Carbon Nanotubes: Perception of Risk from Conception to Consumption

Public opinion has well-documented influence on government policy in the United States. Unfortunately, widespread public fear has often hindered implementing policy in important domains such as the health and medical fields. Public neglect has also impeded efforts in areas, such as industrial waste reform. Thus we assume that public opinion has recognizably significant affects on public policy concerning nanotechnology, a technology that converges numerous fields such as health, energy, consumer goods, information technology, industry, and the environment. In each field it is likely that support from the public will result in the acceleration of nanotechnology development, and lack of public support will hinder its progress. By compiling a global value chain consisting of twelve of the leading firms associated with carbon nanotube research, development, and production, we will chart the magnitude in which public perception affects nanotechnology firm output, revenue, and product development.

In line with current in communications and political science research we recognize the profound influence the media have on public perception. Rooted in previous research at UCSB, we recognize three dominant news media frames: risk, progress, and regulation-- and monitor the ways in which they are framed in news media coverage (Weaver, Lively, Bimber, 2009). To better comprehend public understanding of the emerging field of nanotechnology we work with a random sample of thirty nano-related newspaper articles generated using LexisNexis. We use a content analysis to observe the strength of a correlation between media frames and nanotechnology domains. Utilizing a chi-squared statistic, we expect to see a significant correlation between risk and medicine, and between progress and energy.