the target area for this study included metropolitan columbia , south carolina , the state capital , and other rural and urban areas in the northwest quadrant of the state . the university of south carolina , columbia , has a nanotechnology center , and has initiated a variety of associated public awareness activities directed both at students and at members of the broader community ; thus , some of our panel members ( though by no means all of them ) would have had opportunities to hear something about nanotechnology research or read about it in their local newspapers . ( initially , we expected that over time , this might influence popular awareness in the region , although there is no direct evidence of this to date . ) rather than rely on a random sample , we recruited panelists from a variety of different local groups to incorporate participants of different backgrounds . as community leaders , we included members of the kiwanis club and the chamber of commerce in columbia ; as panelists with specific religious affiliations , we recruited members of an african  american church and a mainstream baptist church where our student interviewers had contacts ; as members of the environmentalist population , we chose regional sierra club chapter members ; and as non - affiliated ordinary citizens , we chose members of the staff of a day care facility and a group of american cancer society volunteers . use of these groups helped ensure that the study participants represented a broad range of views ; however , the sample size was not sufficient to justify analysis of each group by itself . gaining truly random samples with acceptable response rates for any survey effort is becoming increasingly difficult ; gaining a truly random sample for an intensive panel study effort involving face - to - face interviews and multiple surveys over time is literally impossible . instead , we focused on the goal of including as broad as possible a range of participants recruited through a variety of community - based organizations in our target area . although they did not officially represent the views of these organizations , the diverse affiliations secured through this recruitment strategy help insure a variety of perspectives . our goal throughout has been to supplement other national survey efforts by studying a smaller group of people more intensely over time , to observe where they get information and how they form opinions . the results are not based on a random sample , and therefore specific numerical results are not generalizable ; however , we intend that our final conclusions about patterns of information use and opinion development will have broader applicability . as incentives , participants were offered a $ 25 initial payment in the form of a donation to the organization through which they were recruited . a second $ 25 payment will go to the same group for those participants who continue for the 3- to 4-year life of the study . the rationale for this procedure is that persons who might not participate in exchange for a small cash payment to themselves could be motivated to participate on behalf of an organization to which they belong and whose goals they support . a series of focus group discussions conducted with citizens in three u.s . cities ( priest and fussell 2006 ) and eight depth interviews with scientific experts , both completed in 2005 , along with 33 earlier interviews with undergraduate students ( also in south carolina ) , guided the choice of risk and benefit areas to be included . in order to gain additional perspective on how our panelists might be similar to or different from other groups , we also compare their baseline perceptions of risk , benefit , and need for regulation to those of a group of 177 published nanoscience experts ( including scientists , engineers , and social science / humanities scholars ) that we had surveyed in a separate email - based study a few months prior to the initiation of this project ( besley et al . we conducted the in - depth interviews with all 76 panelists in summer of 2007 ( referred to as time 1 or t1 throughout this article ) , incorporating the quantitative survey instruments that were designed to be supplemented by later rounds of data collection . our first follow - up was conducted in spring of 2008 ( referred to here as time 2 or t2 ) , providing some sense of the opinion trajectory , so far . our study is specifically concerned with the influence of media messages , information - seeking , and interpersonal discussion on opinion formation . while we explore the issue of media use further below , our primary goal is not to attempt direct measurement of the  effects  of media use . instead , we sought to study how citizens from diverse backgrounds actually come to grips with newly emerging technologies , given varied communication influences , but absent the assumption that media would dominate them . five doctoral students from the university of south carolina college of mass communications and information studies , who conducted the initial depth interviews and simultaneously collected baseline quantitative data , helped identify the groups to be used . in order to maximize the likelihood of recruitment success and good interviewer rapport , each of the doctoral students interviewed members of the groups with whom they had the closest personal