Jack Stilgoe

The (co-)production of public uncertainty: UK scientific advice on mobile phone health risks

Introduction

Over the past decade, the United Kingdom has seen mobile phones emerge as a "risky" technology (defined popularly rather than scientifically). The possible health effects of the mobile phone and its attendant technologies have attracted a huge amount of media attention. News stories, especially in the tabloid media, have typically connected public experiences of harm with reports of new scientific studies. These studies purport to indicate unexpected biological effects from mobile phone radiation, challenging orthodox assessments of risk, which have been based on the known effects of microwave radiation. Public concern about mobile phones and base stations (both of which are increasingly numerous) has tested the adequacy of scientific knowledge in this area and questioned prevailing definitions of relevant uncertainty. 1 What research has been done on mobile phones as a "risk issue" (Leiss, 2001) has largely failed to problematize the scientific elements of this controversy (e.g. [START_REF] Burgess | Cellular Phones, Public Fears and a Culture of Precaution[END_REF], even though it is unavoidably rooted in science. The conclusion drawn from such explanations is that the public controversy is akin to a "moral panic," with the mobile phone as a condensation point for amorphous concerns and misconceptions about technology, trust and control. It may well be that the case of mobile phone risks tells us a good deal about the hopes and fears of contemporary society. However, an analysis of the full spectrum of risk, including the science behind risk analysis, reveals that there is no clear demarcation between scientific and public concerns. 2 Just as public concerns are justified according to apparently crucial gaps in scientific understanding, so areas of scientific interest are justified by public interest in robust knowledge about risk.

In this paper I consider how, as experts assess the state of knowledge (and uncertainty) about a contemporary risk issue, they also legitimize, co-opt, reject or otherwise construct areas of "public concern." This paper focuses on the experts who have been charged with advising the UK Government and the UK public about mobile phone risks. It forms part of a larger project, which considers how experts made sense of bodies of public concern and bodies of scientific knowledge about the health effects of mobile phones in their efforts to provide authoritative and credible scientific advice. This project, conducted between 2000 and 2004, was funded by a Ph.D. grant and subsequent postdoctoral fellowship from the UK Economic and Social Research Council.

The research consisted of 31 interviews, most of which were with research scientists or advisory scientists involved with analyzing the health effects of mobile phone radiation. An initial interview sample, drawn from experts involved with the main scientific advisory reports on the issue, was augmented with "snowballed" recommendations from interviewees. Other sources, such as mailing lists, web sites, scientific literature, advisory reports, published committee minutes and recently opened archive records of the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones, complemented interview data.

Constructing publics

In recent years, a number of prominent public controversies have highlighted the problems of constructing authoritative scientific advice in a context of public distrust. Expert pronouncements of safety are more likely than ever to be scrutinized and questioned by media, non-governmental organizations, branches of government and concerned members of the public. We can attribute distrust to broad social changes, which heighten an appreciation of risk and question our relationship to the expert institutions of modernity [START_REF] Beck | Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity[END_REF] and/or to recent events which have defaced the public image of the scientific experts who are expected to provide answers to novel problems (the clearest example in the UK being the mismanagement of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) crisis (see [START_REF] Millstone | Politics of Expert Advice: Lessons from the Early History of the BSE Saga[END_REF]). Either way, it now seems clear that a reliance purely on science is not sufficient for the provision of credible scientific advice. Such controversies have bolstered the argument that credible, robust policymaking demands non-expert participation in scientific debate and an understanding of the context of technology-in-society.

In the 10 or so years since the BSE crisis, the call for broader participation in UK science policy has become accepted as a maxim, formalized in the Science and Society report from the House of Lords' Science and Technology Select Committee. The report, recognizing a "crisis of trust" in scientific decision-making recommends:

That direct dialogue with the public should move from being an optional add-on to science-based policy-making and to the activities of research organisations and learned institutions, and should become a normal and integral part of the process. (House of Lords, 2000: paragraph 5.48) This paragraph, coupled with more recent calls for public debate to move "upstream" [START_REF] Wilsdon | See-Through Science-Why Public Engagement Needs to Move Upstream[END_REF]Royal Society, 2004), represents a significant shift in the consideration of the "public understanding of science." In the UK, this term was coined and formalized in the 1980s to advocate improved education in the ways of science-with the hope that the public would not be so quick to disagree with scientific understandings of, for example, risk issues (see Royal Society (1985) for an important example). As a logical extension to this model of science and the public, science was imagined speaking "truth to power" on controversial issues [START_REF] Irwin | Science, Social Theory and Public Knowledge[END_REF]. In the 1990s, this "deficit model" of public understanding provided a target for social scientific critique that took its inspiration from studies of science that emphasized the constructed, contested and contingent nature of scientific knowledge. Drawing on the insights of the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), social scientists turned their attention to the local contexts in which scientific knowledge is both applied and produced (see [START_REF] Irwin | Misunderstanding Science? The Public Reconstruction of Science and Technology[END_REF].

Brian Wynne, the pre-eminent critic of the deficit way of thinking about the relationship between science and its publics, has argued that the theoretical alternatives to the deficit model of science-in-society lack theoretical cohesion [START_REF] Wynne | Public Uptake of Science: A Case for Institutional Reflexivity[END_REF]. Studies of science-incontext have suffered from a need to emphasize the local circumstances of each scientific controversy. Ethnographic public understanding of science has largely been based on case studies, one of the major criticisms of deficit thinking being its reliance on "authoritative" survey techniques demonstrating public ignorance [START_REF] Irwin | Science, Social Theory and Public Knowledge[END_REF]. Wynne advocates turning the traditional public understanding of science model on its head. Rather than focusing on questions of public ignorance or the public's perceptions of scientists, we should examine the extent to which experts construct The Public (Wynne, 1993: 322). As Wynne has explained on many occasions, the deficit model of public understanding of science can be seen as nothing more than an expert attempt to explain away public concerns with recourse to an image of an unqualified and ignorant public. In this sense, a view of the public and of public concern can be seen reflected in views of the reliability and completeness of scientific understanding.

Studies of technology have suggested that technologies necessarily embed assumptions about users [START_REF] Woolgar | Configuring the User: The Case of Usability Trials[END_REF] (and sociologists embed assumptions about readers [START_REF] Latour | Mixing Humans and Nonhumans Together: The Sociology of a Door-Closer[END_REF]), constructing their particular public. So experts, when dealing with questions of public engagement, might be seen as (re-)constructing their publics as they (re-)construct science-in-public.

As the most recent international challenge to naive conceptions of expert advice, the controversy over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has attracted a good deal of scholarship looking at the representation of publics. Hill and Michael have considered how surveys of public opinion on biotechnology effectively construct an amenable "public" as hybrid citizen-consumers, which allows public acceptance to be, to an extent, engineered [START_REF] Hill | Engineering Acceptance: Representations of the Public in Debates on Biotechnology[END_REF]. Similarly, Rob Doubleday has looked at one GM firm's efforts to reconfigure its relationship to the public by seeing them as "consumer-citizens." But this instrumental view of the public does not account for the tensions that emerge from the different roles played by any non-expert in the GM controversy [START_REF] Doubleday | Institutionalising Non-governmental Organisation Dialogue at Unilever: Framing the Public as 'Consumer-Citizens[END_REF]. Maranta et al. have studied experts' conceptions of lay people as they try to put together "sociallyrobust" knowledge (see [START_REF] Nowotny | Re-Thinking Science: Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty[END_REF]) across a range of public scientific situations. These "Imagined Lay Persons" are grown from a seedbed of assumptions about knowledge, communication and participation [START_REF] Maranta | The Reality of Experts and the Imagined Lay Person[END_REF].

Wynne, also looking at the GMO debate, has considered how institutional representations of The Public provoke alienation, which contributes significantly to the shaping of non-expert engagement with science [START_REF] Wynne | Creating Public Alienation: Expert Cultures of Risk and Ethics on GMOs[END_REF]. As we will see with the mobile phones example in this paper, we can understand the credibility of scientific advice in terms of public reactions to expert representations of publics and public concern. But, as will become clear, these expert constructions of the public are reinforced and justified by representations of science. In particular, representations of the nature and relevance of scientific uncertainty are a crucial contested area.

Constructing uncertainty

Any novel technology will open up new doubts and ask new questions of the adequacy of scientific understanding. In any technological risk issue, discussions of uncertainty (or ignorance) are just as important in the representation of scientific reality as discussions of knowledge [START_REF] Stocking | On Drawing Attention to Ignorance[END_REF]. 3 The realization that arguments about scientific uncertainty are a central feature of contemporary public science has prompted some important scholarship.

