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Framing ‘fracking’: Exploring public perceptions of hydraulic fracturing in the United Kingdom

Williams, Laurence; Macnaghten, Phil; Davies, Richard; Curtis, Sarah

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Authors

Laurence Williams

Phil Macnaghten

Richard Davies



Abstract

The prospect of fracking in the United Kingdom has been accompanied by significant public unease. We outline how the policy debate is being framed by UK institutional actors, finding evidence of a dominant discourse in which the policy approach is defined through a deficit model of public understanding of science and in which a technical approach to feasibility and safety is deemed as sufficient grounds for good policymaking. Deploying a deliberative focus group methodology with lay publics across different sites in the north of England, we find that these institutional framings are poorly aligned with participants’ responses. We find that unease regularly overflows the focus on safety and feasibility and cannot be satisfactorily explained by a lack of understanding on the part of participants. We find that scholarship from science and technology studies productively elucidates our participants’ largely sceptical positions, and orientates strategies for responding to them more effectively.

Citation

Williams, L., Macnaghten, P., Davies, R., & Curtis, S. (2017). Framing ‘fracking’: Exploring public perceptions of hydraulic fracturing in the United Kingdom. Public Understanding of Science, 26(1), 89-104. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662515595159

Journal Article Type Article
Online Publication Date Jul 13, 2015
Publication Date Jan 1, 2017
Deposit Date Dec 13, 2017
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Public Understanding of Science
Print ISSN 0963-6625
Electronic ISSN 1361-6609
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 26
Issue 1
Pages 89-104
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662515595159

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (http://www.uk.sagepub.com/aboutus/openaccess.htm).





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