ABSTRACT
This chapter advocates for a different approach: focus on the cultural dynamics of communication within public participation. A cultural perspective on communication examines the speech events wherein publics are invited to participate, including the divergent expectations and meanings that citizens and event designers hold for communication, public participation and political life. The Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) was passed by California legislators in 1999, mandating the development of a network of marine protected areas (MPAs) along the California coast that extant research suggested would be more effective at sustaining and conserving marine life than the ad-hoc arrangement that existed prior to the act. Sprain was invited to participate in early planning meetings of the The Poudre Runs Through It (PRTI) series based on her affiliation with the Colorado State University Center for Public Deliberation (CPD). In the field of communication, Philipsen restated the ethnography of communication in one essential axiom, the axiom of particularity.