Constructivist studies of scientific knowledge have supported the claim that there is no "real" uncertainty in a public science controversy. Uncertainty only exists as that which emerges from negotiations about the adequacy and relevance of current knowledge. Rather than simplistically attributing a public science controversy to expert uncertainty or disagreement, we can see scientific uncertainty as determined in part by disagreement and high stakes within a controversy (see [START_REF] Campbell | Uncertainty as Symbolic Action in Disputes among Experts[END_REF][START_REF] Jasanoff | Science and Decision-making[END_REF]. This more sophisticated view of uncertainty grows from an appreciation of both the normality and the contentiousness of areas of incomplete knowledge. Within the scientific community, there may exist agreed-upon uncertainties, which are the lifeblood of research. Indeed, Susan Leigh Star has pointed out that the management of local uncertainties, while striving for global certainty, is one of the central aspects which defines scientific work (Star, 1985: 393). But uncertainty reveals itself in a more problematic sense in the public domain. In contested, interdisciplinary domains, "scientific uncertainty is not only a reflection of what scientists are uncertain about; rather . . . it can be constructed through scientists' individually clear and concise but variable accounts of nature" (Zehr, 1994: 215). And the continuing attempt to resolve uncertainties will shed light on new areas of uncertainty [START_REF] Ravetz | Usable Knowledge, Usable Ignorance[END_REF]. The extension of a controversy beyond an existing group of experts will tend therefore to pick apart areas of uncertainty. Scientists' control of uncertainty in the public domain is crucial. After all, there seems little point in seeking expert advice if experts are plagued by the same uncertainties that concern the public and policymakers [START_REF] Zehr | Scientists' Representations of Uncertainty[END_REF]. Scientists will therefore aim for a degree of social control of uncertainty, as there is always a danger that "technical uncertainty" may become, or be perceived as, "social uncertainty" [START_REF] Jasanoff | Science and Decision-making[END_REF]. This is not to say that uncertainty is simply an embarrassment that scientists strive to hide from expert view. Uncertainty only becomes a problem when someone authoritatively decides that it has problematic implications [START_REF] Wynne | Uncertainty-Technical and Social[END_REF]. Uncertainty is a necessary point of discussion in maintaining the relationship (and separation) between science and policy [START_REF] Shackley | Representing Uncertainty in Global Climate Change Science and Policy: Boundary-ordering Devices and Authority[END_REF]Jasanoff and Wynne, 1998: 76). But uncertainty can also be used by experts to demarcate scientific and public worlds, by emphasizing the authoritative definition of the state of knowledge and the necessary direction for exploring areas of ignorance [START_REF] Zehr | Public Representations of Scientific Uncertainty about Global Climate Change[END_REF].

As we shall see, there is no easy way to retain control over uncertainties in public controversies. This raises problems for robust precautionary policies, which may be advocated based upon a degree of scientific uncertainty. Calls for precautionary approaches to regulation are often supported by claims of high scientific uncertainty, high public concern or, most likely, both. This paper problematizes both of these areas, and so sheds some light on recent debates about the uses (and abuses) of precaution for political ends. Les Levidow has made the point that just as uncertainty is used to justify precaution, so precautionary approaches might be used to justify uncertainties [START_REF] Levidow | Precautionary Uncertainty: Regulating GM Crops in Europe[END_REF]. I would add that arguments over precaution also construct and operationalize rigid constructions of The Public and use them to justify or denigrate policy options. It seems clear that these issues will provide a central challenge to policymakers, analysts and theorists over the next few years. The case of mobile phone risks provides us with an early example of how reflexive British experts, standing in the long shadow of BSE, reconstruct uncertainties and publics as they look for control of a controversy.

The NRPB: compliance and a thermal consensus

Before the existence of mobile phones, UK responsibility for providing scientific advice on any technology that generates electromagnetic fields (EMFs) lay with the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB). With the development and subsequent popularity of mobile phones, the NRPB considered its guidelines, which covered the band of the electromagnetic spectrum into which mobile phone frequencies fell, more than sufficient to guarantee safety. These guidelines were designed to prevent any significant heating effect occurring from the microwaves emitted by mobile phones. This thermal effect was the only effect that could be consistently replicated in scientific studies and the only possible effect with a well-understood mechanism of interaction. The harmful, carcinogenic effects associated with ionizing radiation such as gamma rays and X-rays did not apply to microwaves, because of microwaves' much lower frequency (and therefore power). Microwaves, as "non-ionizing" radiation, were considered safe once thermal effects had been accounted for.

Despite this apparent consensus around replicable effects, there remained scientific uncertainties that could be unearthed to both prompt and justify claims of harm from mobile phone use. Doubts about the presence of non-thermal effects (occurring below guideline levels and so not attributable to heating) have a history as long as that of the science of EMF safety. The replication of these effects would undermine the regulatory philosophy of institutions such as the NRPB. But such effects tended to be viewed as scientifically interesting rather than worrisome, especially since, as NRPB scientists explained to me, there is a large leap between demonstrating a biological effect and demonstrating a health effect. An early NRPB report (before mobile phones became popular or controversial) discussed these uncertainties:

Much of the evidence that has been cited is inconsistent, or derives from studies that have been inadequately controlled, and some is likely to have been distorted by bias against the reporting or publishing of negative results . . . In the absence of any unambiguous experimental evidence to suggest that exposure to these electromagnetic fields is likely to be carcinogenic, in the broadest sense of the term, the findings to date can be regarded only as sufficient to justify formulating a hypothesis for testing by further investigation. (NRPB, 1992: Introduction) This report went on to recommend that more emphasis should be placed "on the consolidation of 'positive' findings" to move the field away from discussions of uncertainty and unreplicatable effects (NRPB, 1992: Recommendations for Research).

The late 1990s saw a surge of UK interest in mobile phones as risky objects, potentially contributing to a host of illnesses from headaches, through epilepsy and dementia to brain cancer. Among the contributors to this concern were new and existing interest groups (some of whom had transferred their concerns from earlier worries about microwave ovens, radar and overhead power lines), individuals attributing a range of symptoms to their phone use [START_REF] Soneryd | Deliberations over the Unknown, the Unsensed and the Unsayable? Public Protests and the 3G Development in Sweden[END_REF] and campaigning (tabloid) news media [START_REF] Burgess | Cellular Phones, Public Fears and a Culture of Precaution[END_REF]. With the unprecedented growth in usage of the technology, concerns were raised that current scientific understanding and regulatory protection were insufficient. Newspaper stories frequently drew upon continuing scientific research that claimed to demonstrate evidence of nonthermal effects. These effects were reported as evidence of harm occurring below the safe level determined by the NRPB. In many cases, stories included individual testimony from people who blamed their brain tumors, their sleep loss, their epilepsy or any other illness on mobile phone use or proximity to mobile phone masts. The NRPB, when called upon to respond, tried to defend their guidelines according to the weight of evidence behind them.

At this time, although the NRPB was not a well-known regulatory body, it was the public face of expertise about EMF issues. Its responses to the increasing number of enquiries about mobile phone risks constituted what I have referred to elsewhere as a "discourse of compliance" [START_REF] Stilgoe | Controlling Mobile Phone Health Risks in the UK: A Fragile Discourse of Compliance[END_REF]. Questions about the health effects of mobile phones, the adequacy of existing regulatory standards, or relative exposures from different handsets or masts were met with the response that the relevant technologies all complied with guidelines, which were supported by the best available scientific evidence. The NRPB saw its authority resting with its basis in scientific evidence, with its advice being in no way "political." In a 2000 review of scientific advisory guidelines, the Office of Science and Technology (OST) defended the NRPB's approach:

There has been public concern surrounding the possible health risks from mobile telephones. Responsibility for providing scientific advice to Government on exposure to non-ionising radiation from electromagnetic fields is provided by the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB); It publishes exposure guidelines based on established thermal effects; However, for both the mobile telecommunications handset and the base station transmitter, it has been suggested that there are other "non-thermal" effects; The scientific evidence for such effects is, at best, ambiguous, but public concerns are as much based on anecdotal evidence; In fact, exposure of the public from mobile base stations is usually thousands of times inside the exposure guidelines. The NRPB is limited to providing advice based on the science only and will not provide precautionary advice. (OST, 2000: Annex A)

The scientific evidence base on which the NRPB's advice rested provided a wellestablished body of knowledge-what science knew about EMFs and biology before the invention of mobile phones. Scientific advice was therefore ostensibly "science-based" (as opposed to "technology-based"), independent, apolitical and acontextual. But the implicit politics of this position were clearly demonstrated when non-experts realized that the NRPB was not answering the questions it was being asked. The concerned public were not looking for reassurance that mobile phones and base stations complied with guidelines. They were asking questions about the continued adequacy of these guidelines in the face of new studies, reported widely in the popular press, which seemed to demonstrate novel nonthermal effects.

