This article examines discussions between innovators and patient users about emergent medical technologies in the field of celiac disease. Using discursive psychology and conversation analysis, the authors analyze participants’ talk with regard to the social activities performed. They find that the topical agenda, preference structure, and presuppositions incorporated in the innovators’ questions restrict patients’ scope for saying things in and on their own terms. Not participants’ intentions per se but what the questions indirectly communicate profoundly shapes the agenda of these meetings. This may explain why some of the difficulties of innovator-user interaction are persistent and hard to pinpoint.
AkrichM. (1992). The de-scription of technical objects. In BijkerW.LawJ. (Eds.), Shaping technology/building society (pp. 205-224). Cambridge: MIT Press.
2.
BäckstrandK. (2003). Civic science for sustainability: Reframing the role of experts, policy-makers and citizens in environmental governance. Global Environmental Politics, 3(4), 24-41.
3.
BlumeS. (2000). Land of hope and glory: Exploring cochlear implantation in the Netherlands. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 25, 139-166.
4.
BoydE.HeritageJ. (2006). Taking the history: Questioning during comprehensive history-taking. In HeritageJ.MaynardD. (Eds.), Communication in medical care: Interactions between primary care physicians and patients (pp. 152-184). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
FeltU.FochlerM.MüllerA.StrassnigM. (2009). Unruly ethics: On the difficulties of a bottom-up approach to ethics in the field of genomics. Public Understanding of Science, 18, 354-371.
12.
GarudR.AhlstromD. (1997). Technology assessment: A socio-cognitive perspective. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management,14(1), 25-48.
13.
GremmenB. (1993). The mystery of the practical use of scientific knowledge (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands.
14.
Grove-WhiteR.MacnaghtenP.WynneB. (2000). Wising up: The public and new technologies. Lancaster, England: Lancaster University.
15.
GustonD.SarewitzD. (2002). Real-time technology assessment. Technology in Society, 24, 93-109.
16.
HarveyM. (2009). Drama, talk, and emotion: Omitted aspects of public participation. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 34, 139-161.
17.
HeritageJ. (2007, August). Constructing and navigating epistemic landscapes: The design of responses to questions. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, New York, NY.
18.
HeritageJ.RaymondG. (2005). The terms of agreement: Indexing epistemic authority and subordination in assessment sequences. Social Psychology Quarterly, 68, 15-38.
19.
JasanoffS. (2003). Technologies of humility: Citizen participation in governing science. Minerva, 41, 223-244.
20.
JeffersonG. (2004). Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In LernerG. H. (Ed.), Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation (pp. 13-31). Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins.
21.
KerrA.Cunningham-BurleyS.TuttonR. (2007). Shifting subject positions: Expert and lay people in public dialogue. Social Studies of Science, 37, 385-411.
22.
KomduurR.te MolderH. (2011). The role of genes in talking about overweight: An analysis of discourse on genetics, overweight and health risks in relation to nutrigenomics. Manuscript submitted for publication.
LamerichsJ.KoelenM.te MolderH. (2009). Turning adolescents into analysts of their own discourse. Raising reflexive awareness of everyday talk in order to develop peer-based health activities. Qualitative Health Research, 19, 1162-1175.
25.
LatourB. (1992). Where are the missing masses? The sociology of a few mundane artifacts. In BijkerW.LawJ. (Eds.), Shaping technology/building society (pp. 151-180). Cambridge: MIT Press.
26.
MacKenzieD.WajcmanJ. (1999). The social shaping of technology. Buckingham, England: Open University Press.
27.
MacnaghtenP.KearnesM.WynneB. (2005). Nanotechnology, governance, and public deliberation: What role for the social sciences?Science Communication, 27, 268-291.
28.
MyersG. (2004). Agreeing and disagreeing: Maintaining sociable argument. In MacnaghtenP.MyersG. (Eds.), Focus groups (pp. 65-79). London, England: SAGE.
29.
