Introduction [to "Citizen voices: performing public participation in science and environment communication"]

Abstract

The starting point for this book is the dialogic turn in the production and communication of knowledge in which practices claiming to be based on principles of dialogue and participation have spread across diverse social fields (Aubert and Soler 2006; Gόmez, Puigvert and Flecha 2011; Phillips 2011). One such field is planned communication and campaigns. Here we find that authorities increasingly supplement or replace information campaigns aiming to transmit or diffuse expert knowledge to recipient target-groups with communication initiatives in which experts and target-groups are reconfi gured as participants in sites of dialogue where knowledge is co-produced through mutual learning. Another field is organisational development in which employees are encouraged to participate as agents of change through the collaborative production of knowledge in processes of dialogue, rather than being positioned at the receiving end of organisational changes dictated by management.