Via online. 5 pages., "Industry in a frenzy, trying to decode the sludge of public opinion while still getting used to the idea this is something to take seriously."
Hamilton, Lawrence C. (author) and University of New Hampshire
Format:
Article
Publication Date:
2015-09-01
Published:
United States: Carsey School of Public Policy, University of New Hampshire
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 128 Document Number: D11245
Notes:
10 pages, via website, Conservative distrust of scientists regarding climate change and evolution has been widely expressed in public pronouncements and surveys, contributing to impressions that conservatives are less likely to trust scientists in general. But what about other topics, where some liberals have expressed misgivings too? Nuclear power safety, vaccinations, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are three widely mentioned examples. For this report, five similarly worded survey questions were designed to test the hypothesis that, depending on the issue, liberals are just as likely to reject science as conservatives. The five questions were included along with many unrelated items in telephone surveys of over 1,000 New Hampshire residents.
Author Larry Hamilton reports that, as expected, liberals were most likely and conservatives least likely to say that they trust scientists for information about climate change or evolution. Contrary to the topic-bias hypothesis, however, liberals also were most likely and conservatives least likely to trust scientists for information about vaccines, nuclear power safety, and GMOs.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 8 Document Number: D10313
Notes:
2 pages., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign., Researchers report consumer research indicating that the "future of U. S. citrus may hinge on consumer acceptance of genetically modified food."
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 18 Document Number: D10474
Notes:
126 pages., ISBN: 9780438013049, Via ProQuest Dissertations and Theses., Genetically modified foods and crops are a topic of heated debate in the United States. As with all issues, messaging has the potential to influence and change an individual’s attitude. Through the lens of social judgment theory, this quasi-experimental study investigated the influence of an evidence-based message on millennial agricultural students’ attitudes towards genetically modified foods and crops, while taking into account participants’ ego-involvements for the issue. Sixty-nine undergraduate students in the College of Agriculture participated in this study – comprised of a pre-test and post-test questionnaire with an evidence-based message intervention between.
The major finding from this study was that for the issue of genetically modified foods, millennial agricultural students’ with high ego-involvement are capable of attitude change and moving their anchor points in the direction of viewing genetically modified foods and crops less favorably than prior to the evidence-based message intervention. This result was unexpected, but important. Another key finding is that the majority of millennial agricultural students reported holding favorable attitudes towards genetically modified foods. In regards to the risks of genetically modified foods, the majority of participants disagreed that there is any risk associated with eating genetically modified foods and were neutral towards any environmental risks of genetically modified crops. This study also investigated the role of ego-involvement and the widths of the latitudes of acceptance, noncommitment, and rejection. While there was a trend for the latitude of acceptance to increase and for the latitude of rejection to decrease for both the high and low ego-involvement groups, these findings were insignificant.
Overall, this study’s findings provides great insight to science communicators who are messaging with the goal of influencing attitude change. Utilizing key elements of science communication including, weight of evidence reporting, weight of experts reporting, reinforcement of self-identity, credibility, valence, and framing theory, it is possible to influence attitude change, at least for millennial agricultural students with high ego-involvement for the issue of genetically modified foods. Future research should expand to include other segments of the population, as well as other science issues.
Chakrabarti, Anwesha (author), Campbell, Benjamin L. (author), Shonkwiler, Vanessa (author), and Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Connecticut
Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development, University of Georgia
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2019-03
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 16 Document Number: D10441
16 pages., As consumer demand for food labeling becomes increasingly important, producers and retailers
can include various labeling to attract new customers. This study investigates Connecticut
consumers’ preferences and willingness to pay for mushrooms marketed with various labels using
a latent class approach to identify classes within the market. Results reveal three market segments
(price/GMO-label, locally/organically grown, and traditional mushroom varieties). Overall, only
a third of consumers valued the “locally grown” or “organic” labels, so charging a premium for
these labels might alienate a majority of consumers. Finally, GMO labeled mushrooms are
discounted, but the non-GMO label receives little value.