identification ( e.g. , an african  american student recruited and interviewed the african  american church group members , a student interested in the environment recruited and interviewed the sierra club members , and so on ) . all interviewers participated in an intensive one - day training workshop at which materials were distributed , appropriate interviewing techniques were presented , and participants were given the opportunity to practice their interviewing skills . while variation in interviewer strengths and styles likely persisted , the training assured some level of consistency across interviews . the interviews were carefully structured ; they began with completely open - ended questions about what nanotechnology might be and what mental images were associated with the term , then provided participants with additional information based on the nni definition of nanotechnology , then proceeded with a brief written survey to secure the baseline quantitative data , and closed with additional open - ended questions to further probe these initial reactions . all statistical comparisons were performed using spss t - test routines ; citizens at t1 versus scientists were compared using two - tailed independent samples tests , while t1 versus t2 citizen perceptions were compared using two - tailed paired samples tests . manova analysis using all three independent and all three dependent variables produced almost identical results , so for simplicity , we present the results for each t - test separately . initial findings suggest that our participants began with very little information about nanotechnology ( priest and kramer 2008 ) . in most cases , they nevertheless conveyed a surprisingly accurate general idea of the term before receiving additional information from the interviewers . for example , they generally understood that nanotechnology refers to very small technology that might have applications in electronics , computers , medicine , and other areas . they also had a general  template  of expectations for new technology that they applied to this novel example , a template that ( as stated above ) assumes technology brings both risks and benefits . while some participants had to be  drawn out  to offer their perspective on this novel set of technologies for which they often had only general knowledge of technology to serve as context , most did not have sustained difficulty in discussing nanotech once they got started . ( this was in contrast to our experiences with the earlier student interviews , where our undergraduate interviewees seemed much more reluctant to offer an opinion . ) figure  1a  c compares the perceived levels of risk , benefit , and need for regulation of panel members with those of the surveyed experts . with respect to benefits ( 1a ) , the citizens panel members at t1 expect slightly more benefit in six of seven areas assessed ( all but new material development ; n.s . except for natural resource conservation at p  =  0.02 and energy production at p  =  0.01 ) . culture as generally pro - technology and of nanotechnology as largely lacking the problematic ethical associations of biotechnology ( priest and fussell 2006 ) . the striking thing is , indeed , how closely our panelists  including both environmentalists and religious conservatives  resembled nanotechnology experts in general expectations for nano - technology benefits , and how little these benefit perceptions changed over time.fig . a panel responses to the question  how beneficial do you believe nanotechnology will be for society over the next 20  years in each of the following areas ,  and scientist responses to the question  how important do you believe nanotechnology s benefits will be for society over the next 20  years in each of the following areas . b panel responses to the question  how risky do you believe nanotechnology will be for society over the 20  years with respect to each of the following areas ,  and scientist responses to the question  how important do you believe nanotechnology s risks will be for society over the next 20  years in each of the following areas . c panel responses to the question  how important do you believe it is to have regulations to control nanotechnology s risk in each of the following areas ,  and scientist response to the question  how important do you believe it is to have regulations to control nanotechnology s risks in each of the following areas .  standard deviations for benefits ranged from 0.785 to 1.155 ; for risks from 1.009 to 1.300 ; and for regulation from 0.950 to 1.399 across all groups mean panelist and scientist perceptions . a panel responses to the question  how beneficial do you believe nanotechnology will be for society over the next 20  years in each of the following areas ,  and scientist responses to the question  how important do you believe nanotechnology s benefits will be for society over the next 20  years in each of the following areas . b panel responses to the question  how risky do you believe nanotechnology will be for society over the 20  years with respect to each of the following areas ,  and scientist responses to the question  how important do you believe nanotechnology s risks will be for society over the next 20  years in each of the following areas . c panel responses to the question  how important do you believe it is to have regulations to control nanotechnology s risk in each of the following areas ,  and scientist response to the question  how important do you believe it is to have regulations to control nanotechnology s risks in each of the following areas .  