The NRPB represented scientific uncertainty about non-thermal effects as a solely expert concern. And these uncertainties were given no representation in the numerical standards that emerged from the processes of review, meta-analysis and risk assessment. As one member of AGNIR (the NRPB's Advisory Group on Non-Ionising Radiation) explained to me: Above this level is unsafe, below this level is safe. How can you do that on the basis of the literature that exists for non-thermal effects? And secondly, what is the evidence that any of these non-thermal effects might pose a risk to health? The answer is virtually none. So they [the NRPB] knew about them, but they didn't fit into the model to determine finite, numerical standards. (Interview transcript,No. 6) Public consideration of the level or implication of scientific uncertainty was seen as unwarranted. The NRPB's rhetoric of uncertainty and public engagement revealed a wellestablished model of the public understanding of science. According to this model, the public were not cognitively equipped to make judgments about the contingencies of scientific knowledge. One independent scientist, who supported the scientific case for safety but criticized the NRPB's lack of public engagement, gave her impression of the need to convince non-experts of the weight of scientific knowledge: "So, when you get a scientific consensus, it's something that the public doesn't understand because they're not part of and nobody tells them, but it's a very, very important thing to have, and it's a very powerful thing" (Interview transcript, No. 27).

A conception of scientific rationality was extended to one of public irrationality. And the perceived adequacy of scientific understanding left no discursive space for non-expert disagreement. The NRPB's model of science, intended as an authoritative separation from political decision-making, belied a firm construction of who the public were and the desirable extent of their participation in science. The discourse of compliance decreed that non-experts should not be asking certain types of questions and that public concerns as to, for example, the relative harm from high-exposure handsets, were not legitimate.

The IEGMP: meeting the public halfway 4

The NRPB's failure to understand the multidimensionality of public concerns severely dented its credibility. Non-experts increasingly felt that their questions were not being answered and that their claimed symptoms were being unreasonably ignored (often rejected as "anecdotal"). The collapse in public trust in scientific advice, along with the increasing attention of newspapers and interest groups, necessitated the formation of a new, more ostensibly independent body to advise on the health risks of mobile phones. The Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones (IEGMP), chaired by Sir William Stewart, formerly Chief Scientific Advisor to Margaret Thatcher, was formed late in 1999. Its aim was to consider the issue afresh, emphasizing its independence from the government, industry and the NRPB (who continued to protest their independence). The IEGMP acknowledged the trend for increased public participation by including two lay members, holding public meetings and inviting a broad range of activists, scientists and other interested parties to give evidence.

The IEGMP's remit was broadened beyond that of the NRPB, allowing it to "consider present concerns about the possible health effects from the use of mobile phones, base stations and transmitters" (IEGMP, 2000: 11) while conducting a review of the available science. After the preceding decade's BSE/Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease episode, widely recognized as a scientific advisory disaster, the IEGMP's assessment of the scientific evidence was cautious: "Firstly, the BSE inquiry impacted upon us. Never again will any scientific committee say that there is no risk . . ." (Sir William Stewart, speaking about the IEGMP to the House of Commons Trade and Industry Select Commitee, 13 March 2001). 5 The science behind mobile phone risk assessment was recontextualized, taking into account the prevalence of mobile phones, their increasing use by children and the rapid growth of base stations. In the cold light of public controversy, the IEGMP's conclusions about the extent and relevance of scientific uncertainty were markedly more cautious than the NRPB's had been. The uncertainties that the NRPB saw as unproblematic were brought to the fore, alongside the IEGMP's recommendation of a precautionary approach to mobile phone use and network expansion. Since the NRPB's previous major review, some new studies had been published reporting cognitive effects on humans exposed to mobile phone radiation. In particular, a study conducted at Bristol University was the first to suggest a cognitive effect of mobile phone radiation on human volunteers [START_REF] Preece | Effect of a 915-MHz Simulated Mobile Phone Signal on Cognitive Function in Man[END_REF]. But this new evidence does not suggest an adequate explanation for the conclusions of the IEGMP. Interviews with IEGMP members suggest that the public context of their work and the decision to be precautionary from the outset changed their assessment of the available science: Public perception . . . was taken very seriously, and that was discussed almost at every meeting. (Interview transcript, No. 19-IEGMP member)

It was simply when we started analysing the results that the uncertainty became more apparent. (Interview transcript, No. 30-IEGMP member)

The group had quickly established that the locus for greatest public antipathy towards mobile phone technology was the rapidly expanding network of base stations. One IEGMP member explained this to me:

The public meetings were varied in attendance and in the sort of atmosphere, but certainly the common line was that the public was worried, and the public was worried for two reasons. It was worried because it felt that the base stations issue was completely out of their control, and it was worried because it felt that it wasn't given enough information, so people were actually on the whole happy about the mobile phone issue, because at the end of the day, you make a decision about whether you buy one, use one et cetera, and how long you use it for. But if you wake up in the morning and Orange [a UK mobile phone network operator] has just stuck up a base station, there's not a hell of a lot you can do about that. (Interview transcript, No. 19) Many advisory scientists were initially bemused by concerns expressed about base stations from people who seemed happy to use their mobile phones. Within the discourse of compliance, the fact that base station exposures typically fell orders of magnitude beneath the guidelines 6 had obviated the need for any expert consideration of these concerns. The NRPB's model of the public prescribed reassurance of low exposure as the only course of action. Worries that, for example, the long-term effects of low-level microwave exposure were not included in guideline calculations were not heeded.

The IEGMP's view of uncertainty justified their precautionary approach (or vice versa as Levidow might have it), which recommended that children be discouraged from using their mobile phones, and which called for tightening of the planning rules for mobile phone masts. Such recommendations implied criticism of the NRPB's discourse of compliance, within which the public could not legitimately decide upon the risks to their children, nor on the possible dangers of mobile phone masts. But the IEGMP also explicitly criticized the NRPB's management of public concern (while taking care not to undermine its scientific work):

Whilst there is no criticism of its science, we recommend that NRPB gives greater priority to the execution of a more open approach to issues of public concern such as mobile phone technology and that it is proactive rather than reactive in its approach. (IEGMP, 2000: paragraph 1.67)

The IEGMP continued building bridges towards the public with its recommendation of further research, looking into areas qualitatively different from those considered important in previous decades:

We recommend that a substantial research programme should operate under the aegis of a demonstrably independent panel. The aim should be to develop a programme of research related to health aspects of mobile phones and associated technologies . . . In developing a research agenda the peer-reviewed scientific literature, non-peer reviewed papers and anecdotal evidence should be taken into account. (IEGMP, 2000: paragraph 1.58) By 2000, the term "anecdotal evidence" had been politicized as a microcosm of the illnesses, concerns, arguments and frustrations that members of the public had attributed to mobile phones and their masts. The inclusion of the term in the recommendation therefore signaled the group's intention to fund research that the public would consider relevant. This research would be administered by the Mobile Telephones Health Research (MTHR) program committee, an expert group containing many of the members of the original IEGMP.

The MTHR program held public meetings to discuss its research priorities. Experts and the public debated what the public were really concerned about and how research would assuage their fears. After its third call for proposals, the MTHR committee funded research in areas that it felt would address public concern. Three studies were funded to look at "Electrical Hypersensitivity," a contested illness where sufferers claim to experience debilitating symptoms with exposure to weak electromagnetic fields [START_REF] Soneryd | Deliberations over the Unknown, the Unsensed and the Unsayable? Public Protests and the 3G Development in Sweden[END_REF]. One of these aimed to test the relationship between base station (rather than mobile phone) exposure and symptoms. In addition, a case-control study was funded to study the possible connection between childhood cancers and base station proximity. 7 In an MTHR press release, the chair of the program committee, Lawrie Challis, said, "I am very pleased that the MTHR programme is responding in this way to public concern about possible health effects from base stations." 8 Perhaps most tellingly, the study that drained the last of the committee's funds was a psychosocial analysis of risk responses to precautionary recommendations-an explicit scientization of "public concern". 9 The recommendations of the IEGMP and (though less prominently) the work of the MTHR program have answered some of the criticisms initially directed at the NRPB's style of scientific advice. But the precautionary approach to mobile phone risks, and its accompanying participatory rhetoric, has attracted a good deal of criticism from scientists, social scientists and industry. In a recent book, sociologist Adam Burgess criticizes such precaution as a policy motivated by politics rather than science [START_REF] Burgess | Cellular Phones, Public Fears and a Culture of Precaution[END_REF]. He suggests that the call for further research is unwarranted, because of the impossibility of harm from mobile phones. A similar sentiment has been expressed by scientists, who feel that precaution, by embracing public concern and highlighting uncertainty, undermines the available scientific evidence (e.g. [START_REF] Foster | Science and the Precautionary Principle[END_REF]. One esteemed senior scientist, clearly with a firm impression of who The Public were, suggested to me that precautionary policies were counterproductive in dealing with public concern because they were likely to spread "alarm and despondency" (Interview transcript, No. 29). Such comments suggest an assumed adequacy of the state of orthodox scientific understanding. But, following the analysis I have presented here, we can also read debates about precautionary policies in terms of their implicit models of the public. Critics of EMF precaution tend to see The Public as passive and deficient in their knowledge and capacity for understanding uncertainty.

