, Dr. Dominique.  (applause)  >> Dominique Brossard: Good  evening, everybody, and thanks  for giving me this opportunity  to talk to you tonight. 

 This is a really nice  opportunity to talk about things  that usually I share only with  fellow scientists and social  scientists.  So I'm thrilled to hear what you  have to say and I'm thrilled to  see that what we do in the lab  does not stay in the lab and has  a way to reach people that  obviously would be interested  about it.  As my talk title suggests in the  schedule, I wanted to discuss  with you the topic of  controversial science and more  particularly why people tend to  agree or disagree when it comes  to controversial topics.  When I talk about controversial  science, what I mean is any  scientific topics that doesn't  have only technological  dimensions, but also have  social, legal, or ethical  implications, which means that  it's relevant to society as a  whole.  And the type of topics I have  studied in the past that I will  discuss briefly with you relate  for example to genetic  engineering and more  particularly as it applies to  food production.  Other topics have included the  topic of stem cell research and  global warming, and most  recently, nanotechnology.  If you look at those different  topics, obviously they're very,  very different as far as the  science that's involved.  Most of you must be aware that  genetic engineering is really  related to genetics versus  nanotechnology, for example, is  mainly related to engineering.  Nanotechnology being a  technology that can be developed  at the nano scale, a nanometer  being one billionth of a meter,  your hair being one thousandth  of a meter, shares only with  biotechnology the notion that  you are changing things at a  very, very small scale.  For that reason, some people are  concerned that we are messing up  with nature and we are actually  changing things that have been  ordered by nature a certain way,  so as you can see, those two  issues that may seem very, very  different on paper as far as the  type of science that's behind  them, when you think of the  ethical and social dimensions  that are related to them, share  important characteristics. 

 Stem cell research is completely  different, in the sense that it  has a moral dimension that makes  it also potentially  controversial and global warming  is also different in the sense  that the type of societal  considerations that will come  into play is more related to the  economic implications and the  type of regulations that have to  be put at the societal level to  control this phenomenon.  So what all those topics have in  common is the societal dimension  and that's what I'm interested  about, understanding how people  form their attitudes for these  types of topics, where they're  not only scientific, but they're  also ethical, legal, and social  and has relevance to all of us,  you and I and anybody else in  society.  "Why am I here?" you would say.  This is something that's called  Wednesday Nite @ the Lab, more  logically you have pure  scientists that actually produce  knowledge in the science realm.  Well, I am firmly convinced that  social scientists, particularly  nowadays, are scientists that  have their place to play in more  particularly controversial  scientific topics.  Science communication is a  science.  It grew up out of mass  communication, psychology and  social psychology, with strong  methods to lead to a good  understanding of audiences, an  understanding of all the  messages that reach these  audiences, and more  particularly, an understanding  of the communication and public  opinion processes that are  taking place between any message  you have out there and the  audiences that will read, hear,  or communicate that message.  In that sense, what we do is, my  students, I have to acknowledge  one of my PhD students who was  nice enough to come tonight.  We use quantitative methods and  analysis to try to model what  happens when people are  confronted with different types  of messages and when they have  to reach a conclusion, a  judgment about topics generally  they might know not a lot about.  To do so, we conduct public  opinion surveys, relying on  random sample of the general  population, to reach conclusions  that should be, hopefully, valid  and reliable. 

 We also do quantitative content  analysis of different messages,  either in print media, also in  online media, and other type of  communication devices.  We also do, as psychological  researchers do in general,  experimental designs to try to  test the effect of different  messages on people's processing  of information.  So a lot of statistics, a lot of  quantitative analysis, also  complemented in some instances  by qualitative analysis.  So I do call it the "science of  science communication" and what  I want to share with you tonight  is a number of assumptions that  I hear often when I'm confronted  with many people in the science  realm, when we talk about public  attitudes toward controversial  topics.  What we know, and this is  something that's been validated  by a lot of research findings,  is, most people, not like you,  since you come to this type of  events, but most people learn  about new scientific development  through the mass media.  And this is their main source of  information, okay?  So most people do not come to  Wednesday Nite @ the Lab,  unfortunately.  Most people do not have time to  go to science museums, and most  people do not watch "Nova" on  television.  Most people that do that are  already interested in science  and have already a frame of  reference that's very different,  let's say, than the general lay  public.  So the general lay public relies  on media to find out about  science and inform their  judgment about new technological  innovation.  This being said, there are a  number of assumptions out there  when people in the outreach  realm maybe or in the scientific  realm discuss potentially a lack  of support for science or for  scientific innovations. 

