The discourse of the GM food debate: How language choices affect public trust
November 19, 2004
Eldis
Cook, G.; Robbins, P. T.; Pieri, E.
The discourse of the GM food debate : how language choices affect public trust
Impact on public of UK policy debate on attitudes to GM foods
Cook, G.; Robbins, P. T.; Pieri, E . / Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), UK / REGARD , 2004

This report examines how the UK public responded to information about GM food technology. It assesses how new technology is communicated to the public and how it is assessed by them.

In 2003 when the UK government sponsored a GM National Debate, consisting of an economic review, scientific review and public consultation. The authors made a qualitative discourse analysis of data from this consultation process, to discover:

* the ways in which GM food technology was presented in the UK press during the first half of 2003
* the views of stakeholders about public knowledge and opinions of GM
* the effect of the language used in press reports and stakeholder statements on public

Key findings include:

* In general, the four newspapers analysed held consistently to either a pro GM stance (The Times and The Sun) or an anti GM stance (The Guardian and The Daily Mail), and this is reflected in their choice of writers and sources, their selection and presentation of stories, and in the language used.
* Many articles discussed the issues in a narrow frame as a purely technological issue divorced from a wider historical, political and cultural context.
* Pro-GM newspapers and interviewees typically presented the issue as purely scientific, and subscribed to a deficit model of public understanding, attributing opposition to GM to ignorance and fear.
* In contrast, the focus groups participants, placed the GM issue in a wider context, linking it to other political events and conflicts (notably Iraq), and drawing analogies with past commercial and technological developments.
* Focus group participants were largely unconvinced by pro GM arguments
* Although there was general support among both interviewees and focus group participants for the idea of a public consultation on a new technology, there was also general cynicism about the National Debate on GM on both sides. In particular, the view was expressed that the consultation was a publicity exercise only, that policy could not be affected by �ordinary� people, and the key decisions had already been made by an �lite.
* Language choices by journalists and stakeholders reflected an entrenched view of the debate as a conflict.
* This sense of division was echoed by various language choices by focus group participants, such as, for example, a constant polarisation of �us� and �them�.
* Although focus group participants were not sensitive to all linguistic nuances, their responses to texts, and to specific wordings within them, revealed a view of press, politicians and stakeholders as manipulative.
 The main determinant of focus group reactions to the texts they were shown was not the language but their perception of the author or the source.