Such disputes bring to light the tension between technocracy and democracy experienced by advisory scientists, whose decisions must be at once scientifically authoritative and politically credible [START_REF] Jasanoff | The Fifth Branch: Science Advisers as Policymakers[END_REF]. In his report and in subsequent press interviews, Sir William Stewart made a number of recommendations that seemed to his critics more "political" than "scientific." In particular, his recommendation that children should be discouraged from using mobile phones was seen by many scientists as unsupported by the available evidence. Sir William was asked to defend his recommendations to the House of Commons Trade and Industry Select Committee, who began an investigation of the mobile phone mast planning regime in 2001. The committee asked about the recommendation that schools should be considered particularly sensitive sites for new masts:

Q: What about churches because they are used for childcare, or hospitals? Do you think that there should be national guidelines criteria for site selection?

A: My point is that I do not care much whether it is a church or a football stadium, so long as they meet the guidelines. Those are the guidelines that have been nationally accepted at the present time. We should adhere to those until evidence becomes available that they should be higher or lower. (Sir William Stewart, Minutes of Evidence to the House of Commons Trade and Industry Select Committee, 13 March 2001)

In the light of the Stewart report's earlier rejection of the discourse of compliance, this answer seems inconsistent. But it illustrates the difficulties of maintaining authority while defending scientific advice that explicitly addresses issues of public, as well as scientific, concern. The tactic that is revealed is interesting. When the Stewart report is challenged by scientists who claim it did not represent the true state of the science, the explanation most often given is that it was "flavored" by the political elements of public concern, distrust and the specter of BSE. But when the Stewart report is itself challenged on the grounds of the myriad policy and advisory questions that it has opened up to challenge, the easiest retreat is to appeal to rationality, arguing that it is the guidelines, supported by expertise, which provide protection (as above). 10 A tension emerges, which contributes to the discursive inconsistency, between science and advice, between rationality and pragmatism and between public reassurance and public engagement. At a local level, such inconsistencies have led to a fragmentation of planning controls, with confusion as to whether local authorities are allowed to (or have the expertise to) take into account health effects when making planning decisions. National guidance, according to one civil servant, does take into account public health concerns: "Health effects can be taken into consideration, but they're met by the requirement of compliance with . . . exposure guidelines" (Interview transcript, No. 11). The public being constructed here are a public who seek reassurance of compliance which, as I mentioned above and have described elsewhere [START_REF] Stilgoe | Controlling Mobile Phone Health Risks in the UK: A Fragile Discourse of Compliance[END_REF], misses the point. This response is answering a question that concerned sections of the public are not asking. The implicit model of public concern does not account for the complexities of public engagement with science. Public concerns are multidimensional, subject to change and difficult to nail down with recourse to simple models of public action.

Part of the confusion seen in the wake of the Stewart report originates with the report's novel appreciation that "The Public" can never refer to a single group (non-scientists) with homogeneous interests. Sir William appreciated that, for his report to understand (and maintain a degree of control over) public concern, different publics needed to be seen in different ways. Most of the UK population were consumers of mobile phones, only marginally interested in the science behind a beloved technology. But some were seriously concerned and engaged with the science of mobile phone risk on a number of levels. This separation of general and concerned publics is implicit in the Stewart report's reading of the science and presentation of its recommendations. And while this new model of the public opened up new and difficult areas of debate, it went some way towards regaining control of the public context of uncertainty about the issue.

Conclusion

It should come as no surprise that new technologies bring new risks, or new doubts about unforeseen consequences. The public concern that we see around these innovations can tell us a great deal about the relationship between experts and the public. The pattern of experts telling non-experts what "correct" areas of concern are is an extension of a deficit model of science and society, and is no longer sufficient. Public participation is now recognized as a necessary part of the process of scientific decision-making. Increasingly, therefore, there is pressure on experts to identify areas and extents of public concern.

For the majority of mobile phone users, the individual benefits negated the question of risk. For the small percentage of users who reported symptoms when making calls, the mitigation of risk, even if this risk could not be explained by experts, was straightforward. However, when the mobile phones health controversy (and rapid network growth) made base stations more visible, public concern became more complicated. With base stations, public discontent was complicated by the skewed distribution of (possible) risk towards people who lived nearby. The benefits of a mobile phone mast are general (increased network coverage) rather than specific to those people burdened with the technology.

I have tried in this paper not to draw an accurate picture of what public concern about mobile phones and their masts looks like, nor what the extent of scientific uncertainty about mobile phones is. "Public concern" is not a fixed thing. It is dynamic and subject to a great deal of interpretative flexibility. Public concern is multidimensional and dependent upon a relationship of trust or distrust in expertise. As with other issues involving science, public opinion about the risks of mobile phones can be expected to be complex and ambivalent: concerns about health are likely to be tied up with opinions about mast siting, children's usage and the necessity of ever-developing networks. As we have seen in this paper, experts, in doing "public science," must interpret evidence and uncertainty, making recommendations of precaution or areas of future research. But they are also forced to contextualize their work and realize its public dimension. I have argued that, in doing so, they legitimize or reject areas of concern and instrumentally construct their publics. This paper has narrated the move between two styles of public science which suggest subtly different constructions of both scientific uncertainty and public concern.

The NRPB, eager not to be construed as doing "politics" (cf. [START_REF] Jasanoff | The Fifth Branch: Science Advisers as Policymakers[END_REF], strove to maintain scientific uncertainty firmly in the domain of expertise. This had the effect of preventing public engagement with science [START_REF] Stilgoe | Controlling Mobile Phone Health Risks in the UK: A Fragile Discourse of Compliance[END_REF]. The public were viewed as homogeneous, cognitively deficient and passive, demanding reassurance rather than engagement. The NRPB lost credibility and the trust of the concerned public when the public began questioning their own constructed role, asking questions about science that the NRPB was not prepared to answer. The NRPB, with their commitment to science-based advice, was unable to address this credibility problem. The representatives of science claimed there was a strong consensus over the (lack of) health effects of mobile phones, so it was easy to reject claims from non-experts as "irrational." "Public concern" was thus constructed as a formless mass of unfounded fears, as nothing more than the opposite of expertise. Addressing this concern while claiming to remain "scientific" was impossible. Without a fairly radical change of philosophy, the NRPB could not solve its own credibility trap.

The creation of the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones allowed for a new approach to public engagement in the science of mobile phone risk. The IEGMP's precautionary approach included a more explicit consideration of scientific uncertainty, and particularly the types of uncertainty that had emerged as publicly relevant. But the NRPB's previously scientistic framing of issues such as base station exposure meant that the IEGMP's work was seen as more public-both "political" and "scientific." The IEGMP explicitly addressed the public concerns that they had identified, which justified a degree of reassurance that, for example, the rate of exposure from base stations was typically orders of magnitude lower than from handsets. But the Stewart report also identified areas of uncertainty about long-term effects and genetic variation in susceptibility that responded to some of the new questions being asked by concerned subgroups of non-experts. The IEGMP situated scientific advice within the politics of technology, the politics of public disenchantment and the politics of previous advisory shortcomings (such as the BSE debacle). This overlap between areas of public concern and areas of scientific concern continues, at the time of writing, with the MTHR program, which reminds non-experts that, although the jury is officially "out" on mobile phone health risks, we know who the jury are and when they might be coming back.

It is now clear that the UK expertise must pay attention to the maxim of public engagement. In this new climate of reflexive expertise, with advisory scientists considering the credibility of knowledge along with its authority, we must develop a more sophisticated appreciation of what is happening to "public concern" when it is identified, legitimized and co-opted. This paper has supported the move towards considering how experts construct their publics as part of the process of doing public science. Bruno Latour has explained how science and technology construct their publics (just as sociological texts construct their readers). Problems occur when publics feel that they have not been fairly represented (as when a reader feels that she is not the person the text expects her to be) (Latour, 1988: 307).

The NRPB's problems of credibility can be explained with reference to a public no longer behaving according to the model to which the NRPB subscribed. Interested publics realized they were being denied the discursive space to discuss salient aspects of mobile phone risk. As Andrew Barry has described, the attempt to cordon off areas as "apolitical" will only lead to new sites of political contestation (Barry, 2001: ch. 9). In the mobile phones case, uncertainties about long-term health effects or the framing assumptions behind guidelines were the subject of political battles despite previous scientific efforts to emphasize their apolitical credentials. The IEGMP attempted to address some of these areas, but "public concern" remained slippery and resistant to expert codification. In the case of mobile phone risks, non-experts could be seen strongly resisting expert attempts to co-opt their concerns.

The public meetings of the MTHR committee have been characterized by competing definitions of public concern. Experts have targeted their research to address some areas of overlap between areas of scientific and public interest. But non-experts continue to argue that existing research is not really addressing public concerns. "Public concern" is seen by some as a smokescreen behind which the existing scientific consensus can be reinforced. Most starkly, the recent funding of "psychosocial" studies by the MTHR committee has been criticized as a way of continuing to avoid conducting studies addressing "real" public concerns. 11 One caution we can draw from this is that advisory scientists should not believe that public concerns can be taken into account in a neutral way, without creating new areas for dissent.