standard deviations for benefits ranged from 0.785 to 1.155 ; for risks from 1.009 to 1.300 ; and for regulation from 0.950 to 1.399 across all groups risks present a slightly different picture ( 1b ) , however , with panelists at t1 seeing more risk than scientists for six out of the eight areas ( four significant at p    0.04 and two n.s . ) and less risk than scientists only for human health and environmental pollution ( both n.s . ) . risk perceptions for panelists at t2 increased noticeably , as will also be discussed further below . the perceived need for regulation ( 1c ) , however , most sharply divides the t1 citizen panel members from the expert respondents across six different areas assessed ( p    0.001 in each case ) , a pattern that continues at t2 . visual inspection easily confirms that for the non - expert respondents , perceptions of societal risks are on the rise , as are those for health risks , while benefit expectations and most opinions about regulation remain stable . panel members perceptions of risk increased from t1 to t2 across all eight items , a period of only approximately 9  months , with the largest increases for privacy issues , followed by increased expenses , human health , a  rich / poor divide ,  and then environmental pollution . however , only the t1t2 increase in privacy issues risk is statistically significant , given our small n ( at p  =  0.002 ) . the change in perceived need for regulation on privacy grounds is marginally significant at p  =  0.06 . media use patterns among our panelists , while intriguing , so far show very little consistent relationship to perceptions of nanotechnology - related risk , which would make sense based on the low level of risk reporting seen in the news media . we were unable to specifically attribute the heightened risk perceptions we observed to exposure to specific media and information . this comparison was confounded , however , by the fact that different groups of respondents began with different levels of perceived risk at t1 . reading a national paper is associated with less of an increase in perceived environmental risk from t1 to t2 ( r  =  0.349 , p    0.01 ) , but it is likely that this only reflects the fact that these participants began with more environmental risk awareness , and therefore exhibited less change . conversely , listening to talk radio is associated with more increase in perceived human health risk ( r  =  0.351 , p    0.01 ) , but this may be because frequent talk radio listeners were initially less aware of these risks , and not because talk radio necessarily discussed them . however , by dividing the panelists into low- and high - media exposure groups based on t1 data ( table  1 ) , it becomes clear that overall , higher media exposure is consistently associated with elevated risk perceptions , and also that almost all risk perceptions among both the low - media exposure and the high - media exposure group are rising over time . the index of media exposure used here was simply the sum of the weekly frequency of exposure our participants reported at t1 over eight different media : national news magazines , national newspapers , regional newspapers , local newspapers , national television news , local television news , talk radio , and internet . participants falling at or below an index value of 23 ( representing the 50th percentile out of a possible total score of 56 , 7  days    8 media ) were considered  low exposure  and those at 24 or above were considered high exposure.table  1comparison between low- and high - media exposures respondents ( those below vs. above the 50th percentile for all panelists participating at t1 ; 8 separate media use indexes combined ; all risk perception data reported on 5-point scale from 1  =   not important  to 5  =   very important  in response to question :  how risky do you believe nanotechnology will be for society over the next 20  years with respect to each of the following areas?)perceived 20-year risk ( 5-point scale ) of nanotechnology for respondents characterized by : low - media exposurehigh - media exposurerisk gapin the area oft1t2t1t2t2human health3.043.253.183.75 + 0.50animal health3.082.962.963.21 + 0.25environmental pollution2.562.882.893.14 + 0.26expenses2.923.202.963.57 + 0.37rich / poor country divide2.803.003.503.89 + 0.89privacy issues2.883.683.393.93 + 0.25access issues2.762.923.393.32 + 0.40economic insecurity2.362.722.932.82 + 0.10the  risk gap  represents the degree to which high media exposure respondents continue to perceive more risk than low - media exposure respondents at t2 . significance levels of p  =  0.100 or below based on 2-tailed t - tests between t1 and t2 values for perceived risk by type of risk separately for each exposure group are indicated in footnotes a  d . includes only respondents who remained active in study at t2 ( n  =  57)p  =  0.080p =  0.027p  =  0.041p  =  0.037 comparison between low- and high - media exposures respondents ( those below vs. above the 50th percentile for all panelists participating at t1 ; 8 separate media use indexes combined ; all risk perception data reported on 5-point scale from 1  =   not important  to 5  =   very important  in response to question :  how risky do you believe nanotechnology will be for society over the next 20  years with respect to each of the following areas ?  ) the  risk gap  represents the degree to which high media exposure respondents continue to perceive more risk than low - media exposure respondents at t2 . significance levels of p  =  0.100 or below based on 2-tailed t - tests between t1 and t2 values for perceived risk by type of risk separately for each exposure group are indicated in footnotes a  d . includes only respondents who remained active in study at t2 ( n  =  57 ) we caution against over - interpreting these results ; all media variables are indices of general information - seeking activity and also reflect demographic factors such as educational levels , lifestyle choices , and a range of other factors , as well as any direct message  effects . further , so little coverage appears to be being given to risk in news reports of nanotechnology that there would be little solid basis for inferring a direct effect under any circumstances . nevertheless , it is worth noting that the high exposure group begins at t1 with risk perceptions that are often close to or higher than those of the low - exposure group at t2 , and at t2 an obvious  risk gap equally striking is the fact that for both the low - exposure group and the high - exposure group , almost all risk perceptions are increasing , but the patterns are distinct . the low - exposure group had a statistically significant increase in risk perception for privacy only , a comparison exhibiting the greatest absolute gap from t1 to t2 , whereas the high exposure group had statistically significant increases for expenses of everyday life as well as privacy and a marginally significant increase in perceived risk in the area of health . while we were unable to discern patterns attributable to type of media consumed ( e.g. , national newspapers versus internet versus local tv news ) , more active media consumers did exhibit heightened risk perception over time in more categories , as well as more absolute risk perceived . we also assume that audiences form interpretive communities that bring quite different social values and cultural understandings to bear on interpreting the same message ( priest 2008 ) . the differences in media consumption , we observe here also reflect lifestyle differences ; the regular national newspaper reader likely has a different background and news coverage expectation from the regular local newspaper reader , for example . however , media is not the only influence on opinion formation . a long tradition in communication research , beginning with voting studies by lazarsfeld et al . ( 1944 ) and katz and lazarsfeld ( 1955 ) , suggests that interpersonal communication is often more influential than mass media communication in changing attitudes . a more recent and increasingly well - developed trend is to look at the impacts of information - seeking behavior . the impact of information - seeking is a significant ( p    0.05 ) or marginally significant ( p    0.10 ) predictor of change for four out of eight of the risk perceptions studied . whether statistically significant or not , information - seeking is associated with an increase in perceived risk in all but one case , that of privacy , which was marginally significant ( p  =  0.059 ) , but in the opposite direction  i.e . , more active information - seekers were not more likely to have rising perceptions of privacy risk from t1 to t2 and may be so less . for human health risk , seeking is a significant predictor of a rise in increased risk perception at p  =  0.031 ; for a rich / poor country divide , the equivalent figure is p  =  0.007 ( table  2).table  2changes in risk perception for eight nanotechnology - related risk areas as a function of information - seeking behavior among south carolina citizens panel members ( only significance levels at or below 0.100 are shown)unit change ( on 5-point scale ) for perceived risk of nanotechnology for : human healthanimal healthenvironmentimpact on expensesrich / poor divideprivacy issuesaccess issueseconomic disruptionseeker  mean perceived risk increase+1.13 + 0.80 + 0.60 + 0.60 + 1.130.00 + 0.07 + 0.13non - seeker mean perceived risk increase+0.090.18 + 0.09 + 0.26 + 0.06 + 0.91 + 0.03 + 0.09significance of two - tailed t - test for equality of means0.0310.068n.s.n.s.0.0070.059n.s.n.s . changes in risk perception for eight nanotechnology - related risk areas as a function of information - seeking behavior among south carolina citizens panel members ( only significance levels at or below 0.100 are shown ) the  picture  for an included discussion variable at t2 is clear to a lesser extend . respondents at t2 were asked whether they recalled discussing nanotechnology with anyone since t1 ; just over half ( 55% ) said no . those who reported discussing nanotechnology with others between t1 and t2 perceive higher risk in the areas of human health , animal health , environmental pollution , expenses , and economic uncertainty , and less risk in the areas of privacy and access . however , none of these relationships is statistically significant , based on comparison of those who recall having discussions versus those who do not ( table  3 ) . we look