Social dimensions of technological risk: the case of mobile phone antennae

Abstract

The recent expansion of the mobile phone came together with the increase of public concerns related with perceived risks of electromagnetic fields to human health and environment. Here we show some of the main results of an exploratory research on the social responses to this technological risk in Catalonia. It can be said that neither the strategies implemented by companies (basically to offer more information to the public) nor the strategies developed by public institutions (to develop laws without coordination) were useful to manage the social conflict. This results support some findings of recent theories on social perception of risk (Wynne, etc.) showing that citizen protests against risk are based not only on the perception of health effects or harms, but also with other institutional risk dimensions (who and how manage the risk, etc.). This allows to link the social responses to technological risks with the need of a more participative and/or accountable risk management.