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<br />ROO-26 <br /> <br />Christine M. Rodrigue .- <br />Department of Geography _ <br />California State University <br />Long Beach, CA 90840 <br />rodrigue@csulb.edu <br />http://www,csulb.edu/-rodrigue <br /> <br />Public Perception and Hazard Policy Construction <br />When Experts and Activists Clash in the Media <br /> <br />Social construction of hazard policy entails a risk assessment dialogue between technical experts <br />and public interest activists and between each of these and elected risk management <br />policy-makers. These dialogues are conducted in the sometimes distorting presence of media and <br />take place in an atmosphere of public involvement and recruitment to political action. <br /> <br />This paper presents two case studies. One is about a technological risk controversy: the use of <br />plutonium dioxide radioisotope thermal generators (RTGs) on board the Cassini-Huygens <br />mission to Saturn, in light of its gravity-assist swing by Earth in August 1999, The other is about <br />a natural hazard controversy: the Anaheim Hills landslide of January 1993, which destroyed 32 <br />luxury homes that had been built on the site with full knowledge of its ancient and modem <br />landslide history. In both cases, attention is paid to the use of the Internet by parties to the <br />controversy to generate awareness and to stimulate political activism out of that awareness, <br /> <br />e <br /> <br />For the Cassini case study, the data consist of Internet dialogues on the topic, specifically, <br />UseNet postings from 1 April 1995 through 31 March 1999, They illustrate the exponential <br />impact of a very small and well-organized opposition movement, which utilized the Internet to <br />exert pressure to abort the launch and flyby. Though Cassini went on to Saturn, the resulting <br />political pressure on NASA has created an atmosphere of public controversy in which new <br />missions may be more difficult to authorize if their goals and design require RTGs, <br /> <br />For the Anaheim Hills case study, the data derive from a content analysis of a massive web site <br />built by one of the victims of the landslide, building a forum for other victims to relate their <br />individual stories, an activist bulletin board for victims seeking restitution and, increasingly, for <br />potential victims in a growing series of other landslide-susceptible sites, and a site to warn <br />potential buyers away from hazardous areas. <br /> <br />The successes of the anti-Cassini activists on the one hand and the victim of the landslide on the <br />other raise questions about the nature of risk decision-making in a democratic but unevenly <br />informed society and about the sources of uneven access to information. It underscores the <br />empowerment ofsmall but well-organized groups in the realm of natural and technological <br />hazard policy and the potential of the Internet in heightening individual empowerment in such <br />debates. It also raises less heartening issues of potential demagoguery in cyberspace. <br /> <br />e <br />