Public attitudes to countryside leisure: A case study on ambivalence* 1

Journal of Rural Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 135-147, 1995 Copyright ~) 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved 0743-0167/95 $9.50 + 0.00

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Public Attitudes to Countryside Leisure: a Case Study on Ambivalence I Phil Macnaghten Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of Environmental Change, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YN, U.K.

Abstract - - This paper describes a research study designed to look critically at the framework underpinning current attitude survey research on countryside leisure. The argument proposes that people do not have set and stable needs and attitudes. Using a framework informed by recent debates on discourse and rhetoric in social psychology, the research examines whether people appear to have, on the surface, variable and flexible views on countryside leisure which reflect deeper societal tensions, ambiguities and uncertainties. This perspective is in stark contrast to current key U.K. leisure policy documents and understandings which implicitly assume people to have unitary and stable needs and views which reflect internally consistent "attitudes" (although the needs which people are assumed to have in relation to countryside leisure are subtly different across the different policy documents). Using seven topical and strongly contested disputes over the appropriateness of particular leisure uses for the English countryside the research "playfully" seeks to determine whether poeple's expressed views and attitudes to the same issues of countryside leisure can be radically transformed in line with wider cultural controversies. This hypothesis is explored by introducing the same issues, framed in line with three 'cultural' voices, in three consecutive weeks. The hypothesis is largely confirmed across many of the countryside leisure controversies and is interpreted as revealing of the considerable ambivalence in people's expressed preferences. The results are argued to be highly relevent to policy makers and some implications of this kind of research are drawn out for U.K. government agencies. Wider theoretical implications are also explored concerning the power of contemporary cultural rhetorics, and of how a more reflexive understanding of such rhetorics might inform the practices of a variety of social groupings.

having to detect the changing expectations and motivations of the general public. One popular technique to gauge public opinion is to commission opinion surveys and other forms of attitudinal research to determine the changing contours of people's beliefs, values and concerns. The logic of such research is that by asking people to respond to pertinent statements, one can determine what people's underlying values and attitudes are so that g o v e r n m e n t agencies are in a better position to provide for such 'needs'. This article reports on a study designed to examine the f r a m e w o r k underpinning such research in the specific realm of countryside leisure, as part of a wider investigation of current tensions in the English countryside arising f r o m leisure dynamics (see Clark et al., 1994a, 1994b).

Introduction and intellectual context of research In the post-Thatcherite era of m a r k e t testing and public accountability, policy makers increasingly are 1The research arises from a project, funded by the Monument Trust for the Council for the Protection of Rural England, on "Leisure Uses of the Countryside". The research culminated in a report, entitled "Leisure Landscapes. Leisure, Culture and the English Countryside: challenges and conflicts" (Clark et al., 1994a), and 14 Background Papers (Clark et al., 1994b), which has posed a considerable challenge to conventional approaches to policy making in the field of leisure and the countryside. The empirical survey data, published here for the first time to an academic audience, was a central component of the report. I would like to thank my fellow contributors on the above project: namely Robin Grove-White, John Urry, Gordon Clark, John Scott and Jan Darrall. I would also like to thank Bron Szerszynski, Simon Shackley, Mark Toogood, Claire Waterton, Jackie Stacey, Jeremy Worth and Steve Reicher for helpful comments on earlier drafts of the paper.

O f the three U.K. government agencies concerned with rural leisure (i.e. the Sports Council, the 135

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Countryside Commission and the English Tourist Board), the Countryside Commission has been the most concerned with the monitoring of public opinion through attitude surveys. Alongside a comprehensive research portfolio involving a combination of behavioural surveys, interviews, focus groups and experiments 2, the Countryside Commission have in recent years sponsored up to 25 questions relating to countryside uses in the annual Social and Community Planning Research, SCPR's British Social Attitudes Survey. Indeed, an analysis of how these questions have been interpreted as indicative of how people generally perceive countryside change, and the degree to which these are seen as 'threats', can be found in Ken Young's interim report on the countryside (Young, 1987). To date, these studies have been used by the Commission as evidence of the general profile of countryside users, of what people do when visiting the countryside, of the main sources of countryside change and threat and of people's key motivations and expectations from the countryside. Such results have been used to confirm: • the continuing popularity of visits to the countryside; • the importance of the local countryside and especially the activity of walking; • the strong attitudes people have towards threats and changes to the countryside, shared equally across town dwellers and country dwellers; • the high level of concern people have towards the conservation of the natural environment; • the increasing cultural significance of an attractive and beautiful countryside; • the identification of the countryside as a natural place which offers peace and solitude; • the high regard in which the countryside is held by people from all walks of life, and the way in which countryside experiences are cherished (Phillips and Ashcroft, 1987). The Countryside Commission have used these results as a genuine attempt to monitor trends in public attitudes; as evidence that the Commission shares similar priorities to the general public; and generally as support evidence to service particular policy needs. In particular, the Commission has argued that such data confirm the public significance of their statutory remit to enhance the beauty of the countryside and to help people enjoy it, and for :For examples of the range of research conducted by the Commission in their efforts to understand the current uses of the countryside by the public and their changing expectations, see Countryside Commission (1984, 1986a, 1986b, 1987).

