Public Perceptions and Mass Media in the Biotechnology Controversy

Abstract

Biotechnology is a strategic technology of the twenty-first century. In the 1990s this modern technology entered the stage of acute political controversy across Europe. In many societies, the public sphere plays an increasingly important role in the development of a new technology. In this debate the role of the mass media is more often subject to polemics than empirical analysis. This section of the special issue of IJPOR puts three hypotheses, which specify the influence of mass media on public perceptions, to empirical test on the topic of modern biotechnology and genetic engineering. These are the quantity of coverage, knowledge gap, and cultivation hypotheses. Our project database, which comprises an analysis of media coverage of biotechnology from 1973 to 1999 and surveys of public perceptions of biotechnology in 1996 and 1999 across 12 European countries, offers important observations on the dynamics of this controversy across Europe and allows us to examine the evidence for media effects in a comparative and longitudinal design.

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