 And one of those assumptions is  that public misunderstanding of  technological aspects is due to  inaccurate and sensational  coverage through the media.  I'm sure you have heard that  yourself, you may have thought  that yourself.  I have thought that myself.  However, this is a very, very  general assumption that may not  be accurate in all contexts, and  we're going to discuss that a  little bit.  Second, the assumption that lay  audiences do not know enough  about science, linked to that  potentially misleading media  coverage, may lead to low  support for new technologies  when those technologies have  different types of implications.  As I was telling you, this is  the topic of my talk.  I hope you get out of this room  tonight with actually a little  bit more sophisticated  understanding of these  processes, and you will not say,  "Just because of the media this  is happening one way or the  other."  Obviously, this is a little  bit more complicated than these  assumptions tend to indicate,  and that's what we are going to  discuss tonight.  So, what do we know from social  science research as far as  knowledge and controversial  technologies?  Well, first of all, obviously we  cannot say that the way people  understand science doesn't have  an impact on how they feel about  science.  So knowledge will have an impact  on attitudes, but it may not be  the main predictor.  There are other things that will  play a role. 

 And as a matter of fact, what we  can say from different research  findings is, it depends on the  field of inquiry.  For example, for green  technology it may matter.  For genetic engineering as  related to food, it doesn't  matter.  So we cannot generalize and just  say, only if people knew, this  would be different.  Second of all, as far as the  media use aspect, it can be an  important predictor, as I will  explain, of how people feel  about the technological  innovations, such as genetic  engineering, for example, but  it's not always the main  predictor.  And we're going to see a little  bit what I'm talking about as I  discuss other predictors.  In a nutshell, as far as those  predictors, before going through  them and talking about them a  little bit more, what we know,  once we have taken into account  demographic factors, such as  socio-economic status, level of  education, obviously, and race,  gender, and such, that have been  shown to impact how we feel  about technology, as a matter of  fact.  No offense to ladies in the  room, it seems that males tend  to support technological  innovation much more than  females.  Again, this is a pattern,  because it means that it's true  at each individual level.  Once we have taken into account  those demographic factors,  what's left?  Well, I told you, knowledge  matters to some extent. 

 But most importantly, as far as  attitudes toward technology and  new technology, such as genetic  engineering as applied to food,  the perception of the risks and  benefits related to the  technology matter.  And now these consequently tied  to factors that have been shown  to actually play a very  important role in that  cost/benefit analysis that we do  when we think about the  technology.  We are maybe not realizing it,  but that cost/benefit analysis  that you're constantly doing to  our mind.  The third predictor I want to  discuss is a trust in  institutions and individuals  providing information.  That's an important factor.  Perceptual filters as provided  by strong values that may be  held and that we have acquired  through our childhood and are  unlikely to change.  And obviously media coverage and  media use as far as the media  coverage impact.  And finally, the fact that  interpersonal communication has  also a role to play.  So risk, first.  I don't know if you have talked  about risk in this setting  before, but risk is a very  interesting concept because you  have two words that clash here  to some extent, you know, a  social scientist could be in the  middle. 

 Risk is really something that is  understood in context.  On the one hand, you have the  probability that something will  occur, that a hazard will occur.  A scientific assessment of a  specific risk where you can put  a number on it, right?  The probability that you're  going to get sick after being  immunized, for example, is a  scientific assessment of a risk.  On the other hand, you have what  we call public perception of  risk.  'Cause, like, you and I, how we  feel.  I don't like shots, so I'm going  to feel a certain way about the  risk of getting the vaccine.  This is a qualitative appraisal  of the risk.  So those are two words that  clash that you can see in the  realm of communication about  technology.  For experts, you know, risk is  really something that we can  measure, right?  A certain condition of exposure,  is there a basis in this room?  How much can we get exposed to  it?  How likely are we going to get  sick?  And estimate the overall risk  for somebody that walked in the  classroom, right?  This is a scientific assessment.  On the other hand, for lay  audiences, and that's all of us,  when we begin thinking about  risk, to some extent we couldn't  care less about the probability. 