policy choices which in recent years have tended to emphasise access to the local countryside, and which have promoted a well-sign posted and accessible "public rights of way" network. This article follows a critique, developed in social psychology, which argues that attitudinal research has clear limitations in its ability to clarify the complexity of people's views and concerns to particular issues. In recent years, the epistemological foundations of attitudinal research have been criticised for presupposing a one-dimensional model of the person (Billig, 1987, 1991), and for suppressing the latent variability in people's thinking (Billig, 1982; Moscovici, 1984; Potter and Wetherell, 1987, 1988). The rationale of attitude surveys is that the location of individual responses to attitude statements reveal the essence of people's thinking about particular issues. In contrast, proponents of a social representation approach (Jaspars and Fraser, 1984; Moscovici, 1963, 1983) have criticised such research for producing an individualist bias; while Michael Billig (see Billig, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991) has pioneered an alternative 'rhetorical' approach in which attitudes are placed in their wider argumentative and historical contexts. Billig argues: If the argumentative aspects of attitudes are stressed, then attitudes are not to be viewed solely as individual evaluative responses to a given stimulus object. Instead, attitudes are stances in matters of controversy: they are positions in arguments (Billig, 1987; 1993). Every attitude in favour of a position is also, implicitly but more often explicitly, also a stance against the counterposition. Because attitudes are stances on matters of controversy, we can expect attitude holders to justify their position and to criticise the counter-position (Billig, 1988, p. 84, original emphases). Thus on such topics as the monarchy, voting patterns, threats to the countryside, and the role of government, attitude research has produced quantities of data which claim to reveal the underlying preferences of people to such issues. In response, critics have argued that people are generally more ambiguous, more contradictory and more dilemmatic than traditional attitude theory supposes (Billig, 1988; Wynne et al., 1993); and that the contradictions and variabilities within individuals reflect wider discursive positions (Billig, 1989). Billig (1987) illuminates this approach by turning to ancient rhetoric to extract a deeper understanding of the relationship between thought and argument, and of the direct relationship between internal dilemmas and wider cultural controversies. This critique is especially pertinent in relation to people's concerns and views on the environment (including issues around countryside leisure), as an exemplary arena where societal and policy agendas are often contra-

Public Attitudes to Countryside Leisure dictory, paradoxical, and highly controversial. Thus, in cultural environmental controversies over animal rights, hunting, or factory farming; or indeed, in current scientific environmental controversies over global warming, genetic engineering, or acid rain; it is likely for lay publics to share these cultural and scientific dilemmas by also holding variable, contradictory, and context contingent views. One way of accounting for these ambivalences is through a developing body of theory on the sociology of culture that attempts to define recent fundamental changes in the organisation and culture of contemporary 'western' societies. The terms used for these changes differ; some see them as a move from modernity to post/late modernity, others from a fordist to a post-fordist society, others from organised to disorganised capitalism and others from an industrial to a post-industrial society (Lash and Urry, 1994). What all these overviews share is an assumption that present cultural transformations and future trajectories cannot be explained in terms of gradual developments from past trends, seen in traditional sociological terms of classes and interests. Ulrich Beck's (1992, 1993) thesis of reflexive modernisation posits a new categorical shift in the relationship between the individual and society, characterised by the loss of traditional certainties of modernity and the emergence of a new cultural situation whereby the self is characterised not by virtues of certainty, simple rationality and consistency, but rather by contradiction, contingency and ambiguity. If a cultural change of this sort is taking place, regardless what overall terms might be used to describe it, it will crucially affect choices of methodology as well as theory. If ambivalence in how people understand contemporary cultural and political issues is more widespread than traditional attitudinal theory supposes, it is crucial that both researchers and policy makers

3For a range of studies which have focused in great detail on the social and historical determinations of the English countryside, see Berger (1972), Cosgrove (1990), Crouch (1990), Harrison (1991), Short (1991), Urry (1993), Williams (1973), Wright (1985). 4It could be argued that what appears to be such a blatant manipulation of individual opinion might raise ethical dilemmas. However, in response I suggest that this study was less an attempt to manipulate public opinion, and more an attempt to examine how people's expressed opinion on a number of highly topical dilemmas rests crucially on how the issues are framed by the experimenter. I also suggest that all opinion surveys inevitably involve a selective framing of particular issues, and that an attempt to examine the wider contingencies of opinion surveys offers new possibilities for a more reflexive understanding and awareness of the cultural construction of public opinion.