Although it is impossible to judge conclusively while the controversy is ongoing, my analysis suggests that the IEGMP and the MTHR committee between them have regained a degree of social control of uncertainty [START_REF] Wynne | Uncertainty-Technical and Social[END_REF]. 12 The enrolment of a body of public concern has the effect of marginalizing and delegitimizing more fringe interests (cf. [START_REF] Michael | Enrolling the Core Set: The Case of the Animal Experimentation Controversy[END_REF]. The main UK mobile phone mast protest groups make it clear that they are not Luddites. They are not against masts or mobile phone networks per se 13 -they merely want more sensible siting of base stations. Although some individuals involved in the controversy privately doubt the need for a third generation of mobile phone networks (3G), the public debate currently seems more constructive.

This paper joins a movement towards seeing scientific controversies as featuring "coproduced" scientific and social order [START_REF] Jasanoff | Ordering Knowledge, Ordering Society[END_REF]. Specifically, the narrative of this paper demonstrates that states of scientific uncertainty are produced along with public engagement in science. This paper has problematized both elements as slippery and difficult to nail down. Just as attempts to resolve salient areas of scientific uncertainty will open up new contested domains, so attempts to represent public concern will be questioned by the public. Expert responses to questions of scientific uncertainty are necessarily responses to questions of engagement with public concern. In public science controversies, evidence becomes politicized, as seen clearly in the case of the recent UK controversy over the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (see [START_REF] Moore | Democracy and Risk: The Case of MMR[END_REF]. The move to reinterpret evidence, and call for more diverse knowledge production is therefore a democratic one, changing the bounds for public engagement. But advisory scientists should not convince themselves that public concern is a fixed quantity. The mobile phone industry, who increasingly try to gauge what level of public concern is "out there," 14 are contributing to a model of public action that represents only part of the public context of mobile phone technology. Changing contexts and new technologies will offer new challenges to risk management. Although the success of 3G mobile phones will most likely be decided by price, desirability, usability and the extent of market saturation, experts (and industry) must be aware of the possibility of new doubts, new concerns and new risks.

In supporting a move towards a more nuanced co-production picture of science and society, I challenge the separation of risk into "scientific" and "social" domains (of which both scientists and social scientists are guilty). "Risk" is neither "scientific" nor "social." It is the (co-)product of representations of both nature and society. In the mobile phones case, there is nothing that clearly tells us how to separate risk "assessment" from risk "perception." What we do see, at least as it stands, is the attempted management of a risk issue by a group of reflexive experts who seem to appreciate the necessity of broader appreciation of uncertainty and non-expert engagement.

The important demand on experts in this area is not the authority of their advice, nor the sensitivity with which they can identify what the public are concerned about. Experts need to develop the flexibility to reflexively adapt to changing contexts of public engagement, with the realization that expert action crucially impacts upon public concerns. This paper has contributed to an understanding of public engagement with science that questions the applicability of rigidly designed participatory instruments. Instead, the challenge for experts is to remain aware of the possibility of less formal engagement with publics around issues of concern.

Postscript

I should add that, on 31 March 2004, the NRPB (now chaired by Sir William Stewart) recommended the adoption of lower (international) guidelines for EMF exposure, prompted by the recommendations of the Stewart report. For the first time, the NRPB explicitly acknowledged both the concerns of the public and the applicability of a precautionary approach to EMF regulation [START_REF] Nrpb | Mobile Phones and Health[END_REF]. Of course, it remains to be seen whether the NRPB can manage the issue successfully now the responsibility is once again theirs. associated with mobile phone handsets and base stations." URL: http://www.mthr.org.uk/research_projects/ CommunicatingUncertaintyMobileTelecommunicationHealthRisks.htm (accessed 10 July 2005). 10 I am reminded of Bruno Latour's motto: "When controversies flare up the literature become technical" (Latour, 1987: 30). 11 Alasdair Philips, for example, recently criticized the MTHR program for attempting to manage public concern (Powerwatch web site, November 2003, URL: www.powerwatch.org.uk (accessed 23 November 2003)). 12 In saying this, I am in marked disagreement with [START_REF] Burgess | Cellular Phones, Public Fears and a Culture of Precaution[END_REF], who argues that the Stewart report's endorsement of precaution only compounded mobile phone fears. The recommendation must therefore be for more research looking at the effect of expert claims of uncertainty on perceptions of risk. 13 For example, Mast Action UK, giving evidence to the All Party Group on Mobile Phones, 11 May 2004. 14 UK network operators, via the Mobile Operators' Association (MOA), have formalized "Ten commitments to best siting practice" and a "Traffic light rating model for public consultation," the aim being to reduce the surprise of public protest by understanding the likelihood of dissent (see www.mobilemastinfo.com and [START_REF] Wardman | Colour Coding Community Risk Communication: An Assessment of the UK Mobile Phone Industry 'Traffic Light Model[END_REF]).

Stilgoe: (Co-)production of public uncertainty 47

Public Understanding of Science 16 (1)

Public Understanding of Science 16 (1)

Stilgoe: (Co-)production of public uncertainty 55

Public Understanding of Science 16 (1)

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Brian Balmer, Jerry Ravetz, Brian Wynne, Simon Carter and two anonymous referees for comments on earlier drafts of this paper and discussions of the ideas within it. An earlier version was presented at the fifth Wireless World conference at the University of Surrey in May 2004, at which the audience provided some thoughtful questions and suggestions.

Notes

1 A survey in June 1999, funded by Techno AO (manufacturers of a device that sticks to the back of a mobile phone and claims to reduce radiation), found that 43 percent of daily users in the UK were particularly concerned about the potential risks from mobile phones (MORI, 1999). 2 In regulatory circles, a dichotomy is often drawn between risk assessment, which is seen as scientific and neutral, and risk management, which deals with questions of acceptability, perception and policy. This paper makes no such distinction, and serves to support the argument that value judgments are integral to all parts of the risk spectrum. (For a recent explanation of the policy implications of such a distinction in a public dispute, see [START_REF] Busch | Amicus Curiae Brief Submitted to the Dispute Settlement Panel of the World Trade Organization in the case of EC: Measures Affecting the Approval and Marketing of Biotech Products[END_REF].) 3 Wynne has identified four areas of scientific "non-knowledge"-risk, uncertainty, ignorance and indeterminacy [START_REF] Wynne | Uncertainty and Environmental Learning-Reconceiving Science and Policy in the Preventive Paradigm[END_REF]. Of these, science is least able to deal with the areas of ignorance and indeterminacy. These areas might often be represented as scientifically definable and less-problematic "risks" or "uncertainties" [START_REF] Shackley | Representing Uncertainty in Global Climate Change Science and Policy: Boundary-ordering Devices and Authority[END_REF]. For the purposes of this paper, I have adopted a more constructivist perspective, put aside this typology and used the word "uncertainty" to describe any representation of scientific nonknowledge. 4 Thanks are due to Jerry Ravetz for this phrase, which nicely encapsulates expert/public negotiation and the subsequent overlapping of scientific and public concerns. 5 It should be noted that Sir William Stewart was chief scientific advisor to the Conservative Government from 1990 to 1995, although he told the Phillips inquiry into the handling of the BSE crisis that his direct involvement in the BSE saga had been "negligible" (The BSE Inquiry/Statement No. 187, Sir William Stewart, page 4, URL: http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/ws/s187.pdf (accessed 20 August 2003)). 6 As might be expected, this "fact" is open to contestation. Some commentators have argued that simplistic attempts at calculating base station exposures ignore radiation "hotspots," points of constructive interference which might approach or even exceed international guideline levels. 7 At the time of writing, all of these studies are ongoing. It remains to be seen how their results will be interpreted by concerned publics.


Nico Pitrelli

Federica Manzoli

Barbara Montolli

Science in advertising: uses and consumptions in the Italian press

Among the social practices that the world of advertising draws upon in order to convey its message, science is used to convince the target audience of the effectiveness of the product it is promoting. The study of the presence and use of science to encourage consumer spending provides information on the public perception of science itself. The present work analyzes these aspects with reference to the Italian press. A quantitative study was carried out on a sample of daily, weekly and monthly publications throughout 2002 and 2003, using a coding frame that enabled the identification of the frequency of scientific messages in advertising, the occurrence of scientific content in the images, the context in which they are set and the type of language used. The results demonstrate that science has a consistent presence in advertising and the image of science that derives from this is a positive one.

Introduction

Nowadays, advertising is one of the most widespread forms of communication and is therefore particularly significant in the formation of the collective imagination. It plays a fundamental role in the consumer economy, since it reflects ideologies and lifestyles. Its promises encompass the fashions, trends and attitudes of the social target at which it is directed (e.g., see [START_REF] Douglas | The World of Goods[END_REF][START_REF] Baudrillard | Il sogno della merce[END_REF][START_REF] Fabris | La pubblicità, teorie e prassi[END_REF]. Because of its persuasive ends, the agent responsible for the advertising message must constantly seek the most effective narrative methods (in the form of a story, product description, information), so as to obtain as much cooperation, participation and connection with the target public group as possible. In fact, in order to be successful, the advertisers have to use their imagination and apply their target group's system of values, beliefs and desires to the message (e.g., see [START_REF] Eco | The Role of the Reader: Exploration in the Semiotics of Texts[END_REF][START_REF] Dyer | Advertising as Communication[END_REF][START_REF] Myers | Ad Worlds: Brands, Media, Audiences[END_REF][START_REF] Floch | Visual Identities[END_REF].

