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Science Communication
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Article

Biotechnology and the Popular Press in Northern Belgium: A Case Study of Hegemonic Media Discourses and the Interpretive Struggle

Pieter A. Maeseele* and Dimitri Schuurman

Ghent University

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: Pieter.Maeseele{at}Ugent.be.


  Abstract
The media representation of biotechnology has received widespread attention during the last decade. Two gaps, however, are present in this literature, both of which are addressed in this study. We present data from a content analysis of coverage appearing in three popular newspapers in Northern Belgium between January 2000 and October 2004 (N = 506). The main findings reveal that the trends identified in the European elite press from 1992 to 1999 are confirmed and strengthened after 2000 in popular press coverage, resulting in a greater diversity of sources and perspectives than before. Our findings also reveal that different media sources achieve standing to strategically frame the biotech issue in advantageous terms, resulting in different representations for each application. Hegemonic discourse in terms of a source-generated pro-biotechnology bias is found to be solid for biomedical biotechnology, heavily under siege by challengers in the case of agricultural biotechnology, and characterized by dissension in the case of reproductive cloning.

First published on April 7, 2008, doi:10.1177/1075547008316221

Science Communication 2008;29:435.

A more recent version of this article appeared on June 1, 2008

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