 If you tell me that there's one  chance out of one million that a  child is going to get a certain  disease and I shouldn't worry, I  would answer, "What about if  that one child is mine?  I don't care about the other  ones.  Tell me he's safe."  So this is a very different  perception of what risk means.  I'm talking about safety from a  public perspective versus  experts talk about risk as far  as scientific assessment of  risk.  And in this case, to some extent  you cannot say there is a wrong  perception of risk.  There's just a public perception  of risk that's put in a context  of a certain culture, certain  dynamics, and different types of  things, ooh, this is really  loud, that may happen sometime  in time.  So in this case, what's  important, is there harm?  Is there harm that we feel may  happen with the new technology?  We care about the harm.  We don't care about the  probability.  And in this sense, acceptability  is much more important than  probability.  I'm sure you've heard that  before.  One of the most dangerous  technologies around right now  are cars, right?  Very dangerous to drive a car. 

 We're very used to driving a  car.  You see cars around.  It's an acceptable risk that we  take because we get some benefit  from driving our car.  So to some extent, knowing it's  dangerous won't really change  the way we feel about the  technology.  So this is how it works as a  general rule, psychologic  thinking as far as controversial  scientific topics.  The idea that we will, as lay  audience, use some qualitative  factors to actually reach a  conclusion about a specific risk  and much more importantly that  whatever quantitative factor is  given to us.  And those qualitative facts, I'm  not going to go in detail in  them right now, but this is  stuff that has been modeled in  social psychology, that I put a  little bit of a laundry list  here.  The catastrophic potential, for  example.  We will be more concerned by  risk that may have a number of  fatalities that are grouped  versus fatalities/injuries  scattered.  I'm sure some of you think of  plane crash versus car  accidents. 

 Car accidents kill many more  people than planes, but when you  have a plane that crashes and  kills 200 people, suddenly we  are much more concerned.  Well, this is a simple  psychological mechanism that  actually links catastrophic  potential to that grouped  fatality/injury feature.  Familiarity, again, this is my  car example.  If you're unfamiliar with the  risk, you will be scared, and  this is a natural biological  mechanism.  We tend, as a species, to run  away from things we don't know  because things may be dangerous,  right?  Evolutionarily speaking, it  makes sense to run away from  things you don't know to protect  yourself, and this has stayed as  a psychological trait to assess  risk.  Understanding, I talked a little  bit about that, it's related to  familiarity as you see.  And the personal control, going  back to the genetic engineering  in food example, you don't like,  I don't like having something in  my food that I cannot control  that somebody else has put there  and that cannot for sure say  it's safe or not, versus if I  cook something at home, I'm  pretty confident eating it.  It's very unlikely I'm going to  refuse my own food on my plate  unless I've done something very  bizarre with my food and so this  is something that's important to  take into account.  Voluntariness, the fact that we  are doing something versus  somebody else is doing it for  us.  We use the plane example. 

 Somebody's driving the plane for  us.  We're driving our car.  Driving our car may be  dangerous, but at least we are  doing the dangerous thing.  How much effect it can have on  children as a general rule, and  I think that's also an  evolutionary aspect.  We want to protect our  offsprings, so anything that  looks like it could have an  effect on children or future  generations is also thought as  dangerous.  And things that are manifested  with delayed effects also look  scary, and this again relates to  technologic innovation such as  genetic engineering when we  don't know what might be the  effect in the future and these,  again, will generate more  concerns.  I'm not going to go, again, to  all those, but just a point or  two that I will discuss more in  detail.  The trust in institution and the  attention you pay to the media.  Trust is an extremely  interesting concept in social  psychology and in attitudes to a  variety of issues, more  particularly as they relate to  science.  It has been shown clearly in a  number of large quantitative  studies that trust is a major  predictor of risk perception. 