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understand it better. To date, much of the critique of traditional attitude research has led to different methodologies which have tended to be more qualitative, more interpretative, more focused on discourse and narrative, and more concerned with ambiguity and variability in open-ended talk. In the sphere of environmental research, much of the more qualitative methodologies and techniques have been pioneered by Jacqueline Burgess and Carolyn Harrison (see Burgess et al., 1990; Burgess et al., 1988; Burgess et al., 1988a, 1988b; Harrison and Burgess, 1994; Harrison et al., 1987), who have written extensively on the value of depth interviews and small group discussions to yield rich and complex linguistic data: not least on how people value their local environments. However, in contrast to this shift to the more qualitative, it was decided that aspects of the epistemological limitations of attitude surveys, and their selective interpretation by policy makers, could better be demonstrated through a more 'playful' exploration with those same techniques and methodologies. Instead of assuming that people have stable, consistent views and attitudes to countryside leisure, as proposed in traditional attitudinal research, an alternative epistemological position was proposed: i.e. that the countryside and leisure exist as highly contested social categories which reflect on-going contemporary public disputes. 3 Moreover, these contested understandings were considered just as likely to exist in the private realm of individuals as in the public real of civic society. From this perspective a research framework was set up where different primary needs of countryside leisure were proposed and public 'attitudes' sought through a survey methodology. Thus, the technique of the attitude survey was used to identify whether people's expressed views and attitudes to identical issues of countryside leisure could be transformed in line with competing public arguments currently deployed over the future of the English countryside: attitudes which would appear contradictory out of context, but perfectly understandable when located in different social and political contexts. This perspective was taken to elaborate debate on the nature of current leisure conflicts in the countryside, and how current descriptions of these conflicts are partially contingent on how the debate has been selectively framed in current research. 4 Research questions and voices To test the extent of expressed public ambivalence, seven public controversies over countryside leisure uses were used for the 'attitude' surveys. These arguments were identified as some of the most

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prominent cultural disputes over the future of the countryside for leisure. These were: • whether farmers should be allowed to charge walkers in return for access over their land; • whether people should have more general rights of access over the countryside; • whether car use in the countryside should be restricted; • whether local authorities should encourage new leisure developments in the countryside; • whether noisy sports and leisure should be permitted in the countryside; • whether the use of festivals by "new age travellers" are a legitimate use of the countryside; • whether the use of national quality standards are seen to homogenise the distinctive local character of the countryside. However, before introducing the details of the empirical research, I will briefly outline a case why each of the above issues was chosen as embodying some of the most striking contemporary public dilemmas over countryside leisure. (1) Dilemmas over whether access and use of the countryside should be priced have recently emerged in policy responses to the rising demand for access to the countryside. Using the framework of environmental economics (see Pearce et al., 1989), these possibilities are currently being debated and assessed not just by academics, but also by government agencies (e.g. the Countryside Commission, the Forestry Commission, the English Nature), by environmental groups (e.g. the National Trust), and by recently privitised utilities (e.g. water companies) .5 (2) Countryside access debates are part of a wider and much older history of public controversy, often between rural landowners and a largely urban population, where particular contemporary disputes frequently draw upon wider controversies over ownership, class and public 'rights' (see Shoard, 1980, 1989 for excellent accounts of the access debate). The Ramblers Association's campaign for more general access over the wider countryside, highlighted in 'Forbidden Britain days' of symbolic mass trespass, has increasing support in terms of escalating membership (now nearly 90,000), and is likely to be a political and cultural theme of continuing significance in the 1990s. 5A recent conference set up to explore the dilemmas and opportunities of charging for countryside leisure, entitled 'Our Priceless Countryside: should it be priced?', was organised by the Countryside Recreation Research Advisory Group (CRRAG) in 1991.

