Science and technology dialogues as a social technology

Increasingly, scholars, practitioners and policymakers acknowledge that both citizens and experts should be actively involved in public dialogue about the governance of new technologies. However, there is limited knowledge about how the design of dialogues (i.e. their rules and characteristics) impacts the quality of collaboration between citizens and experts in these exercises.

This project will analyse how collaborative dialogue between experts and citizens is produced around new digital technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence or Big Data. This project focuses on how these dialogue events are constructed and how participants engage with them to address: How does dialogue design affect the outcome of citizen-expert deliberative processes about emergent technologies?

This will be operationalised into three specific research questions (RQ), objectives and methods: RQ1: What are the predominant designs of citizen dialogues about emergent technologies? Objective: To develop a typology of the different forms of dialogue design in public engagement with S&T Method: Systematic scoping review of literature and document analysis

RQ2: What are the intended outcomes of citizen dialogues about emergent technologies?

Objective: To describe the desired goals of citizen-dialogues about emergent technologies from the perspective of participants and organisers Method: Semi-structured qualitative interviews RQ3: How does their design impact the desired outcomes of citizen dialogues about emergent technologies?

Objective: To analyse the impact of dialogue design in the conversational patterns and interactions between participants Method: Non-participant observation

The research process will entail: firstly, a systematic literature review to develop a classification of online and offline dialogue designs; secondly, a comparative case study between the UK (with Sciencewise, the renowned UK programme, which assists government bodies to commission deliberative public dialogue) and Chile (with the first-ever public dialogue initiative for the National Science-Technology Policy). I will carry out qualitative interviews (both with organisers and participants) as well as non-participant observation of dialogues to explore how specific characteristics of the design facilitate or hinder particular interactions (e.g. active listening or debating) and outcomes (such as coming up with solutions or attitude change).

The findings from this project will contribute significantly to both society and the academy. Policy briefs and workshops will aid policymakers seeking to involve citizens and experts in the governance of science and technology to implement richer collaborations and to scrutinise technology dialogues. Additionally, this project will contribute to establishing the importance of dialogue design as a key research topic for public engagement with science and technology