 As a matter of fact, there's  more correlation, a stronger  relationship between  institutional trust of somebody  that says something and  knowledge about the issue.  Sorry, between trust and  acceptance about the message,  than between knowledge and  acceptance.  Let's say that if you were  meeting me at the bus stop with  my not always very  understandable accent, and I'm  there giving you a whole spiel  about risk perceptions and what  matters, etc.  Versus if you hear me in this  room, after being very nicely  introduced by people from the  Biotechnology Center, you will  process whatever I tell you very  differently just because you  perceive the messenger very  differently because of the  setting.  So that's why I call it  institutional trust.  The label that we can put on the  messenger will have an important  effect on how you process that  information.  So I hope you trust me when I  tell you that, but indeed,  institutional trust is one of  the most important predictors of  this perception and we have even  called it, to some extent, a  replacement for knowledge.  We cannot know everything.  We do need to have other people  that know it for us so if we  trust the messenger to some  extent it's a shortcut for us to  reach a judgment without having  to put too much effort  cognitively to understand what  the issue is about.  So in risk perception, we can  say to some extent that there's  a weak connection between  knowledge and acceptance of a  new technology, a controversial  scientific topic. 

 As a matter of fact, some people  with little understanding of the  risk accept it a lot.  Versus some people very  knowledgeable about the risk do  not accept it.  If we talked about scientific  technological innovations, let's  say such as nanotechnology, it's  very likely that activist groups  that know a lot about the issue  may either be strongly opposed  or strongly in favor.  So it is very likely that the  factors that have to play in  that support or opposition is  linked to other things than just  knowledge.  And as a matter of fact, indeed,  in our modeling, the statistical  model that we build, we show  that there's a stronger  connection between trust and  acceptance than between  knowledge and acceptance as I  was telling you before.  So let's talk about media  coverage, then.  So, what does media do?  I say it's not the main  predictor, so what do they do?  I just want to remind you of  Kahneman and Tversky, actually  from Economy, they've got the  Nobel Prize for the idea they  put forward, looking at  different ways to present  information and how this would  impact different risk-taking  behavior.  What they say is, perception of  something complicated depends on  the frame of reference.  And you may have seen this  before.  Science, new science, may be  complicated, so we will rely on  a frame of reference that's not  mine already to make sense of    it. 

 To give you an example of this,  if I show you this sign, what is  it?  I see people nodding their head.  It's kind of ambiguous, right?  It's ambiguous.  It could be one thing, it could  be the other.  But if I show you this suddenly,  it makes sense.  Suddenly you have a "B" here.  I gave you the frame of  reference of the "A"  and the "C."  But what about if I show you  this?  So then it's a "13," because put  in the context of the other two  symbols I have put here, "12"  and "14," that ambiguous  stimulus becomes a "13."  So this is what we think  media, what we have shown media  can do for controversial topics.  And so we call it the "framing  effect" of the media, because in  that sense, by acting as what we  call a heuristic, some shortcut,  it can amplify or decrease the  way people feel about risk.  And to give you more details  about that, look at this first  cover here.  This was at the time when Dolly  was cloned.  It is like 2003. 

 Cover of TIME magazine.  You can see here that you have  an image, you have a headline,  and you have a very short  summary of cloning.  "Human cloning's closer than you  think.  For couples who can't have a  child or who have lost one, the  unthinkable may soon be  possible.  Here are the perils."  I'm sure you can see all the  potential thoughts that will be  related or will be activated in  your mind by the use of the  visual, by the use of the  headline, and by the words that  are used here in this cover.  This is another cover for  exactly the same topic, talking  about human cloning.  And here you have a visual  that's very different.  That's actually a student  magazine from the university.  The headline "Great  Explorations, what cloning and  other scientific developments  hold for the future."  Same topic, very different  frames.  One is, first of all, if you  want people to react to anything  emotionally, show them something  small and cute. 

