Social Trust in Emerging Technologies: The Challenge to Incorporate Fundamentally Different Perspectives in Public Engagement

Abstract

The social construction of emerging science and technology systems requires extensive dialogue between diverse stakeholders, each with historically-diverse scientific, political and historical points of view. Public-engagement in debates about novel technologies has received substantial coverage within science communication studies but the origin of opposing positions regarding controversial science and technology developments has received little coverage. This work uses the juxtaposition between scientific and historical origins as a tool to explain the roots of different perceptions of emerging technologies in various sectors, with nanotechnologies as an empirical example.