Public Acceptance Of Technology Research Articles

Conscious, Complacent, Fearful: Agri-Food Tech’s Market-Making Public Imaginaries

ABSTRACT While the tech sector has seized upon the food system as an area in which it can have a major impact, innovators within the agri-food tech domain are dogged by concerns about public acceptance of technologies that may be controversial or simply not of interest. At the same time, because they operate within an investor-dependent political economy, they must demonstrate that the public will consume the products they are creating. To both secure markets and legitimate their approaches to problem-solving, entrepreneurial innovators draw on three existing imaginaries of consumers, each of which articulates with a particular tendency they have pursued in problem-solving. Reflecting a tendency of solutionism, those promoting technologies that promise minimal processing and/or short or traceable supply chains invoke a health- and eco-conscious consumer. In keeping with technofixes, those promoting technologies of mimicry invoke a complacent consumer. Reflecting the tendency toward scientism in problem-solving and related projections of public knowledge deficits, those promoting potentially controversial technologies invoke a fearful consumer and embrace transparency to inform and assure such consumers. By promising future consumers who will willingly accept emerging technologies, each of these imaginaries seeks to resolve – for investors – potential problems of consumer acceptance generated by the particular approaches to problem-solving innovators have adopted. While STS scholars have shown how public-facing engagement exercises and policy work are often limited by deficit-driven imaginaries of the public, in these investor-facing spaces possible objections are both imagined and overcome without any interaction with actual publics.

Rural Public Acceptance of Wind and Solar Energy: A Case Study from Mersing, Malaysia

The sustainable development of the energy sector through the implementation of renewable energy (RE) technology has been a primary concern for the government of Malaysia since the 1990s. Developing RE technology in rural areas is also one of the most important energy strategies. One of the most important requirements for the successful adoption of renewable energy technology is the public acceptance of this technology. This article examines the public acceptance of RE (wind and solar) technologies among rural residents in Mersing, Malaysia. This study is conducted in conjunction with the development of the hybrid wind–solar RE generation system for the Marine Ecosystem Research Centre (EKOMAR), which located in Mersing. To investigate the public acceptance of RE technologies, two surveys were conducted, before and after the installation of the hybrid wind–solar RE generation system. The findings revealed that RE innovations, such as wind and solar energy, were well known among 54.7% and 96.2% of the respondents, respectively, before and after the introduction of EKOMAR. The survey results showed that rural residents generally support RE technologies and EKOMAR RE projects. They were also in line that the use of RE should also be extended to other parts of Mersing, including wind and solar. These findings illustrate that EKOMAR has played a crucial role in educating local residents about RE, wind and solar energy in particular. Residents believe the government plays an important role, particularly in rural areas, in encouraging and enhancing RE technologies.

Factors influencing residents' acceptance (support) of remediation technologies

An increasing diversity of technologies are being used to remediate contaminated sites, yet there remains little understanding of the level of acceptance that residents living near these sites hold for these technologies, and what factors influence their level of acceptance. This lack of understanding hinders the remediation industry's ability to effectively engage with these residents about remediation technology selection, at a time when such engagement is become part and parcel of remediation policy and practice. The study develops on wider research into public acceptance of technologies, using data from a telephone survey of 2009 residents living near thirteen contaminated sites across Australia. Within the survey acceptance is measured through residents' level of support for the application of remediation technologies in their local area. Firstly, a regression analysis of closed-ended questions, and coding of open-ended questions are combined to identify the main predictors of residents' support for remediation technologies. Secondly, coding of open-ended questions was analysed using Crawford and Ostrom's Institutional Grammar Tool to identify norms and sanctions guiding residents' willingness to negotiate their support. The research identifies factors associated with the residents' personal and demographic characteristics, their physical context and engagement with institution during remediation processes, and the technologies themselves which predict residents' level of support for the application of remediation technologies. Bioremediation technologies had higher levels of support than chemical, thermal and physical technologies. Furthermore, the paper identifies a core set of norms and sanctions residents use to negotiate their level of support for remediation technologies.