 And we tend to actually want to  have that emotional bonding.  So the cover with two baby twins  already puts us in the frame of  mind to use some emotional  shortcut to make sense of the  information.  I don't have anything against  beards here, but I can safely  say that he doesn't trigger the  same type of emotions.  As a matter of fact,  interestingly enough, whenever  you think of the pictures of  scientists, when you asked kids  in a very famous experiment,  actually, to describe a  scientist, it's called the  Scientist Test, they will draw a  scientist with glasses, a beard,  and usually a white coat.  This one doesn't have a white  coat.  But as you can see, the visuals  will trigger different thought  processes.  The headlines will trigger  different thought processes.  So obviously frames can provide  a frame of reference.  As the one that was put forward  in the example I gave you just a  few minutes ago, with the "B"  that could be interpreted as a  "B" or a "13."  So this gives a frame of  reference to interpret  information.  So media can provide that frame  of reference. 

 But we cannot say that this is  the only thing media can do.  As far as attitudes towards  controversial science, it's very  complicated, or I wouldn't have  a job as a social scientist in  media studies.  There is one thing that we know.  Scientific information will be  interpreted in a context as  framing would indicate, but  processes are more information  than just frames.  So we talked about the types of  frames.  Those are two covers from  nanotechnology.  "This could change everything"  versus "Unseen hazards."  I think already you understood  my point as far as the framing  that this kind of communication  devices can foster.  But there are other processes  that we study in communication  that have been shown to have a  strong effect on people's  attitude toward controversial  science.  One is called the "spiral of  silence," and I'm not going to  go into detail.  But just so you leave this room  with the idea that indeed  processes are complex. 

 The spiral of silence is the  idea that, as human beings, we  are afraid of isolation.  The fear of isolation is  something that's actually very  strong in our society, mainly  our society.  So we tend, most of us,  obviously not all of us, we tend  not to want to express our views  if we feel that we are against  the majority.  And as a matter of fact, usually  we hang out with people that  think like us.  Usually we tend to avoid topics  of conversation in groups where  we know that people might  disagree with us.  This is a natural phenomenon  called "fear of isolation."  Well, when you have a very  vocal group that's against  something, and in this case, the  most recent is genetic  engineering, but it could be  against anything or  pro-anything, as a matter of  fact.  When you have very vocal groups  that are very loud, they will  tend to be covered in the media  because this makes a good story,  right?  Anything that generates  controversy makes a good story.  So if they're covered in the  media and we see them regularly  covered in the media, we end up  having the perception that  actually they represent a  majority, that they're not the  minority view.  And by what we call the "spiral  of silence," people that may  tend to disagree with the views  expressed by those very loud  groups will tend to express  their views less and less.  So by a process that we call  spiral of silence. 

 And indeed, we have shown in  different instances the spiral  of silence type of process for  controversial topics,  biotechnology, stem cell  research, have been actually  topics that we have studied in  this context and indeed there is  that strong perception that  public opinion is very different  from what it actually is, and  this, in part, is due to media  coverage.  So spiral of silence, something  that also is taking place as far  as media is concerned and  attitudes toward controversial  science.  The other process that I wanted  to touch upon tonight is called  "cultivation" in mass  communication.  And this is linked to the number  of hours spent with  entertainment media.  People that tend to spend a lot  of time with entertainment  media, more particularly  television, end up having a  distorted view of reality and  tend to think that reality as  portrayed on TV is actually a  mirror of real reality.  For example, people that watch  television a lot tend to think  the world is a meaner place than  it actually is.  They will tend to tell you that  you have more crime, that there  are much more sordid things that  happen than actually statistics  will show you.  Well, I show you CSI here.  CSI gives a specific portrayal  of science.  Use of forensics to actually  solve crime. 

