Citizen’s Jury on Fracking | Assignment

Running head: CITIZEN’S JURY ON FRACKING
Citizen’s Jury on Fracking
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

2CITIZEN’S JURY ON FRACKING
Introduction
The method of hydraulic fracking (fracturing) has been used to recover oil and gas
from rocks beneath the earth's surface. Cuadrilla, an energy firm was the first to start fracking
in the United Kingdom until their operation was stopped in 2011 fearing tremors and
subsequently earthquake; thereby marked as being controversial and risky. Public opinion
gathered by surveys and media polls have recorded that there is a mixed public opinion on
fracking which tends more toward anti fracking sentiments. Moreover, there are research
works that have conducted survey for gathering public beliefs regarding (Howell 2018). In
this regard, a citizens' jury could be appointed and vested with the responsibility of
understanding public opinion towards fracking.
Aim of the citizens' jury
The citizens' jury aims to gain a better understanding of public opinion about
hydraulic fracking.
Purpose
As discussed, hydraulic fracking involves certain adverse impact on human lives as
well as on environment like health impacts, carbon dioxide emission, atmospheric pollution
from methane gas emission and flaring, induced seismicity, groundwater contamination from
methane, light and noise pollution, road traffic damage, impact on water availability, et
cetera. Therefore, fracking has been marked as controversial and risky (Neil et al. 2018).
However, it is also known that recovery of new sources of shale gas would open new
industrial avenues and community benefits like industrialisation of rural areas, job creation,
reduced fuel cost, cleaner renewable energy than coal, and other benefits to various industries
in the country and beyond. In this regard it is essential to understand the mixed opinion of the
public on fracking with the help of a citizens’ jury.

3CITIZEN’S JURY ON FRACKING
Research Questions
On the light of the given research topic, the following research questions could be asked
in order to gain a better understanding of public opinion regarding fracking:
1. What does common people understand about fracking and its adverse impacts?
2. Why is fracking marked as controversial and risky?
3. What do survey and poll results signify about the opinion of the public about
fracking?
4. What are the views of researchers and academicians on this area of research?
Design
Meeting of the Citizens’ Jury
The citizens' jury as selected shall meet at a place commonly decided by the members
of the jury. It could be a public place or a private space as decided by the members by polls
with majority votes (Citizens' assemblies and Citizens Juries 2020).
Selection of the Member of the Jury
As recommended by the Jefferson Center, 12 to 24 citizens are usually selected with
the help of stratified random sampling based on certain criteria that includes age, gender,
ethnicity and socio-economic background (Citizens' Jury 2020). The selected members could,
hence be divided into 4 groups as per their roles:
a) Jurors: engages to question witnesses, scrutinises evidence and contributes to the final
decision or recommendation.
b) Expert Witnesses: explains the issue, summarises evidences, provides personal views,
takes a particular side and advocates it, response to questions asked by jurors.

4CITIZEN’S JURY ON FRACKING
c) Facilitators: supports the citizens, it keeps a moderate participation in the discussion,
ensure fairness, supports the question answer process involving the jurors and the experts,
helps with the decision-making or recommending process.
d) The Citizens’ friends: helps by providing sources of evidences and also by facilitating
better understanding of complicated issues as discussed by the jurors and experts.
Selection of Expert Witnesses
Among the 12 to 24 randomly selected members of the citizens' jury, 8 to 10 members
could be chosen as expert witnesses who are vested with the responsibility of explaining the
issue in question for which the citizens’ jury has been formed. The expert with this is shall be
chosen among the members of the citizens' jury who represents different spectrum of age,
gender, ethnicity and socio-economic background (Citizens' Jury 2020).
The expert witnesses will be responsible for summarising the evidences that has been
presented before the jurors. Moreover, the experts are expected to lay down their opinions
and viewpoints, thereby advocating and favouring one of the sides (Citizens' Jury 2020). In
this way, there shall be two sets of expert witnesses who shall advocate each of the sides or
perspectives in question.
Expected Outcome
From the above proposed session of citizens' jury, it would be expected from their
findings and analysis that there is a strong opposition against hydraulic fracking in
comparison to a collective support in favour of it. The various survey reports, newspaper
reports, journal articles and research works are an example of such outcome.

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References
Howell, R.A., 2018. UK public beliefs about fracking and effects of knowledge on beliefs
and support: A problem for shale gas policy. Energy Policy, 113, pp.721-730.
Involve.org.uk. 2020. Citizens' Jury. [online] Available at:
<https://www.involve.org.uk/resources/methods/citizens-jury> [Accessed 21 March 2020].
Local.gov.uk. 2020. Citizens' Assemblies And Citizens Juries. [online] Available at:
<https://www.local.gov.uk/topics/devolution/engaging-citizens-devolution/approaches-civic-
and-democratic-engagement/citizens> [Accessed 21 March 2020].
Neil, J., Schweickart, T., Zhang, T., Lukito, J., Kim, J.Y., Golan, G. and Kiousis, S., 2018.
The dash for gas: Examining third-level agenda-building and fracking in the United
Kingdom. Journalism Studies, 19(2), pp.182-208.