(3) Conflicts over the increased use of cars in the countryside and the associated loss of tranquility and 'ruralness' has emerged as perhaps, the most tangible and widely recognised dilemma between people's increasing desire for personal mobility and their accumulative social and environmental impacts (see Countryside Commission, 1992 for a comprehensive account of the social and environmental implications for the English countryside from projected car use, on the basis of the Government's current traffic forecasts). (4) The dilemmas over local authorities and leisure related developments in the countryside arise from their dual functions of economic regeneration, and their duties in protecting 'green space'. (5) Perhaps the best publicised public controversy of noisy sports is encapsulated in the 1994 public inquiry into a 10 mph speed limit on Windermere in the English Lake District, and the competing arguments concerning whether the Lake District is the right sort of place for powerboating. (6) The issue of New Age Travellers and their associated festivals has become one of the most contentious and high profile source of countryside conflict in recent years. They represent an extremely uncomfortable 'leisure' use of the countryside for government agencies, far removed from the sanitised world of theme parks, marinas and informal recreation. However, their undoubted popularity, and their own evolving 'tribal' culture suggest a significant new cultural configuration, with latent public sympathy, especially among the young. (7) Finally, the promotion of 'local distinctiveness' and sense of place has become an issue of growing political significance, which is likely to conflict with increasingly vocal appeals for national standards in the sphere of countryside leisure. Above, are seven examples of current tensions and emerging conflict over leisure uses of the countryside. However, instead of seeking to identify people's linear attitudes to these issues of countryside leisure, the research alternatively sought to challenge how each one of us, as users or potential users of the countryside, could possibly hold a range of different and even conflicting opinions or 'attitudes' concerning the legitimacy of particular countryside uses. The hypothesis was to question the extent to which people will perceive the above issues as threats and conflicts to the countryside, and to ask to what extent this perception of threat will depend on how the issue under scrutiny is framed and located by the experimenter. To test this hypothesis, three separate 'voices' were devised which reflected

Public Attitudes to Countryside Leisure three different cultural outlooks on countryside leisure. Two of the voices were adapted from a discourse analysis of policy documents of the English Tourist Board and the Countryside Commission (see Clark et al., 1994b). The first voice introduced the research in terms of the economic role of leisure and tourism in rejuvenating the rural economy. This voice was hypothesised to engender attitudes which were more in sympathy with development in the countryside, charging policies, noisy sports, and an increased use of quality standards. The second voice introduced the research in terms of the countryside as a place of peace and natural beauty which needs to be conserved in an increasingly polluted world. This voice was hypothesised to engender attitudes which were less sympathetic to charging policies, festivals, noisy sports, the increased use of quality standards, unrestricted car use, general rights to r o a m , and new leisure and tourist development. A n d the third voice introduced the research with reference to the countryside as a place of freedom and escape. This voice was hypothesised to engender attitudes which were m o r e sympathetic to unpaid access, the opportunity to ramble freely across the countryside, new developments, noisy sports and new age travellers' festivals. 6 O f course, it is important to note that each voice as used in this study was constructed by the researcher, as illustrative of c o n t e m p o r a r y cultural debate on the 6The different introductions to the research across the three voices, as articulated by interviewers in the administration of the surveys, are given below: Voice 1 "I would now like to talk to you about the British countryside. Many people feel that the countryside is a wonderful place for tourists and visitors. However, many visitors would like better countryside facilities and attractions. These new developments would help local people by bringing in much needed money and jobs into rural areas. I am going to read out some statements which other people have made about tourism and the countryside and would like you to tell me how much you agree or disagree with each one." Voice 2 "I would now like to talk to you about the British countryside. Many people value the peace and natural beauty of the British countryside in an increasingly polluted world. They feel that efforts must be made to preserve the countryside by making sure that people use it carefully and responsibly. I am going to read out some statements which other people have made about conserving the countryside and would like you to tell me how much you agree or disagree with each one." Voice 3 "I would now like to talk to you about the British countryside. More and more people want to escape the towns and cities and enjoy the freedom of the countryside. Nowadays, there are lots of opportunities to have fun in the countryside and to enjoy the open air. I am going to read out some statements which other people have made about enjoying the countryside and would like you to tell me how much you agree or disagree with each one."

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countryside. Indeed, although two of the voices were loosely derived from public policy discourse, it is important not to reify the voices, nor to consider them as socially unitary; rather, each voice is set out as one possible articulation of the leisure debate. The hypothesis was to examine whether people's expressed opinions to c o n t e m p o r a r y leisure dilemmas depends on how the issue is framed by the researcher. This was tested by introducing the same countryside leisure dilemmas, framed in line with the three voices in three consecutive weeks. The predictions were thus less concerned with the actual content of the expressed 'attitudes' towards the seven leisure dilemmas and more with the predicted differences between the three voices towards the same leisure issues. The predicted 'attitudes' are presented in Table 1 (the gaps in the table are where the voices were d e e m e d to have no direct relationship to the statements and so were not asked in the research).

