Participatory Science Communication Through Consensus Conferences: Legitimacy Evaluations of a German Consensus Conference on Genome Editing

Abstract

Considering growing deliberative turns within and beyond science communication coupled with calls for their systematic evaluations, this paper presents a legitimacy framework to analyze a recent consensus conference on the topic of genome editing. Drawing upon participant surveys (PSs) and interviews, it confirms difficulties of this deliberative method in achieving inclusive input from across society as well as conflicts between deliberative ideals, empirical communication practice, and ensuring impact on policy making. The case calls for more experimentation with hybrid online/offline approaches while staying aware of unequally distributed deliberation abilities and the need for unifying outputs.

The Importance of Participatory Communication in Development Planning Deliberations for Agritourism Village Enhancement

“…Moreover, participatory communication, as a form of development communication, fosters an open, egalitarian, aspirational, and accommodating dialogue from grassroots communities to design, agree upon, and propose bottom-up planning and development implementation (Alakwe & Okpara, 2022). It aims to balance, control, and complement the technocratic, top-down development communication by the government, which holds authority over policies, budgeting, planning, and program implementation (Alakwe & Okpara, 2022;Dendler, 2022;Lemke, 2016;Madsen, 2022;Steeves & Kwami, 2019;Sulaiman & Ahmadi, 2020;Suzina, 2020).…”