ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how media negotiates and complicates the expert–layperson divide in controversies about health effects of electromagnetic field (EMF) emissions. Due to “uncertain risks” of EMFs, experts (radiologists, oncologists, antenna specialists) themselves are divided and fail to allay public apprehensions about living in proximity of EMF emitting devices. This limitation of scientific evidence in EMF debates, I argue, provides opportunities for anecdotal evidence of “laypersons” to influence public health discourse. Examining “lay” testimonies in television shows and documentary films, I analyze what is achieved politically and epistemologically through the presentation of anecdotal evidence in mediated arenas. While some sociologists of risk accuse the media of causing mass hysteria and health panics, this chapter considers the affective mediations of lay testimonies. Anecdotal evidence privileges lived experience and situated knowledges of affected communities (including “electrosensitives”) coping with environmental effects of EMFs, and media become an outlet for embodied presentations of such evidence. Such emerging mediations of risks provide anecdotal evidence with an affective charge that compels policymakers to consider lay expertise and adopt precautionary principle.