Sample and procedure The research was carried out by Research Surveys G r e a t Britain ( R S G B ) , a national opinion poll and survey organisation, on three separate weeks using a randomised sample of around 1000 subjects for each voice. The survey was based on a representative sample of adults, i.e. males and females aged 16 or over. They were selected from a minimum of 130 sampling points. Effectively, because of the rigorous sample method used, the respondents were to all intents and purposes 'the same' (though clearly different individuals) in each of the three successive weeks of the survey. Respondents were interviewed at h o m e by interviewers organised by R S G B according to detailed instruction about the survey and administrative procedures. The interviews took place between the period of 21st October and 1st N o v e m b e r 1992.

Research findings The fieldwork details and raw data are set out in the Centre for the Study of Environmental Change (CSEC) (1993) fieldwork report, " R G S B Omnibus: attitudes towards the British countryside". For the present paper, the main findings of the research are described and some of their wider implications examined as they relate to the use of attitudinal research in countryside leisure policy. Before the data were analysed, the scores for the 'don't knows' were taken out, and the scores to each of the other responses were suitably presented so that positive scores and negative scores for the corresponding versions of each issue referred to agreement or

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Phil Macnaghten disagreement on the same issue (i.e. for certain questions the plus and minus scores were inverted to ensure direct comparison). A scale was devised between +2 and - 2 . For each question, means, standard deviations, and standard errors were calculated. To test the hypotheses, unrelated t-tests were carried out to determine the effect of the voices on each of the statements. Since the sample was extremely large, statistical significance was found for relatively small variations (roughly for any difference above 0.15 of a point). The results are illustrated in bar chart form, which best depicts the general effects of the voices.

E

O

~ .......

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Q1. Farmers have helped to make the countryside what it is and should be allowed to charge people a small amount to walk on their land.

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Q2. Farmers should not be allowed to make money from people who want to walk on their land. (+ and

NNN~NNN

- scores inverted to enable direct c o m p a r i s o n )

Q3. People should be allowed to explore the countryside without having to pay farmers and others who own land there. (+ and - scores inverted to enable direct c o m p a r i s o n )

0

0

0 0 ~

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Q2. Walkers should be made to keep to wellmarked footpaths in the countryside to avoid damaging it. (+ a n d - scores inverted to enable direct comparison)

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Q1. Allowing tourists to use their cars in the countryside will help the rural economy and therefore should not be restricted.

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Q3. Walkers should be allowed to ramble freely across the countryside so long as they don't damage it.

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Q2. The use of cars in the countryside should be restricted to keep it peaceful, safe and unpolluted. (+ and comparison)

scores

inverted

to

enable

direct

Q3. People should be allowed to use their cars to explore the countryside with as few restrictions as possible.

~=~.~= ~ Z Z Z Z

Q1. Planning authorities should encourage, wherever possible, well thought out tourist and leisure developments in the countryside. Q2. Planning authorities have a duty to protect the countryside by restricting the number of new tourist and leisure developments. (+ a n d - scores inverted to enable direct c o m p a r i s o n )

Public Attitudes to Countryside Leisure

141 Agree strongly

Agree slightly

Neither agree nor disagree

-1.

-0.75

-O.61

-0.78

f

Disagreeslightly

Disagree strongly 1 pro-development

2 pro-quietness

3 pro-freedom

Voices Figure 1. Attitudes towards allowing farmers to charge for access to countryside.

2-

Agree strongly

Agree slightly

Neither agree nor disagree

Disagree slightly

-1

Disagree Strongly

-2 2 pro-quietness

3 pro-freedom

Voices Figure 2. Attitudes towards general rights to roam in the countryside.

Agree strongly

Agree slightly 0.04

Neither agree nor disagree -0.65

Disagree slightly

Disgree Strongly

-2 1 pro-development

2 pro-quietness

3 pro-freedom

Voices Figure 3. Attitudes towards unrestricted car use in the countryside.

