Methodology for the creation of a social consensus in the rollout of mobile telephone infrastructures

Abstract

This working paper is specifically concerned with the development of the mobile telephone infrastructure in Catalonia as an example of a technology with profound social implications. It is an initial attempt to define certain lines of research related to the topic. This project is operating within the broader Negrisc research programme, which examines the negotiation of risk in the field of information and communication technologies. It sets out from an approach which recognises the multidisciplinary nature of risk and which therefore demands an interdisciplinary approach to its study and subsequent management. This perspective stresses the necessity of integrating viewpoints of the different stakeholders, including the public, in the management of a socially controversial technology. This is seen as a necessary step to enable the generation of some sort of social consensus in the case of the rollout of the mobile phone infrastructure in Catalonia.