Controversy over a local nuclear waste repository (Mazur & Conant, 1978)

Mazur, A. & Conant, B. (1978). Controversy over a local nuclear waste repository. Social Studies of Science, 8(2), 235-243. (Reviewed by Laura)

• The case: In 1976, the US Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) proposed the location of long term nuclear waste storage repository in large salt formations near Syracuse, NY. Media coverage was judged as “neutral to negative” in respect to the project, though a prominent liberal Democratic Congressman came out very strongly opposed to the project. The authors posed the following questions in their study:
a. Who knew of the dispute and who did not?
b. Did exposure to the controversy affect attitudes toward the technology?
c. Did attitudes formed during the period of publicity persist?
• Method: Phone interviews were conducted with a random sample of local residents near the height of the controversy, and then nearly four months later (after controversy had mostly resolved). There were no obvious sampling differences between the two waves, and each sample resembled the surrounding Syracuse population on the basis of sex ratio, age, race, and political party identification.
• Results: Using regression analysis, the authors determined that:
RQ1:
• Men were three times more likely than women to have heard of the plans for Syracuse.
• People who had heard about the controversy were more likely to express more opposition to the plan than those who had not heard about it.
• Attitudinal questions about both energy policy and general politics failed to differentiate those who knew about the plan from those who did not.
RQ 2:
• Men’s attitudes were predicted mainly by prior attitudes toward nuclear power plants (rather than exposure to the controversy). Prior opposition to nuclear power plants→ increased likelihood to consider repository idea dangerous.
• Women’s attitudes were predicted mainly by exposure to controversy. Increased exposure to controversy→ increased likelihood to consider the repository idea dangerous.
RQ 3:
• In general, both sexes’ views were persistent over time, though men seemed more consistent than women.

The bottom line answer to all three questions proposed by authors: the sexes differ. The authors take these results as painting a “picture of systematic sex differences in reaction to technical controversies—or at least to the nuclear controversy” (241). They explain these differences by suggesting that perhaps a “cultural expectation” leads men, but not women, to know more about politics and technology. They also note that men’s greater awareness of presidential candidates’ positions on nuclear power would serve as “anchors” or “reference points” upon which to form new attitudes towards related, emergent issues like the Syracuse site. But, hypothesize the authors, women, “less interested in nuclear power and less aware of the candidates’ energy policies, lack these anchors—being, in a sense, attitudinally ‘free floating’” (242).

My critique: I’m taken aback by the simplicity of this analysis. Public opinion/attitude toward technology research has certainly come a long way in the past thirty years! While the “reasoning” selected by the authors is perhaps validated statistically, I can think of a number of alternative interpretations of this evidence. Did the authors take into account differences in the forms of media to which men vs. women were exposed? What if more women were exposed to television, and men to radio? Maybe there were some fundamental differences in reporting that could account for the differences in attitude formation, rather than just systematic differences between the genders. (I should mention that the authors do note that strictly assessing the effect of controversy would have meant using two groups which are initially identical, with only one group exposed to the controversy; this was far from the situation they were working with, as it was not a controlled experiment.) Moreover, from what I can tell, the authors did not ask any questions based on other factors of a person’s life experience that might shape attitudes and information-seeking behavior towards nuclear power (e.g., relative with a terminal disease, friend/family member in the nuclear industry, environmental views, etc.). And finally—“attitudinally free-floating”?! I can’t help but wonder what some of the feminist scholars, especially Sandra Harding, would say in response to that!