This Article Full Text (OnlineFirst[PDF]) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Google Scholar Articles by Harvey, M. Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Drama, Talk, and Emotion: Omitted Aspects of Public Participation

ESRC Genomics Policy and Research Forum

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: matthew.harvey{at}royalsoc.ac.uk.

	Abstract

This article argues that the quantitative and quasi-experimental approach to evaluating public participation exercises is deficient in at least two respects. First, casting participants in instrumental terms excludes that participants have an experience and that this may be dramatic and emotional. If people are to be invited, even obliged, to participate, then this experience should be considered in event evaluation. Second, current evaluation frameworks tend not to be sensitive to what actually happened in terms of the actions of participants and how these influenced the proceedings and outcome, thus ignoring that such events are fora where positions, values, decisions, and so forth are constructed and constrained rather than simply reported. This article considers the possible contribution of dramaturgical, discourse and conversation analytic, and ethnographic and phenomenological approaches to evaluating participation exercises and illustrates their potential with data gathered during the U.K. "GM Nation?" public debate.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?