Because of this, the images and texts used in advertising can also provide a significant indication of what sort of image of science is constructed and conveyed by the mass media. The most obvious example of this is the use of the "scientific expert" (a scientist) as an effective tool for selling goods through advertising. As several studies on rhetoric have explored, the figure of the "expert" guarantees the legitimacy and credibility of the product [START_REF] Battistini | Scienza e retorica: l'esempio di Galileo[END_REF][START_REF] Garavelli | Manuale di retorica[END_REF]. Recent studies have also shown that the members of society who inspire the most trust in European citizens are scientists, doctors and engineers (Eurobarometer 55.2, 2001: 43). Therefore it is not surprising that science and scientists are used for promotional purposes and in marketing strategies.

Such usage should, however, be considered within the current context of the media's role in constructing links between science and society. Recent studies have shown that mass media and television in particular are the general public's main source of information regarding science and technology (e.g., see House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, 2000;Eurobarometer 55.2, 2001; British Association for the Advancement of Science, 2005). Research into the transmission of science through the mass media has shown the importance of the latter in raising public awareness of scientific and biomedical matters and also in setting the ground rules for debate surrounding controversial aspects regarding the social impact of scientific and technological development (e.g., see [START_REF] Nelkin | Selling Science: How the Press Covers Science and Technology[END_REF][START_REF] Lewenstein | Science and the Media[END_REF][START_REF] Gregory | Science in Public: Communication, Culture and Credibility[END_REF]European Commission, 2002;Bauer and Gaskell, 2002).

Nowadays, the possible functions and interpretations of the role that the media has to play in science communication need to be evaluated in the light of current discussions regarding science and society. Many authors and institutional organizations have criticized what has come to be known as the "deficit model" from several points of view, and they have suggested that a move towards a communicative model that promotes increased public participation and dialogue could reduce tensions between science and society (Kass, 2001;[START_REF] Miller | Public Understanding of Science at the Crossroads[END_REF]House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, 2000).

According to the deficit model, the origins of public misconceptions about specialist matters lie mainly in a lack of basic knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts. In this frame, science communication follows a one-way process whereby scientific information is translated by the media for an uninformed public. It is therefore the media's inaccurate presentation of scientific content that explains the distortion of scientific information. The belief that the media give an inaccurate picture of science, since they are incapable of accurately translating scientific and technological information, still has a lot of weight and as a result, a great deal of research has been carried out in this field (e.g., see Gregory and Miller, 1998: 104-8;Chavot and Masseran, 2003: 118-20).

On the other hand, criticism of the formulation of the deficit model, in its assumptions and its normative and epistemological implications, has focused overall on the role and function of scientific research and of the media and their public (see amongst others [START_REF] Myers | Discourse Studies of Scientific Popularization: Questioning the Boundaries[END_REF][START_REF] Yearly | What Does Science Mean in the 'Public Understanding of Science'?[END_REF][START_REF] Peters | From Information to Attitudes? Thoughts on the Relationship between Knowledge about Science and Technology and Attitudes toward Technology[END_REF][START_REF] Wynne | Public Understanding of Science[END_REF].

For the aims of our study, it is relevant to mention that this criticism has brought about a reconsideration of the role of the media (e.g., see [START_REF] Moirand | Communicative and Cognitive Dimensions of Discourse on Science in the French Mass Media[END_REF] insofar as they represent "an important cultural arena, where scientific knowledge is not just mediated but constructed" (van Dijck, 2003: 183), "a kind of frontier, interacting with all other fields of activity related to scientific and technical popularisation (museums, institutions, universities, NGOs, etc.)" (Chavot and Masseran, 2003: 118), as well as constituting the place where "science meets the public" (Gibbons, 1999: C83).

In this way, given the discursive nature of advertising and its ability to introduce scientific concepts and share them with the general public, advertisements constitute an important opportunity for research into how science is experienced in the public sphere or, in other words, a relevant indicator of the non-specialist public's image of science and technology. Despite these aspects, and despite the fact that public understanding of science (PUS) studies have emphasized the importance of research that encourages reflection on the role of advertising in the promotion of PUS (European Commission, 2002: 150), to date, very little attention has been paid by media scholars to this matter.

One of the reasons for underestimating the importance of the advertising medium in relation to science lies in the relatively recent interest in the study of advertising in general. The first systematic studies on the subject date back to the late 1950s (Packard, 1957) and were founded on psychological theory. Psychological theory (from behaviorism to psychoanalytical theories) also featured in studies dating from the 1960s and it was from this period that sociology and semiotics came into play [START_REF] Barthes | Mythologies, trans[END_REF][START_REF] Eco | Apocalittici e integrati[END_REF].

Another reason for the lack of interest in the relationship between science and advertising lies in the tradition of studying the popularization of science. As regards research into the relationship between science and the media, attention has so far been concentrated exclusively on written texts and on the study of how science is handled in newspapers (Myers, 2003: 272). It is a well-known fact that newspapers do not necessarily constitute the most significant source of scientific information, although they are certainly the easiest materials to trace, collect and analyze (Gregory and Miller, 1998: 105).

In any case, studies in advertising carried out as part of research into science and the media have concentrated on the identification of distortions introduced by advertising messages when they refer to science and technology [START_REF] Guerrero | Misuse of Science in Advertising[END_REF][START_REF] Taelman | Amount, Type and Value of Science in Publicity[END_REF] or on new terminologies used in the language of advertising on the printed page as used by the biotechnology industry [START_REF] Calsamiglia | Crónica de una ciencia anunciada. Reflexiones sobre el nuevo discurso publicitario de las empresas biotecnológicas[END_REF]. Unlike the direction taken by the aforementioned research, the aims of this paper primarily are to quantify the presence of advertising in the Italian printed media, without evaluating the scientific accuracy of the message itself.

Therefore the following study has sought to identify to what extent scientific references are made in advertising messages in the main Italian daily, weekly and monthly publications throughout 2002 and 2003, the type of goods they are associated with, the scientific message channeled by the advertisements and the context in which they are to be found. Moreover, the following study can also be considered in a wider research field in that it combines results regarding public perceptions of science and technology with those regarding media coverage. It is useful to note here that several studies have shown how, within the European context, the Italian public are among the most favorably disposed towards questions of science and technology, from several points of view (e.g., see Durant et al., 1998;[START_REF] Borgna | Immagini pubbliche della scienza. Gli italiani e la ricerca scientifica e tecnologica[END_REF]Bauer and Gaskell, 2002;Special Eurobarometer 224/Wave 63.1, 2005).

Method

In order to measure these aspects, we referred to the content analysis as a systematic preparatory and data-reducing method with the aim of achieving the highest degree of objectivity possible. For this purpose, a coding frame was developed (see Appendix) and applied to the 2002-3 period by monitoring a sample of the most relevant publications of the Italian press.

Publications analyzed

The following publications were monitored:

• two daily newspapers (the issue printed on the 5th of each month): La Repubblica and Il Piccolo; • two weekly publications (the first issue of each month): L'Espresso and Gente;

• two supplements (the first issue of each month): Venerdì (La Repubblica) and Io Donna (Il Corriere della Sera); • two monthly scientific magazines (all issues): Le Scienze and Focus.

This sample was chosen so as to provide full coverage of different publication frequencies, readership and contents.

While La Repubblica is the second biggest national newspaper in terms of sales, Il Piccolo was chosen because it is a regional paper (Friuli Venezia Giulia, north-east Italy). As regards the weekly publications, L'Espresso is one of the most widely read generic weekly publications concerned with politics, current affairs, foreign affairs, the economy and health, while Gente is one of the most popular current affairs and gossip magazines. The supplements are the generic Venerdì, enclosed with the aforementioned Repubblica, and Io Donna, dedicated to the female readership of Il Corriere della Sera, Italy's biggest national newspaper. Lastly, Focus and Le Scienze are monthly science communication publications. The former is more popular (the most widely read science publication in Italy) than the latter (specialist press, the Italian edition of Scientific American). 1

Topics and other features assessed

The advertisements of interest were identified in consideration of a broad definition of science that includes the following disciplines: biomedicine, 2 biology, chemistry, astrophysics and space, physics, mathematics, neurosciences and social sciences. Moreover, the advertisements chosen for analysis were identified by their use of technical/scientific jargon, their use of quotations, or the presence of charts and explicit references to science in general (even if not in relation to a specific branch), medicine, technology or the environment.

