engleski

On British research of newspaper coverage of the GM food debate

Abstract Genetically modified (GM) food will affect our lives profoundly. In Croatia the debate on GM food has recently received comparatively less attention than earlier. The language choices and communicative strategies related to GM debate and its impact on public trust and understanding received even less attention. This paper reports the results of a research project which was carried out in UK to identify British press coverage of the (GM) food debate, and both expert and non-expert reactions to that coverage. The study employed a combined linguistic and sociological methodology. It examined the language and social frames of a large corpus of press reports, articles and letters published in four British newspapers: The Guardian, The Daily Mail, The Times and The Sun, known for their different views, styles and readerships. The research also included transcriptions of 12 interviews with representatives from stakeholder organisations and transcriptions of 12 focus group sessions. The linguistic construction of articles points to subtle ways in which articles are framed. Both in the press and in public reaction, the issue of GM was associated with other political events of the time. The press reports made frequent use of metaphors and emotive epithets. The interviews showed the expert cynicism about GM debate. The orientation of the focus group participants was not linguistic, and they formed views based on the identity of the speaker or the source.

genetically modified food; debate on GM; press coverage

nije evidentirano