PUBLIC DESIGN WORKSHOP

NYU LAW SCHOOL, SEPTEMBER 13-14,- 2002



Natalie Jeremijenko
(nat@cat.nyu.edu)
Center for Advanced Technology
New York University
719 Broadway - 12th Floor
New York NY 10003
Phone: 212 998 3382
Fax: 212 995 4122

Title of Presentation: Promoting access to scientific data for the public interest: how can information technology change lay/expert relationship?

This paper argues that IT design strategies that exploit the spectacle of participation can effect changes in the structures of participation that surround public interest discourse -- specifically environmental and public health data. The public interests discourse that depends heavily of technical and scientific representations, is characterized by the dilemma of presenting information to radically different groups, in which legibility of the representations is hard to ensure and variability of interpretation is guaranteed. The design strategies -- explored with a number of illustrative cases -- are contrasted to journalistic strategies of representation and those used within communities of expertise. I argue that to evaluate these and other IT based projects that the social value can be made explicit (assessed) with attention to the structures of participation legitimated by implemented systems.