The Public Interpretation of Biotechnological Risk

生物技术风险的公众解读

• 批准号: 9212306
• 负责人: Susanna Priest
• 金额: $ 5.01万
• 依托单位: Texas A&M Research Foundation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1992
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1992-08-15 至 1994-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9212306&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Public; Interpretation; Biotechnological; Risk

The social production of scientific knowledge and media accounts of that knowledge have received more scholarly attention than have the social processes through which readers and audiences without technical training interpret this information. Risk communication issues relevant to newly emerging biotechnology highlight the importance of understanding how public opinion is formed in this area, a process that may depend as much on ethical and value considerations as on the assimilation of technical information. This research is intended to develop empirical data that will contribute to a better theoretical understanding of the interaction between the scientific community, the public, and the media. Communicating scientific information to nontechnical publics can be analyzed as a problem in cross-cultural communication. The study proposed will focus on media accounts of biotechnology and associated risks and audience responses to these accounts to generate a fuller understanding of the more general dynamics of how lay publics evaluate or interpret information on the risks associated with new science and new technology. The research proposed will take place in two phases: content analysis of newspaper coverage of medical and agricultural biotechnology, and focus group research to elucidate the concerns that arise in actual social decision making situations involving these technologies. The technique involves assigning groups of subjects the task of reading a news article about risks associated with a new development and reaching a group consensus on the acceptability of that risk. Discussions are tape recorded and both transcript analysis and analysis of post discussion questionnaires are used to gain insight into the reasoning used. In this study, results from content analysis of recent news clippings will be used to select articles that cover a variety of issues to form the basis for the focus group discussion. There will be three groups of six participants each who will consider each of six articles, for a total of 18 group discussions. Two groups will be composed of students and one of adults. The research will help to answer three sets of questions. The first asks whether responses to media coverage of biotechnology are similar to responses to other science or technology coverage. The second asks whether the responses result from the coverage, or do readers' concerns shape their responses independently of the way the media cover the issues. The third asks what types of preexisting values, beliefs, and opinions are brought into the process, and in what ways? Presentation and discussion of results will occur in a campus seminar on risk, at national meetings, and in journal publications.

科学知识的社会生产和该知识的媒体报道比未经技术培训的读者和观众解释这些信息的社会过程受到更多的学术关注。 与新兴生物技术相关的风险沟通问题凸显了了解该领域公众舆论如何形成的重要性，这一过程可能既取决于技术信息的吸收，也取决于道德和价值考虑。 这项研究旨在开发实证数据，有助于更好地从理论上理解科学界、公众和媒体之间的互动。 向非技术公众传播科学信息可以被分析为跨文化传播中的一个问题。 拟议的研究将重点关注生物技术和相关风险的媒体报道以及受众对这些报道的反应，以更全面地了解公众如何评估或解释与新科学和新技术相关的风险信息的更一般动态。 拟议的研究将分两个阶段进行：对医疗和农业生物技术报纸报道的内容分析，以及焦点小组研究，以阐明涉及这些技术的实际社会决策情况中出现的问题。 该技术包括分配受试者小组的任务，阅读有关新发展相关风险的新闻文章，并就该风险的可接受性达成小组共识。 讨论被录音，并使用记录分析和讨论后问卷分析来深入了解所使用的推理。 在这项研究中，最近新闻剪报的内容分析结果将用于选择涵盖各种问题的文章，以形成焦点小组讨论的基础。 将分为三组，每组六名参与者，每组将考虑六篇文章中的每一篇，总共进行 18 次小组讨论。 两组将由学生和一组成人组成。 该研究将有助于回答三组问题。 第一个问题是对生物技术媒体报道的反应是否与对其他科学或技术报道的反应相似。 第二个问题询问这些反应是否源于报道，或者读者的担忧是否独立于媒体报道问题的方式而影响他们的反应。 第三个问题是哪些类型的预先存在的价值观、信仰和观点被引入到这个过程中，以及以什么方式？ 结果的展示和讨论将在校园风险研讨会、全国会议和期刊出版物上进行。