Supporting Citizens in Reflection on Synthetic Biology by Means of Video-Narratives

Abstract

To unravel how video-narratives can support reflection in Responsible Research and Innovation contexts, this study evaluates four video-narratives designed for citizen-reflection on synthetic biology. Each video narrative comprised separate clips about three subtopics in which actors represented different views of synthetic biology. The video-clips were presented to Dutch citizens in two different setups: per narrator and per subtopic. Both setups appeared to trigger three reflection processes and three reflection outcomes. Our findings suggest that video-narratives shown per subtopic support reflection more extensively, provided that workshop setups pay considerable attention to reflection on values and assumptions.