In keeping with the quantitative objectives of the present research, the coding frame therefore assessed:

• The advertisement content type (for all advertisements in the whole sample), on the basis of the product categories being promoted. • The presence of a scientific reference (either the use of the terms "science" and "scientist" or reference to scientific terms, formulas, images). • The scientific discipline being referred to, in both the text and the images. 3 • The type of message (positive, neutral, negative) conveyed about science. A message through which science is proposed as the bringer of benefits and progress was considered to be "positive"; 4 a message is "neutral" when the scientific content was used to channel a consumer good without an explicit judgment being made on its positive or negative nature; 5 while a message was seen as "negative" when science was conveyed as being responsible or partly responsible for a negative or risky result. 6 • The type of frame in which science is used (progress, risks, benefits, ethics, health, economic benefits, other).

For the purposes of the analysis, nine scientific disciplines (see Figure 1) and 10 product categories (see Figure 2) were identified to be looked for in the filed advertisements which amounted to a total of 6,542. In order to ensure the relevance of the data, internal advertising by the publishing groups that the sample publications belong to was not taken into account.

Coding process

Two coders carried out the data collection. In order to improve the comparability of the coding, the protocol was discussed thoroughly and revised after a trial of different advertisements. This monitoring took place during meetings between coders and other science communication researchers belonging to the ICS (Innovations in the Communication of Science) group at SISSA (International School of Advanced Studies) in Trieste, Italy. In the set-up phase of the coding frame, care was taken to compare the codification types for each of the items, especially regarding the aspects that were more open to interpretation such as the presence of scientific content, the image of science conveyed and the type of frame.

Results and discussion

On the basis of recent research into scientific coverage by the Italian media [START_REF] Montolli | Permanent Observatory on Science Communication through the Media[END_REF], it can be supposed that, generally speaking, the amount of science printed in advertisements in daily and weekly publications exceeds the amount of column space dedicated to scientific news.

Excluding self-advertising made by the publishing groups themselves, 1,018 advertisements out of 6,542 contain some scientific reference. So, while scientific references appear in around 16 percent of the total number of advertisements, scientific news accounts for an average of just 1.6 percent of articles in newspapers (monitoring: Il Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, La Stampa, Il Sole 24 Ore, Il Messaggero) and an average of 11.3 percent of the total number of articles published by Italy's two main weekly publications: L'Espresso and Panorama [START_REF] Montolli | Permanent Observatory on Science Communication through the Media[END_REF]. Despite the fact that newspaper articles and advertisements contain very different amounts of information, and that this could imply that a comparison of the two may lack homogeneity, looking at the two studies together can nevertheless provide an indication of how much space is dedicated to scientific themes in the same form of communication.

As far as the presence of advertising with scientific content in the sample analyzed is concerned, the local newspaper features the fewest scientific references. The ratio between advertising with scientific content and the total of the advertising in the publications grows progressively from the national paper, to the weekly papers and then to the most popular specialist monthly publication (Focus). The only exception is Le Scienze, where the amount of advertising is much lower than in the other publications, but where the number of scientific references in the advertisements is very high (Table 1).

Sciences most commonly used in advertising

The distribution of the scientific disciplines reflects a primary focus on biomedicine, biology and chemistry (Figure 1), in keeping with the product categories most frequently advertised in Italian publications (Figure 2). Regarding the coverage of scientific topics in the media, this result reflects the predominance of stories about illness and general health. As a result, greater attention is given to the biomedical sciences and to those connected to health and well-being. Research in diverse national contexts has shown the media success of topics connected to health and illness. This can be explained by the fact that these subjects are connected to human experiences that people can identify with and compare (e.g., see [START_REF] Einsiedel | Framing Science and Technology in the Canadian Press[END_REF] 1994; [START_REF] Bauer | Science and Technology in the British Press[END_REF][START_REF] Pellechia | Trends in Science Coverage: A Content Analysis of Three US Newspapers[END_REF]Gregory and Miller, 1998: 117-20;[START_REF] Hargreaves | Towards a Better Map: Science, the Public and the Media[END_REF][START_REF] Bucchi | Big Science, Little News: Science Coverage in the Italian Daily Press, 1946-1997[END_REF] for the Italian context in particular).

The fact that biomedicine is the most directly marketable science (57 percent of the sample), reasserts the reciprocal interest of the public and the communicators within the most uncertain, the most widely published and the most read, the most controversial and the most hotly debated of today's sciences. On the other hand, the hard sciences accounted for 22 percent of references, grouping physics, mathematics, chemistry and astrophysics (Figure 1).

When comparing all the advertisements subdivided by product category and those that feature scientific references (Table 2), the effectiveness of the topic of health and well-being in the categories of "pharmaceuticals" and "body care" is confirmed yet further. Indeed, the advertisements in the sample that fall into these categories have the greatest number of examples of a rhetorical use of terms, charts and scientific images. On the other hand, it is surprising that explicit scientific content is not used more for technological goods.

The different presence and distribution of scientific disciplines in the various categories reflects the diverse editorial choices. Indeed, each publication is directed towards a different readership and has different investment strategies for advertising. As Table 3 demonstrates, while the biomedicine percentage remains well over half in the daily newspapers and the "generic" supplement (Repubblica 58 percent, Piccolo 68 percent, Venerd&igrav; 60 percent), in the publications dedicated to a predominantly female public the percentage climbs to over 70 percent (Io Donna 71 percent, Gente 75 percent). Less space is given to advertising with a biomedical content in the generic weekly publication and the popular monthly science magazine (L'Espresso and Focus, 48 percent), while it falls dramatically in the specialist monthly publication (Le Scienze, 14 percent).

Text and images

The scientific content (or a simulation of it) in advertising features significantly more in written texts than in images, as shown in Table 4. Moreover, an analysis of the use of scientific language shows that most references to science in advertising make use of isolated scientific terms, rather than scientific speech. While in 89 percent of cases of scientific content, individual scientific terms are used within the broader rhetorical context of the message, real scientific speech, with sector-specific language, is only developed in 9 percent of cases. 8 Whether the advertisement contains single scientific terms or a body of text, reference to science is made principally using signs and symbols from sector-specific language (chemistry, medicine, mathematics and so on) that are difficult for a non-expert public to understand. However, it is actually this type of inaccessibility that guarantees the effectiveness and value of the advertised product.

On the other hand, given the strong impact of images in attracting the target group's attention, the weight of visual references to science constitutes an important indicator of its consumption in advertising. While images do not appear as much as scientific terminology since they are more difficult to use (37 percent of the total advertisements), they are far more evocative (e.g., see [START_REF] Barthes | The Rhetoric of the Image: Image, Music[END_REF]. With respect to scientific terms and language, mainly used referentially, photographs and drawings primarily fulfill the phatic function of communication. In this case, the images simply evoke a scientific atmosphere and make the most of it in order to strengthen the rhetorical arguments behind the message.

The message

On the whole, the scientific message conveyed by the sample is positive (in 59 percent of the advertisements analyzed). Only 2 percent of the advertisements monitored were negative and 39 percent took a neutral stance. From this result we can observe that the image of science communicated by advertising is positive independently of the distortion that may be made of it by the advertisers, who may not necessarily be interested in the accuracy of the message.

As mentioned before, previous research into the presence of science in advertising has focused mainly on the mistakes made by advertisers in their inaccurate use of scientific terms and concepts. Nonetheless, if we can take it for granted that the message itself is markedly positive-given that it aims to persuade-we can not on the other hand deny that advertising plays an important part in the construction of perceptions of science in the public arena. Considering how pervasive advertising is in daily life, it is therefore important to underline how such a powerful tool as advertising-used by communication professionals, but who are not professionals in science communication-nevertheless transmits a wholly positive image of science to their public. The framing of science in advertising

The frame wherein the advertising message is set conforms to the differing presence of the scientific disciplines used, to the product type where there is a greater use of science and to the positivity of the message connected to the product advertised. "Benefits" (50 percent) and "health" (26 percent) are the most frequent frames for scientific words and images and correspond to the use of science for guaranteeing the effectiveness and quality of "body care" products, "pharmaceuticals" and "food," all linked to the world of health and wellbeing (Figure 3). The frame of "progress" is observed in 13 percent of cases, confirming the positive use of science in advertising. Similarly, the value associated with the "risk" context (2 percent) reflects information on the negative scientific message exactly.

The frames for the advertisements are distributed in a more or less homogeneous manner among the various categories with a prevalence connected to "progress" and "health." The only example where this is not the case is in the monthly Le Scienze, the Italian edition of Scientific American, a magazine with high scientific content (Figure 4).

Conclusions

The advertisements that refer to science in the Italian press provide a substantially positive image of science. This is of particular relevance if we consider that these publications are one of the important examples of how perceptions of science are created in the public arena.

Compared with many science communication initiatives set up with the aim of building a more positive image of science, the case of advertising has an interesting peculiarity: advertisers are communication professionals who are not experts in science communication, nor is their aim to communicate science. Yet at the same time, they construct a language rich in scientific terms and metaphors that are often far removed from their original meaning, but whose use bears witness to two important aspects that merit further research and analysis.

The first aspect is connected to the possibility that, more and more, science is becoming a natural genre, that is to say an aspect of everyday life, over and beyond the real understanding of scientific results and theories. The second is that a significant part of science communication takes place through hybrid, oblique, non-specialist channels, and the huge presence of science in advertising is a major example of this.