Phil Macnaghten

1 t2

Q3. Planning authorities should encourage new tourist and leisure attractions in the countryside so that people can have fun and enjoyment there. QI. Rural areas need new jobs and income, even if this means allowing noisy sports and leisure activities in the countryside. Q2. People should not be disturbed by noisy sports and leisure activities spoiling their enjoyment of the countryside. (+ and - scores inverted to enable direct comparison)

Q3. People should be allowed to enjoy themselves in the countryside even if some of their sports and leisure activities are a bit noisy. Q2. New age travellers and their festivals are an invasion of other people's right to a quiet country-

side. (+ and -

scores inverted to enable direct

comparison)

Q3. New age travellers should be able to enjoy the countryside by holding their festivals in suitable places. Q1. Tourist and leisure facilities in the countryside should be brought up to national quality standards to encourage more visitors. Q2. Rural areas should preserve their local character rather than adopt national quality standards when developing tourist and leisure facilities. (+ and - scores inverted to enable direct comparison)

In essence, the bar charts suggest that the public's expressed opinions or 'attitudes' towards key leisure issues in the countryside will be radically Agree strongly

t

Agree slightly

0.73

0.59 Neither agree nor disagree

Disagree slightly

-1.

-1.15 Disagree strongly

-2 1 pro-development

2 pro-quietness

3 pro-freedom

Voices

Figure 4. Attitudes towards new tourist developments in the countryside. Agree strongly

Agree slightly

-0.11

-0.24 .1 ¸

Neither agree nor disagree

Disagree slightly

-0.97

-2

Disagree strongly 1 pro-development

2 pro-quietness Voices

3 pro-freedom

Figure 5. Attitudes towards noisy sports in the countryside.

Public Attitudes to Countryside Leisure

143 Agree strongly

Agree slightly

Neither agree nor disagree -0.11

Disagree slightly

Disagree strongly

-2 2

pro-quietness

3

Voices

pro-freedom

Figure 6. Attitudes towards new age travellers and festivals. Agree strongly

Agree slightly

Neither agree nor disagree Disagree slightly

-1,

Disagree strongly

-2 1

2 pro-quietness

pro-development

Voices Figure 7. Attitudes towards quality standards in the countryside. influenced by the context in which they are being placed. Thus the survey shows them to be: • Generally not in favour of allowing farmers to charge walkers for access to the countryside; • In favour of making walkers keep to well-marked footpaths in the countryside, but also in favour of allowing walkers to ramble freely across the countryside; • In favour of restricting cars in the countryside, but also being unclear as to whether cars in the countryside should be unrestricted;

7Detailed analyses indicate that while there were differences within the voices, relating to such variables as age, socio-economic status, gender, and level of use of the countryside, these were nevertheless rarely significant, and generally of a far smaller scale in comparison to the effects of the three voices.

• In favour of planning authorities encouraging new tourist and leisure developments in the countryside, but also agreeing that planning authorities have a duty to restrict new tourist and leisure developments; • In favour of people not being disturbed by noisy sports in the countryside, but also being ambivalent whether noisy sports in the countryside should be permitted; • In favour of restricting new age travellers and their festivals in the countryside, but also being undecided whether new age travellers should be able to hold festivals; • In favour of bringing tourist and leisure facilities in the countryside up to national quality standards, but also agreeing that rural areas should be preserved rather than adopt national quality standards when developing new tourist and leisure facilities. 7

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Discussion

The above survey results suggest that what counts as a countryside threat cannot be read at face value from simple judgements of preference. Indeed, the sheer polarity of response across the three voices indicates the diverse ways in which the same issues of leisure use can be understood by the public. Indeed, in all but the leisure dilemma concerning whether farmers should be allowed to charge for access, the differences in expressed opinion across the voices to the leisure dilemmas confirmed the predicted hypotheses. Significantly, the results also revealed the extent to which people could take, on some occasions, diametrically oppositional positions on the same countryside leisure controversy. However, proponents of traditional attitude research might reply to the above interpretations by arguing that there were flaws in the design of the empirical study which raise fundamental doubts about the findings. They may argue that the statements across the voices contained separate elements, that 'positive' and 'negative' statements were not balanced, and that 'cueing' was not prevented. While it is accepted that there could have been methodological improvements (particularly in the phrasing of negative and positive questions), it would be very rash to suppose that the respondents across the voices were responding to different countryside leisure issues, or that cueing could account for anything but the smallest amount of the public's responses. In effect, the results are taken to indicate the extent to which different contexts persuade people to judge the same countryside leisure uses in radically different and seemingly contradictory ways. To others, it may appear ironic to use the technique of attitude surveys to critique the use of attitudinal research in policy making. Indeed, one runs the risk not only of alienating current proponents of attitudinal research, who may not like the concepts and interpretations used, but also of alienating researchers who share the epistemological critique, but who may feel that attitudinal scales from a mass social survey are a wholly inappropriate method to address ambivalence and ambiguities in people's views of the countryside. For example, Burgess et al. (1990), in the design and conduct of their Greenwich open space project (part-funded by the Countryside Commission) employed in-depth groups specifically SExamples of discourse analytic studies and theory, devised in opposition to the epistemological limitations of attitude surveys, can be found in Parker (1989), Potter and Mulkay (1985), Potter and Wetherell (1988) and Wetherell and Potter (1988).

