Atoms, Bytes and Genes ─ Public Resistance and Techno-Scientific Responses

This book demonstrates the varied contributions of public resistance to technological developments. Bauer compares public resistance to three strategic technologies over the last fifty years (nuclear power, information technology, and genetic engineering), and shows how resistance contributes to efficient and sustainable developments. The theory of this book is based on a functional analogy: like pain, resistance is a signal that things are going wrong; what acute pain does for individual action, resistance does for collective projects, it motivates and defines a more realistic future. The book brings together empirical evidence from a wide range of sources, and integrates the author’s own extensive research over the last fifteen years. This empirically grounded study also offers critical discussion of key concepts, such as technology movement, objectification and legitimation, representation and framing, public opinion, attitude, risk perception and public understanding, public participation and resistance, closure and re-opening, mobilization and social influence, issue cycles

Martin W. Bauer is Professor of Social Psychology at London School of Economics and Political Sciences and the Editor of Public Understanding of Science.