In 2008, a grassroots opposition movement succeeded in stopping California’s aerial spray program for eradicating the light brown apple moth. The movement included a small core of citizen experts who focused on refuting the technical assessments that the state used to justify the aerial spray program. This article analyzes the rhetoric of the opposition movement, especially its written technical discourse, to find out how the movement established expert authority and why the movement’s rhetorical success represents a cautionary tale for public deliberation in an era of democratized expertise.
AinaL. O. (2000). Grey literature and library and information studies: A global perspective. International Journal on Grey Literature, 1, 179–182.
2.
AugerC. (1994). Information sources in grey literature(3rd ed.). London, England: Bowder-Saur.
3.
BloorM. (2000). The South Wales Miners Federation, miners’ lung and the instrumental use of expertise, 1900-1950. Social Studies of Science, 30, 125–140.
4.
BlytheS.GrabillJ. T.RileyK. (2008). Action research and wicked environmental problems: Exploring appropriate roles for researchers in professional communication. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 22, 272–298.
5.
CollinsH. M.EvansR. (2002). The third wave of science studies. Social Studies of Science, 32, 235–296.
6.
Committee for the Review of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Response to Petitions to Reclassify the Light Brown Apple Moth as a Non-Actionable Pest, National Research Council. (2009). Review of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service response to petitions to reclassify the light brown apple moth as a non-actionable pest: A letter report. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
7.
EpsteinS. (1998). Impure science: AIDS, activism, and the politics of knowledge. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
8.
FischerF. (2000). Citizens, experts, and the environment: The politics of local knowledge. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
9.
KillingsworthM. J.PalmerJ. S. (1991). Ecospeak: Rhetoric and environmental politics in America. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
10.
LimogesC. (1993). Expert knowledge and decision-making in controversy contexts. Public Understanding of Science, 2, 417–426.
11.
LindemanN. (2007). Creating knowledge for advocacy: The discourse of research at a conservation organization. Technical Communication Quarterly, 16, 431–451.
NowotnyH. (2003). Democratising expertise and socially robust knowledge. Science and Public Policy, 30, 151–156.
15.
Office of Environmental Health and Hazard Assessment, Department of Pesticide Regulation, & California Department of Public Health. (2008). Summary of symptom reports in areas of aerial pheromone application for management of the Light Brown Apple Moth in Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties September, October, and November 2007. Retrieved fromhttp://oehha.ca.gov/risk/pdf/LBAM041008.pdf
SimmonsW. M. (2007). Participation and power: Civic discourse in environmental policy decisions. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
18.
SimmonsW. M.GrabillJ. T. (2007). Toward a civic rhetoric for technologically and scientifically complex places: Invention, performance, and participation. College Composition and Communication, 58, 419–448.
StratmanJ. F.BoykinC.HolmesM. C.LauferM. J.BreenM. (1995). Risk communication, metacommunication, and rhetorical stases in the Aspen–EPA Superfund controversy. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 9, 5–41.
22.
TurnerS. P. (2003). Liberal democracy 3.0: Civil society in an age of experts. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
WaddellC. (1995). Defining sustainable development: A case study in environmental communication. Technical Communication Quarterly, 4, 201–216.
26.
WaddellC. (1996). Saving the Great Lakes: Public participation in environmental policy. In HerndlC. G.BrownS. C. (Eds.), Green culture: Environmental rhetoric in contemporary America (pp. 141–165). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
27.
WynneB. (1992). Misunderstood misunderstanding: Social identities and public uptake of science. Public Understanding of Science, 1, 281–304.