so that the ambiguities and paradoxes of people's values could be brought into view and explored. In response, I argue that while this research shares the same epistemological critique of psychological individualism as those who advocate a more qualitative and discourse orientated approach, s the legitimacy and strength of this research methodology lies in terms of a different context of controversy. In contrast to qualitative studies which have sought to reveal the more ambiguous, variable, and dilemmatic aspects of human subjectivity, this study sought to problematise the institutional use of attitude surveys and the linear models of the person upon which they rely. This research complements a similar experimental study conducted by Macnaghten et al. (1992) which investigated the effects of different definitions of the natural upon human preference. In both these studies it is proposed that experiments have rhetorical value of a different kind from qualitative discourse studies. In the study on the effects of different definitions of nature, the experimental paradigm was used to illustrate the consequences of imposing different constructions of nature on human preferences. In this study I argue that the results illustrate the consequences of rhetorics currently deployed by government agencies and their persuasive effects to define leisure uses as both benign and threatening. Thus, while it is entirely accepted that surveys tend to be largely insensitive to the richness of the ambiguities and uncertainties in 'everyday talk', the use of survey material in this research was set up to illustrate and expose the assumptions which tend to remain tacit in the use and interpretation of attitudinal data. In the remainder of the paper, I briefly suggest some implications of this kind of research for government agencies and other social groupings. Elsewhere, it has been argued that the different agencies of U.K. government implicitly assume that people have different primary needs in relation to countryside leisure (Clark et al. 1994b). It was suggested that the Sports Council assume a need for leisure related to active, competitive, formalised sports; that the Countryside Commission assume a need for leisure related to passive, quiet, and solitary activities; and that the English Tourist Board assume a need for leisure related to 'value for money' and standards of service in exchange for consumption of services in the countryside. However, instead of arguing that these needs are complimentary (a position currently stressed by government agencies which provide for rural leisure, c.f. Countryside Commission, 1991; English Tourist Board, 1991; Sports Council, 1992), it was argued that these different needs represent conflicting pictures which bear out the remits and outlooks of the

Public Attitudes to Countryside Leisure agencies involved (i.e. the remit to give sporting opportunities for all; the remit to produce a beautiful countryside, accessible for all; and the remit to expand and promote the tourist industry). This study complements the above arguments by illustrating the persuasive nature of the 'rhetorics' (i.e. the different conceptualisations of countryside leisure) of different government agencies in changing people!s expressed preferences to countryside leisure issues. Moreover, if, as indicated in this study, people are more ambivalent in their needs and expectations from the countryside than hitherto has been indicated in policy-related research, there are undoubted implications for how government agencies understand their remits and their wider responsibilities to the public. Wynne (1993), in a related case study on "the public uptake of science" has advocated a need for enhanced "institutional reflexitity"; in other words, a more aware understanding of how current institutional commitments are helping to define and delimit boundaries of public debate. Indeed, the absence of such "institutional reflexivity" can help explain why, in recent years, government agencies have largely underestimated the depth of the cultural tensions in such key countryside leisure areas as: Access and the Right to Roam; Notions of 'Heritage'; Conflicts about Animals; Local Distinctiveness and National Uniformity; New Age Travellers; and the Politics of Farm Diversification (Clark et al., 1994a). The striking lack of debate in such areas is clearly a reflection not just of how the issues cut across the remits of existing statutory agencies, but of how, in each of these conflicts, are reflected more widespread and intangible anxieties over the role of the countryside in advanced industrial societies. 9 Thus conflicts over "the Right to Roam", "New Age Travellers", or indeed, "Local Distinctiveness" simply cannot be captured through idioms of 'beauty', 'landscape', 'sport', or 'service provision'; rather, they require, alternative institutional vocabularies more sensitive to people's emerging multi-faceted aspirations and sensibilities. These observations clearly parallel new research in what has been termed "moral geography"; a term used to explore the relationships between dominant

9Grove-White (1991), in an account of "the emerging shape of future environmental conflict in the 1990s", argues that environmental agendas need to be understood in the context of wider cultural tensions. A similar focus on culture is proposed in this paper in relation to seemingly 'physical' issues of conflict in countryside leisure.

