A Case Study: Three Mile Island

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A Case StudyThree Mile Island

• Providing Some Context--White
• Accidental RhetoricFarrell Goodnight
• TFD

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Providing Some ContextWhiteNational Forum, Vol.
81, No. 1

• Since 1883 approx. 103 disasters have occurred
  in which a complex technical system failed p. 25
• BridgesTacoma Narrows Bridge-1940, Vancouver
  Second Narrows Bridge-1958
• DamsBaldwin Hills Dam-1963, Teton Dam-1976
• BuildingsSkyline Plaza-1973, Kemper Arena-1979

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Context continued

• War MachinesShenandoah airship-1925, U.S.S.
  Squalus-1939
• SpacecraftApollo I-1967, Challenger-1986
• AircraftComet-1954, Turkish Airline DC10-1974
• Oil TankersAmoco Cadiz-1978, Exxon Valdez-1989

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Context continued

• ChemistryThalidomide-1950s-1960s, Agent
  Orange1961-1971, Bhopal-1984
• Nuclear PowerKyshtym-1957, Three Mile
  Island-1979, Chernobyl-1986

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Case Study Three Mile Island Farrell
Goodnight

• Social Reason inferences prompted by pressing
  contingencies of ordinary life, claims of
  advocates are affiliated with the interests of
  related others and grounded in the generalizable
  convictions of a competent audience p. 273
• Technical reason characteristic of specialized
  forums, wherein discourse is coded to fit
  functional demands of particular fields and
  evaluated according to an array of
  state-of-the-art techniques p. 273

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Key Issues

• The failure of technical reason to inform
  adequately public deliberation
• Present communication practices may impede public
  deliberation
• Technology has imposed limits upon the practical
  capacity of discourse to adjudicate problems
  within the public sphere

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What is meant by Energy as the Precondition for
Social Life?
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A Reconstruction Describe the Accident
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Key Issues

• The failure of technical reason to inform
  adequately public deliberation
• Present communication practices may impede public
  deliberation
• Technology has imposed limits upon the practical
  capacity of discourse to adjudicate problems
  within the public sphere