SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION
CMNS 342-4

SCIENCE AND PUBLIC POLICY: RISK COMMUNICATION

Prerequisite:

CMNS 260 or 261.

The course will open with a discussion of controversies around the definition of risk communication as reflected in the history of this field of study and practice. Two watershed cases of risk communication will then be described, that of biologist Rachel Carson, whose Silent Spring (1962) documented the effects of pesticides on birds, fish, and other wildlife, and that of Lois Gibbs, who in 1978 led a grassroots movement of her neighbors to expose the health effects of 20,000 tons of toxic chemicals buried in the earth beneath their homes in Love Canal, New York. The role of the public relations industry in the management of risk perception, another side of risk communication, will then be analysed. The course will then turn to examine these two sides of risk communication around genetic engineering. It will look at controversies around the patenting of life forms from recombinant bacteria and viruses to human cell lines to Harvard's oncomouse to Dolly and other cloned animals. The debates about hazards and the subsequent regulation and later deregulation of bioengineering experiments will be discussed. Current controversies around genetically modified foods from pesticide-resistant soybeans to insecticidal potatoes to milk from cows treated with recombinant bovine growth hormone will be examined. One lecture will examine the promise and risks of gene therapies. Another will look into the eugenic implications of genetic screening and genetic alteration of human embryos. The course will conclude with a discussion of the roles of science, scientists, government, and citizens in risk assessment, risk communication, and the generation and evaluation of public policy. Students will be expected to evaluate media coverage of the risks related to genetic engineering in a set of short assignments as well as examples of risk communication through other media such as the websites of scientists, biotech firms, government departments, and civil society organizations.

Required Texts

Jeremy Rifkin, The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World, 1998.
Brian Tokar, ed., Redesigning Life?: The Worldwide Challenge to Genetic Engineering, 2001

Evaluation:

First short essay (due in week 5) 15%
Second short essay (due in week 8) 15%
Third short essay (due in week 11) 20%
Oral presentation of research 10%
Term paper (due in week 12) 40%

Note: Although there will be no final exam for this course, students will be expected to write short essays and term papers that indicate critical reflection on the content of readings and lectures.

The School expects that the grades awarded in this course will bear some reasonable relation to established university-wide practices to both levels and distribution of grades. In addition, the School will also follow Policy T10.02 with respect to “Intellectual Honesty”, and “Academic Discipline”” (see the current Calendar, General Regulations Section).