Framing prospects and risk in the public promotion of ESS Scandinavia

Abstract

The public campaign to locate the European Spallation Source (ESS) near Lund, southern Sweden is considered. The public case for ESS Scandinavia offers an opportunity to study how a large-scale investment in ‘big science’ is presented and marketed in a specific national setting, using ‘offensive’ as well as ‘defensive’ public relations strategies to cope with an issue where the media–public opinion interaction could be either an asset and even a precondition for success, or a powerful and unpredictable potential threat. The offensive strategy was based on a dualistic description of the nature of future science, as on the one hand incomprehensible and on the other predictable in terms of material deliveries: a mixture of mystique and instrument for future innovations. Lacking an active anti-ESS movement and a critical media campaign, the defensive strategy remained unfocused, mirroring environmental scepticism over land use as well as earlier controversies over nuclear energy.

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