Pollock, John C. (author), Peitz, Krysti (author), Watson, Elizabeth (author), Esposito, Cara (author), Nichilo, Phil (author), Etheridge, James (author), Morgan, Melissa (author), and Hart-McGonigle, Taylor (author)
Format:
Online journal article
Publication Date:
2017
Published:
Springer
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 93 Document Number: D10865
26 pages., via online journal., A community structure analysis compared cross-national coverage of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) with variations in national-level demographics from 19 newspapers worldwide, yielding combined article “prominence” and “direction” “Media Vector” newspaper scores emphasizing either “favorable” (42%) or “unfavorable” (58%) coverage of GMOs. Regression analysis revealed “poverty level” (24.2% of variance) and “percent of agricultural land” (4.7%) totaled 28.9% of the variance, confirming that “vulnerability” indicators are associated with favorable media coverage of GMOs. Contrary to conventional “guard dog” assumptions that media mirror elite interests, systematic research on demographics and GMO coverage reveals that media can mirror the interests of society’s most “vulnerable.”
21 pages., via online journal., Scholars are divided over whether communicating to the public the existence
of scientific consensus on an issue influences public acceptance of the
conclusions represented by that consensus. Here, we examine the
influence of four messages on perception and acceptance of the scientific
consensus on the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs): two
messages supporting the idea that there is a consensus that GMOs are safe
for human consumption and two questioning that such a consensus exists.
We found that although participants concluded that the pro-consensus
messages made stronger arguments and were likely to be more
representative of the scientific community’s attitudes, those messages did
not abate participants’ concern about GMOs. In fact, people’s premanipulation attitudes toward GMOs were the strongest predictor of of our outcome variables (i.e. perceived argument strength, post-message GMO
concern, perception of what percent of scientists agree). Thus, the results
of this study do not support the hypothesis that consensus messaging
changes the public’s hearts and minds, and provide more support, instead,
for the strong role of motivated reasoning.
28 pages, via online journal, While uncertainty is central to science, many fear negative effects of communicating scientific uncertainties to the public, though research results about such effects are inconsistent. Therefore, we test the effects of four distinct uncertainty frame types (deficient, technical, scientific, consensus) on three outcomes (belief, credibility, behavioral intentions) across three science issues (climate change, GMO food labeling, machinery hazards) with an experiment using a national sample (N = 2,247) approximating U.S. census levels of age, education, and gender. We find portraying scientific findings using uncertainty frames usually does not have significant effects, with an occasional exception being small negative effects of consensus uncertainty.
