Sustainable dialogue between experts and the general public

Abstract

A new form of dialogue named "sustainable dialogue" is proposed in the face of an increasing need for better communication between the general public and experts in various science and technology fields such as disaster reduction, medical sciences, and civil engineering. The goal of sustainable dialogue is to secure the continuous joint efforts by both experts and the public toward better solutions without settling into a static condition. This type of dialogue is sharply contrasted with the preexisting, more static dialogues; "dialogue for one-way knowledge transfer" and "dialogue for consensus-making." The paper introduces a gaming approach, called "Crossroad: Kobe," as an example of practical media to realize sustainable dialogue between disaster experts and local citizens, as well as between those who experienced a disaster and those who did not. The advantage of the gaming procedure is also discussed theoretically from the perspective of Luhmann's risk theory.View full abstract