 People that are exposed to this  kind of entertainment will end  up having a certain view of what  science is.  And these types of things have  been actually shown to lead to a  distorted view of scientists.  People who spend a lot of hours  watching entertainment media  tend to consider scientists as  mavericks, as people that are  there potentially destroying the  world and potentially dangerous.  So to some extent, this is  something that's getting more  complicated with the advent of  the online environment, we are  truly, with Ashley here, trying  to understand what's going on in  the online environment, but for  television and entertainment  television, this is clear and  studies have shown that the  content of those shows or  whatever number of entertainment  media covering science, tend to  actually portray scientists in a  way that doesn't mirror reality.  However, this can have a strong  impact on attitudes.  So that's a very, very brief  communication overview of the  type of media effects that may  happen, but just so you know,  it's not only about framing, but  you do have a lot of different  processes that might impact how  we feel about scientific  information.  More particularly, as it relates  to controversial science.  There's something that I haven't  touched upon that's really  important also in mass  communication or communication  research, more particularly.  It's called  "perceptual filters."  Perceptual filters is  something I'm particularly  interested about, is that idea  that we will use strongly held  values to make sense of  information.  I was talking to you about  frames, talking to you about  cultivation effects, even the  spiral of silence. 

 Don't get out of this room  thinking that those frames will  impact everybody the same way.  There are some filters that we  use to make sense of the  information we see.  That means that the same  information framed a certain way  can have very different effects  on different individuals.  That's good.  We are unique.  Each one of us.  We may have certain baggage,  culturally speaking, that's  relevant to the society in which  we live, but we also have our  own experience and our own  upbringing that would help us  make sense of the information  out there.  And that's what we call  perceptual filters that will be  used to filter information.  The first one I want to talk  about is, I would say, pretty  straightforward.  People that are strongly  conservative versus strongly  progressive have a frame of  reference that will help them  make sense of information. 

 This is the first filter we use  to some extent, as far as other  values, I'm going to talk about  it in two seconds.  The way we feel, ideologically  speaking, will make us react a  certain way to the information  we see.  We act a certain way to the  messenger I was telling you  about.  I may trust a certain political  leader because of my political  affiliation.  I may not trust the other one  because he does not share my  views or because she is  completely for another board as  far as political ideology is  concerned.  Political ideology has been  shown to have a strong effect on  support of new technology, with  conservatives tending to support  more things like biotechnology,  for example.  Again, this is not taking into  account all the predictors.  But this is a value that will  help people filter information  before other types of effects  take place.  The second filter that's a  strongly held value that is used  by different individuals to make  sense of information is the  level of religiosity.  How important religion is in  everyday life, how strong the  religious beliefs a certain  person holds, will actually help  them make sense of information. 

 And this is something that we  have clearly established in the  context of stem cell research.  We have shown that all levels of  knowledge being equal people  that have stronger religious  beliefs will be more against  stem cell research than people  that are not.  Knowledge didn't matter in this  case, but the strength of  religious belief was very  important in explaining  attitudes.  And this is something that  should be taken into account  when we think about outreach.  We need to actually understand  where people are coming from and  not just assume that by  explaining the science we'll be  able to actually make people  make a judgment.  It may be important, but it may  not be the only thing.  And understanding those values  will be extremely important.  The third value I'd like to  bring forward and that's  actually close to my heart, to  some extent, because it was the  topic of my dissertation and has  been established since then in  the field of science  communication as a very  important value.  To some extent, I equate it to  religiosity.  If I want to be a little bit  bold, the idea that you're  deferent to scientific authority  so much that you're not going to  question anything that comes out  of the scientific community, in  terms of all the types of  topics. 

 I'm talking about here  scientists who are spokespersons  for all the topics that are not  completely of their realm.  By the way, this is something  that sadly is also used in  advertising, you know, when you  use a spokesperson for topics  that have nothing to do with the  topics at hand.  That idea that you just are  deferent to some extent because  you don't question the expertise  that's related to that specific  authority.  Research looking at deference to  scientific authority has  interestingly shown that it  grows out of science education.  When you go through school in  our society, we are exposed, and  I think rightly so, to the  scientific method, to learn how  to appreciate the scientific  endeavor, but we are not taught  at all the social context of  science, how decisions related  to science are made outside of  the scientific lab.  Funding decisions, policy  decisions, any decisions that  are related to the type of  research that would be pushed  forward versus others.  So this is what we call  "deference to scientific  authority."  People that are very high in  scientific authority.  We also use that as a filter to  actually have a very positive  attitude to anything that's  controversial as it relates to  science.  Another value that we in our  research have shown to be  extremely important as a filter  is what I call the  "environmental worldviews."  How you feel about the place  of humans on earth.   How important you feel the  environment has to be preserved. 