MyersG. (2007). Enabling talk: How the facilitator shapes a focus group. Text & Talk: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language, Discourse & Communication Studies, 27(1), 79-105.
30.
OudshoornN. E. J.PinchT. J. (2003). How users and non-users matter. In OudshoornN.PinchT. (Eds.), How users matter: The co-construction of technologies and users (pp. 4-22). Cambridge: MIT Press.
31.
PotterJ. (1996). Representing reality: Discourse, rhetoric and social construction. Loughborough, England: SAGE.
32.
PotterJ.HepburnA. (2005). Qualitative interviews in psychology: Problems and possibilities. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 2(4), 38-55.
33.
RaymondG. (2003). Grammar and social organization: Yes/no type interrogatives and the structure of responding. American Sociological Review, 68, 939-967.
34.
RaymondG. (2009). Grammar and social relations: Alternative forms of yes/no type initiating actions in health visitor interactions. In FreedA. F.ErlichS. (Eds.), “Why do you ask?” The function of questions in institutional discourse (pp. 87-107). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
35.
RipA.MisaT.SchotJ. (Eds.). (1995). Managing technology in society: The approach of constructive technology assessment. London, England: Thomson.
36.
Rogers-HaydenT.PidgeonN. (2007). Moving engagement “upstream”? Nanotechnologies and the royal society and royal academy of engineering’s inquiry. Public Understanding of Science, 16, 345-364.
37.
SchotJ.RipA. (1997). The past and future of constructive technology assessment. Technological Forecasting & Social Change, 54, 251-268.
38.
ScottA.Du PlessisR. (2008). Eliciting situated knowledges about new technologies. Public Understanding of Science, 17, 105-119.
39.
SilverstoneR.HirschE. (Eds.). (1992). Consuming technologies: Media and information in domestic spaces. New York, NY: Routledge.
40.
StepniakD.Spaenij-DekkingL.MiteaC.MoesterM.de RuA.Baak-PabloR.. . . KoningF. (2006). Highly efficient gluten degradation with a newly identified prolyl endoprotease: Implications for celiac disease. American Journal of Physiology: Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology, 291, G621-G629.
41.
StokoeE.EdwardsD. (2009). Accomplishing social action with identity categories: Mediating neighbour complaints. In WetherellM. (Ed.), Theorizing identities and social action (pp. 95-115). London: SAGE.
42.
SwierstraT.te MolderH. (2011). Risk and soft impacts. In RoeserS. (Ed.), Handbook of Risk Theory (pp. 1050-1066). Dordrecht: Springer.
43.
te MolderH.BovenhoffM.GremmenB.Van WoerkumC. (2011). Talking future technologies: How celiac disease patients neither accept nor reject “a simple pill.”Manuscript submitted for publication.
44.
Van der SandenM. C. A.MeijmanF. J. (2008). Dialogue guides awareness and understanding of science: An essay on different goals of dialogue leading to different science communication approaches. Public Understanding of Science,17, 89-103.
45.
VeenM.GremmenB.te MolderH.Van WoerkumC. (2011). Emergent technologies against the background of everyday life: Discursive psychology as a technology assessment tool. Public Understanding of Science, 20. 810-825.
46.
VeenM.te MolderH.GremmenB.Van WoerkumC. (2010). Quitting is not an option: An analysis of online diet talk between celiac disease patients. Health, 14, 23-40.
47.
VeenM.te MolderH.GremmenB.Van WoerkumC. (2011). If you can’t eat what you like, like what you can: How celiac disease patients and their families construct dietary restrictions as a matter of choice. Manuscript submitted for publication.
WalmsleyH. (2010). Biobanking, public consultation, and the discursive logics of deliberation: Five lessons from British Columbia. Public Understanding of Science, 19, 452-468. doi:10.1177/096366250933552310.1177/0963662509335523
50.
WoolgarS. (1991). The turn to technology in social studies of science. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 16, 20-50.
51.
WynneB. (2001). Creating public alienation: Expert cultures of risk and ethics on GMOs. Science as Culture10, 445-481.
