The Public Interpretation of Biotechnological Risk

科学知识的社会生产和对这种知识的媒体报道受到了更多的学术关注，而不是读者和未经技术培训的受众通过社会过程来解释这些信息。与新出现的生物技术有关的风险沟通问题突出表明，必须了解这一领域的公众舆论是如何形成的，这一过程既取决于技术信息的吸收，也取决于伦理和价值方面的考虑。这项研究旨在开发经验数据，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。向非技术性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。拟议的研究将侧重于对生物技术及其相关风险的媒体报道和受众对这些报道的反应，以更全面地了解公众如何评价或解释与新科学和新技术有关的风险的信息的更一般动态。拟议的研究将分两个阶段进行：报纸对医疗和农业生物技术报道的内容分析，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关切。这项技术包括分配一组受试者阅读一篇关于与新发展相关的风险的新闻文章，并就该风险的可接受性达成小组共识。讨论被录制下来，并使用文字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被用来选择涵盖各种问题的文章，以形成焦点小组讨论的基础。将有三个小组，每组六名与会者，他们将分别审议六篇文章，总共进行18次小组讨论。两个小组将由学生和一个成年人组成。这项研究将有助于回答三组问题。第一个问题是，媒体对生物技术报道的反应是否类似于对其他科学或技术报道的反应。第二个问题是回答是否源于报道，或者读者的担忧是否独立于媒体报道问题的方式来塑造他们的反应。第三个问题是什么类型的先前存在的价值观、信仰和观点被带入这个过程，以什么方式？结果的展示和讨论将在校园风险研讨会、国家会议和期刊出版物上进行。

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.