 Something that's very close to  your heart that we call  worldviews.  Here I cite the environment  because it relates to our topic  of controversial scientific  topics, but it could be other  worldviews.  But the environmental worldview  is how you put human versus  nature in a balance and how you  think this has to be taken into  account when reaching decisions.  So this is also something that's  been shown to be used as a  filter to make sense of  information.  People that have very strong  environmental worldviews will  use that as a filter to make  sense of any information they  may see there.  If they see it has any relevance  to the environment's safety to  some extent, or health.  So in a nutshell, what I talked  about today was the main  predictors we've seen to have an  impact on public perceptions of  different technology.  I summarized findings that are  related to research in stem cell  research, nanotechnology,  genetic engineering as related  to food, genetic engineering as  related to medicine, and to some  extent global warming.  And so basically, knowledge  about the issue may have  something to do, but it's not  the main predictor.  We may know a lot, we may still  oppose or support something for  a variety of other reasons. 

 The perception of risk/benefits  as related to those qualitative  factors I was telling you about.  The trust in institutions and  individuals providing that  information.  The perceptual filters that I  was telling you about, and I  didn't put environmental  worldviews here, but there would  be others.  And all you see, this is beyond  what I call demographic factors.  In our modeling we just take out  the effect of those.  The statistical analysis that we  do is to some extent the idea of  a cake.  If you see a cake at the end.  If you see a cake, you bake a  cake, and you think that that  cake is great, tastes great, you  take out the butter and you  think how much a person likes  the butter.  And you take that into account.  And you take out the sugar, and  you take out the chocolate, you  take those into account. 

 How much you liking the cake  depends on the chocolate.  So that's what we're trying to  do.  And so when I tell you that  these are the predictors that at  the end of the day stay as  significant, that means that we  have, beyond other factors,  those are the things that  matter, and those are the ones  that we think may actually have  an impact.  And I had forgotten to click my  media coverage, so don't get out  of the room thinking that media  doesn't matter.  Yes, media is a chocolate and it  may matter, but what we need to  take into account, it doesn't  matter all the time.  It doesn't matter where we're  coming from, the culture in  which we live, and other types  of contextual factors that  unfortunately I don't have time  to talk about today.  But I think I'm finishing a  little bit ahead of time.  I haven't talked about  discussions.  This is actually a new line of  research that we are starting.  Well, not really new in  political communication, but  relatively new in science  communication. 

 The way we discuss information  with others, and usually it's  either relatives or colleagues,  these are the main setting where  we discuss information, will  also determine the type of  attitude we will form about the  controversial topic.  I'm sure you've all heard about  studies in group dynamics.  How group dynamics can have an  important effect on decision  making.  Consensus conference, another  type of setting in which people  discuss issues and it will  impact the way they feel about a  specific topic.  Well, in our modeling, we are  also taking into account the  amount of discussions you have  either with people like you or  with people that don't think  like you.  And we are beginning to  investigate how this will impact  how you feel about controversial  scientific topics.  But we do have hopefully time  for questions.  I edited a book a couple years  ago now, with invited colleagues  from a number of universities, a  number here on campus, where we  summarized a lot of the topics  that I discussed today, actually  in much greater details, after  looking at public opinion about  ag biotech around the world in  different countries.  Then we looked at how different  communication theory can help  explain those, and then we look  at different communications  settings in which outreach has  been put into place to try to  persuade people to change their  view.  To some extent, it's a nice  overview of what I was talking  about today. 

 But I wanted to make sure I left  some time for discussion and  questions.  If you have any, I'd be happy to  answer them.  If we don't have the time for  all of you to ask me questions,  please feel free to drop me an  email.  I'm easy to find  at dbrossard@wisc.edu,  here on campus in the  College of Agricultural and Life  Sciences, I'll be happy to  answer any questions you may  have.  (applause)