Studying science communication therefore means analyzing not just the ad hoc methods, dedicated to scientific popularization, but also the broader communication processes that include science as a social practice. In order to do so, it is necessary to consider the implicit factors and the channels used by non-specialist advertisers, which all contribute to diffusing an image and creating shared opinions on science.

Advertising is a breeding ground for these images and beliefs and they are encompassed by a complex communication process. This process can bring about expansion within the group of subjects that are on the receiving end of the science communication flow. These themes are not just discussed by scientists or specialist advertisers; they are also conveyed by non-specialist journalists, teachers, television and radio presenters, artists and advertising agents. All of the above have an important role to play in the diffusion of science in society. By way of an analogy with the advertising analysis presented in this report, further studies could be devoted to the role of the media and the underlying technology, not just as a method for conveying a more or less distorted version of scientific knowledge, but as a place for discussing and reshaping it as well. We mean biomedicine in the broadest sense of the term, as the science and practice of the prevention and curing of human diseases, and other ailments of the human body and mind. 3 The translations of the Italian slogans, headings and texts, in this and following notes, are a literal translation of the meaning of the texts rather than an attempt at a re-formulation of the slogan in English. This is wholly intentional, in order that the reader is able to understand the scientific content conveyed by the advertisement in question. For example for mathematics: "Asus laptop computers give maximum potential in the smallest of terms." The image shows a hand writing on a board, drawing a graphic f(N) as a function of N, with a delimited and colored region, as if it were calculating the integral, and there is writing on the board that shows the limit as "n" that goes to the infinity of f(N), to conclude with "2N = ASUS" (Focus, July 2002, p. 273). For example for biology: the progress brought by a car insurance policy is represented by the progression of a monkey's paw to the hand of a human being (Il Venerd&igrav;, 4 October 2002, p. 132). For example for biomedicine: "Elisir di Rochetta Green Tea contains teobromine and teofiline that both have beneficial diuretic effects. As well as this, it is rich in antidioxidants that help to fight free radicals, it is rich in vitamin C, oligoelements and zinc which help reinforce the immune system and lower cholesterol levels in the blood" (Gente, June 2002, p. 59); "The Nivea Vital line of beauty products, containing Q10 and proretinol, help to promote the regeneration and renewal of hydrolipid reserves" (Gente, May 2002, p. 49). 4 Examples of the use of positive messages: "National Cancer Research Day is an opportunity to celebrate the postgenomic era of research. Because the future of research is everybody's future" (La Repubblica, 5 November 2002, p. 36); "In the Dibi centres, the effectiveness and scientific nature of the equipment used combines with the pleasure of health and beauty treatments" (L'Espresso, 16 May 2002, p. 258). 5 Examples of the use of neutral messages: "Contacta Lens are monthly contact lenses for the short-sighted. Made with biocompatible materials, they allow optimum eye movement and work against dryness" (L'Espresso, 16 May 2002, p. 156); "Occasional use of Euchessina CM with Picosulfol can combat constipation problems" (Gente, 9 May 2002, p. 145). 6 Examples of the use of negative messages: "Genetically modified foods are not child's play, and until science provides us with more reliable answers, Co-op says 'no' to genetically modified products. This is not a question of principles regarding genetic research, but rather a precaution in the face of human health" (L'Espresso, 16 May 2002, pp. 150-1); "Hard maple wood charcoal is used outdoors to soften the taste of the whiskey. The scientists said that it was only useful for ashes . . . even the brainboxes at the university were amazed by our methods" (Focus, February 2003, p. 101). 7 In this case as well, the exclusion of self-advertising in the advertising samples was needed in order to avoid including references to diverse scientific themes and disciplines dealt with in other publications that belong to the same publishing group. For example, the daily La Repubblica and the weekly L'Espresso are part of the same publishing group. It is common to find advertising for the latter in the former, including cases where the advertisement refers to the publication of a coming issue that deals in depth with astrophysics, biomedicine and so on. 8 Example of the use of scientific terms: "D., with xylitol, calcium and fluoride or microparticles"; example of simulation of scientific speech: "M. gel combines the action of two cellular stimulants, Magnesium and Vitamin C. Clinical trials are performed in vivo and subject to dermatological tests."

Appendix

Figure 4 .

 4 Figure 4. Context for scientific content for advertisements in (a) Io Donna, (b) Le Scienze, (c) L'Espresso and (d) Gente.

  : Research protocol 1. Publication name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Date . . -. . -. . (day-month-year) 3. Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. Brand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. Product category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 1 .

 1 How much science appears in advertising (total per individual publication, excluding self-advertising made by the publishing groups themselves)

			Total
		Advertising with	advertisements	Percentage
	Publication	scientific content	filed	(%)
	La Repubblica	68	633	10.74
	Il Piccolo	22	554	3.97
	L'Espresso	140	969	14.45
	Gente	217	1059	20.49
	Venerdi	115	805	14.29
	Io Donna	176	1192	14.76
	Le Scienze	62	187	33.15
	Focus	218	1143	19.07
	Total	1018	6542	15.56

Table 2 .

 2 How much science appears in each product category (all advertisements with scientific content, from the eight publications)

		Scientific content in
	Category	product category
	Food	19%
	Clothing	3%
	Technology	9%
	Culture and show business	14%
	Services	10%
	Household	11%
	Pharmaceuticals	96%
	Body care	55%
	Escapism (trips and holidays)	7%
	Other	18%

Table 3 .

 3 Distribution of scientific content in advertising in the daily newspaper La Repubblica (12 issues), weekly publication Gente (12 issues), and monthly publications Focus (12 issues) and Le Scienze (12 issues)

		Bio-	Neuro-	Social	Science in	Mathem-		Astrophysics
		medicine	sciences	sciences	general	atics	Physics	and space Chemistry Biology
	La Repubblica	58%	0%	3%	2%	4%	8%	3%	13%	9%
	Gente	75%	1%	1%	3%	1%	3%	4%	7%	5%
	Focus	48%	0%	2%	9%	4%	3%	5%	16%	13%
	Le Scienze	14%	14%	3%	9%	11%	8%	10%	15%	16%

Table 4 .

 4 Distribution of scientific content in the textual and visual parts of the filed advertisements with scientific content

	Advertisements with secientific content	1018	100%
	Scientific content in the text	993	97%
	Scientific content (headline)	298	29%
	Scientific content (body copy)	956	94%
	Scientific content in the image	379	37%

  Scientific discipline referred to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notes 1 For information on the print runs of the daily newspapers and the weekly and monthly publications mentioned, please consult Prima Comunicazione (http://www.primaonline.it/dati/index.asp, accessed 24 August 2005). 2

			. . .
	6. Scientific content	yes ᮀ no ᮀ
	7. Scientific content in the text	yes ᮀ no ᮀ
	7.1. In the headline	yes ᮀ no ᮀ
	7.2. In the body copy	yes ᮀ no ᮀ
	7.3. 8. Scientific content in the image	yes ᮀ no ᮀ
	9. Message type
	1. positive ᮀ
	2. neutral	ᮀ
	3. negative ᮀ
	10. Context
	1. progress
	2. risks
	3. benefits
	4. ethics
	5. health
	6. economic advantage
	7.

other (please specify): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Public Understanding of Science 15 (2)

Public Understanding of Science 15 (2)

Public Understanding of Science 15 (2)

Acknowledgements

This work has been carried out thanks to the support given by the Innovations in the Communication of Science (ICS) group of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste. The initial ideas for our research came from Pietro Greco, who gave us his constant help and supervision throughout the duration of the project. We are grateful to him and others including Mila Bottegal and Stefano Fantoni, without whose support the project would not have been possible.

Authors

Nico Pitrelli is a physicist with a Masters Degree in Science Communication. He is currently the project manager of the School in Science Communication at SISSA (International School of Advanced Studies) where he teaches science communication. He is the deputy editor of the Journal of Science Communication (JCOM) (http://jcom.sissa.it). He also coordinates the Innovations in the Communication of Science (ICS) group in the same institution. His main research interests are connected to examining the spaces of encounters between science and society, the role of the scientist in public debate and education in science communication. Correspondence: Innovations in the Communication of Science, Interdisciplinary Laboratory, SISSA-International School of Advanced Studies, Via Beirut 2/4, 34014, Trieste, Italy, e-mail: pitrelli@sissa.it Federica Manzoli has a degree in Communication Science. Her dissertation thesis was about the Dolly the sheep case in the Italian newspapers. After taking a Masters in Science Communication at SISSA, she has been working on the perception and images of science. Her research projects relate to children's and adolescents' perceptions of science and scientists, the use of science in advertising and mental health communication.

Barbara Montolli is a physicist with a Masters Degree in Science Communication. She teaches physics and mathematics in secondary school and has collaborated with the ICS research group at SISSA. Her research work focuses on media representations of science. She also works as a freelance in different fields of science communication.