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ideas of 'space', 'location', 'rurality' and 'naturalness', and appropriate 'conduct' or behaviour (Matless, 1994). Such research, using historical and literary sources, explores how the articulation of a particular 'culture of nature' around the Broads (a landscape of wetlands situated in Norfolk, eastern England) has led to dominant moral codes of conduct, and how alternative cultural practices and aspirations have been largely sidelined and marginalised. Related research has focused more explicitly on "the rural" as a cultural formation (Cloke et al., 1994), exploring the intensification and multiplication of meanings of 'ruralness' and its shifting links to gender, sexuality, ethnicity and 'Englishness'. Indeed, the new multiplicity and intensification of meanings of "the rural" found in other academic writings might not only help to account for the ambiguous responses found in this study, but also point to deep historical resonances associated with different cultures of leisure and nature (possibly including those associated with the 'voices' as used in this study). Secondly, the results in this study indicate not just some of the areas of countryside leisure where people will commit themselves to apparently contradictory positions, but also areas of likely future conflict. Thus, if particular issues become framed within wider patterns of public concern - - about, for example, traffic congestion, urban deprivation, diminution of local authority control, erosion of local cultural distinctiveness, loss of 'Englishness', or further commodification and industrialisation of the Countryside - - then there is the potential for major mobilisations of public opinion to particular developments. Context will be very important to the meanings that will be attached to issues regarded by public agencies as apparently straightforward. The key results of the above public attitude research thus imply that public attitudes towards leisure and tourism can no longer be guaranteed or satisfactorily predicted. This interpretation is very different from one which suggests that the public's ambiguous responses are simply an indication that people are generally confused and contradictory. Such an interpretation would give public agencies more scope to "pick and choose", or simply to justify doing nothing. In contrast, government agencies need to come to terms with the public's ambivalences by engaging more reflexively in the cultural circumstances that are producing such ambiguous understandings in the first place. Thus, notwithstanding the specific duties and budgetary constraints within which such bodies act, government agencies like the Countryside Commission will have to engage in people's quite legitimate aspirations for adventure, sport, festivals,

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and mountain biking; and bodies like the English Tourist Board, on the other hand, will have to come to terms with the limits of policies which treat the countryside primarily as a marketplace where people spend money. Such heightened reflexivity can only arise when government agencies tackle difficult questions over the legitimacy of different public aspirations for the English countryside, and begin to address the full range of competing cultural conceptions of the countryside within new mechanisms of public debate, lo It could be said that one unwitting application of the research findings might be to make government a more sophisticated manager of discourse. However, the wider message of the findings concerns the power of cultural rhetorics in facilitating and constraining public debate. Indeed, the political possibilities that arise from a more reflexive understanding of cultural rhetorics could equally be applied to the diverse social groupings currently contesting the countryside (e.g. developers, protestors, direct action groups, animals rights organisations, etc.). Such cultural awareness could not only encourage more open recognition and a richer understanding of the diversity and complexity of public aspirations, but also provide the intellectual resources to understand how major mobilisations and intensification of public opinion result when particular issues become tied to wider public anxieties.ll References

Beck, U. (1992) The Risk Society. Sage, London. Beck, U. (1993) Individualization and the Transformation of Politics. Detraditionalization Conference. Lancaster, June 1993. Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing. Penguin, London. BiUig, M. (1982) Ideology and Social Psychology. Blackwell, Oxford. Billig, M. (1987) Arguing and Thinking: a rhetorical approach to social psychology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Billig, M. (1988) Rhetorical and historical aspects of t°An initial exploration of possible new mechanisms of public debate was set out in the "Leisure Landscapes" report (Clark et al., 1994a) and has recently been the subject of a conference, organised by the Council for the Protection of Rural England, entitled "What Future for Tourism in Rural West Midlands". ~l An example of the intensification of one issue currently generating storms of public protest in Britain lies in the issue of exporting live calves to Europe for veal. The salience of this issue in Britain in early 1995, lies in deepseated concerns over intensive farming techniques, wider concerns over the dangers of losing sovereignty to Europe, coupled with a pronounced distrust of institutions with responsibility over the democratic process (such as current institutions of law, government, and formal politics) - - a l l combining in widespread public protest and a move towards more direct forms of action as the appropriate way to stop animal cruelty.

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