forward to the opportunity to look at this relationship again once further longitudinal data have been obtained.table  3changes in risk perception for eight nanotechnology - related risk areas as a function of whether or not respondent has discussed nanotechnology with others , among south carolina citizens panel membersunit change ( on 5-point scale ) for perceived risk of nanotechnology for : human healthanimal healthenvironmentimpact on expensesrich / poor divideprivacy issuesaccess issueseconomic disruptiondiscusser mean perceived risk increase+0.56 + 0.36 + 0.44 + 0.56 + 0.32 + 0.280.24 + 0.20non - discusser mean perceived risk increase+0.270.13 + 0.16 + 0.32 + 0.32 + 0.97 + 0.29 + 0.06none of the differences are statistically significant at the 0.100 level or below , however changes in risk perception for eight nanotechnology - related risk areas as a function of whether or not respondent has discussed nanotechnology with others , among south carolina citizens panel members none of the differences are statistically significant at the 0.100 level or below , however we are more interested in understanding the nature of people s perceptions than in evaluating them against a hypothetical scale of accuracy . we do not claim that elevated risk perceptions represent a distortion nor do we claim that they do not . policy makers interested in responding appropriately to public concerns might note , nevertheless , the more rapid rise in what we have termed  societal risks  in comparison to those associated with health and environment . while evidence continues to accumulate that health and environmental effects need attention , ordinary citizens also have additional concerns . at this point , in our panel study , these concerns are highest for erosion of privacy , with the human health concerns and concerns over a rich / poor country divide about tied for second place . this is the case despite a relative dearth of news coverage of nanotechnology and its risks ( friedman and egolf 2008 ) . while the patterns we observed may reflect general ambient concerns about social trends , as well as general expectations for technology that are not specifically limited to nanotechnology , we consider them important evidence that societal considerations matter . when we discuss risks and associated ethical considerations within the expert community our regulatory system is beginning to respond to these risks for nanotechnology , despite great challenges and uncertainties . however , we do very little to address other perceived societal concerns , such as erosion of privacy or economic impacts . public discussion of nanotechnology ( and , for that matter , all technology ) should expand to consider broader social impacts by using an  expanded vocabulary of risk  that helps legitimize these concerns . whether or not supportable by evidence or borne out by future events , all such public concerns will contribute ( directly or indirectly ) to the acceptability or unacceptability of future technology . it remains difficult , even after reviewing the interview material , to fully grasp why a large proportion of americans associated privacy erosion with nanotechnology ; it may have to do either with miniaturization in electronics or with the capacity of those electronics to store increasing amounts of medical and financial information , or it may represent a background concern with little logical connection to this specific class of technologies . the concern with economic disparity is in some ways equally puzzling ; in retrospect , we have to wonder what our respondents understood by a rich / poor country divide .  yet , in a crumbling economy , heightened awareness of the potential economic dimensions of any technology ( for better or for worse ) is hardly surprising . the technology planning process in the u.s . ( as elsewhere ) clearly does not do enough to understand , let alone address , the association of these broad societal issues with technological change . we recognize that these results may have been influenced by respondent sensitization ( i.e. , that these respondents may have reacted to any nanotechnology information they came across differently by virtue of their participation in the study ) , and that the study is also based on a non - random sample ; therefore , its elements are not necessarily generalizable to any population . nevertheless , we believe that the study accurately captures important patterns in the initial way non - expert groups respond to information concerning nanotechnology and possibly other newly emerging technologies .
this article presents early results from an opinion formation study based on a 76-member panel of u.s . 
 citizens , with comparison data from a group of 177 nanotechnology experts . 
 while initially similar to the expert group in terms of their perceptions of the risks , benefits , and need for regulation characterizing several forms of nanotechnology , the first follow - up survey indicates that the panel is beginning to diverge from the experts , particularly with respect to perceptions of the levels of various  societal  risks that nanotechnology might present . 
 the data suggest that responding to public concerns may involve more than attention to physical risks in areas such as health and environment ; concerns about other forms of risk actually appear more salient .