The debate on biotechnology in Britain :

مرکز و کتابخانه مطالعات اسلامی به زبان های اروپایی

منو

" The debate on biotechnology in Britain : "
Liakopolus, Miltiadis.

Document Type	:	Latin Dissertation
Record Number	:	1093990
Doc. No	:	TLets312118
Main Entry	:	Liakopolus, Miltiadis.
Title & Author	:	The debate on biotechnology in Britain :\ Liakopolus, Miltiadis.
College	:	London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London)
Date	:	2000
student score	:	2000
Degree	:	Ph.D.
Abstract	:	Biotechnology, sometimes described as the technology of the 21St century, has generatedwidespread controversies and led to political and economic conflicts. The thesis explores thenature of the public debates on biotechnology in Britain. The theoretical perspective adoptedis based primarily on the theory of social representations complemented by the theories ofargumentation and metaphor. It promotes a new perspective to the theory of socialrepresentations by suggesting a functional equivalence between the two main processes ofrepresentation, anchoring and objectification, and those of metaphor and argumentationrespectively.The empirical part of the thesis is centred on an analysis of the debate in three social milieux,Environmentalists, Industrialists and Scientists, and is divided into three sections. The firstsection is a case study of the media coverage about the introduction of genetically modifiedsoya in the market where the main lines of argumentation in the media are analysed.Thesecond section concentrates on the broader media coverage of biotechnology for the period1974 to 1996 and analyses the main metaphors used by the media to describe biotechnologyand its applications. The third section analyses survey data from the British part of aEuropean-wide survey study on biotechnology (Eurobarometer 46.1). Here, arguments andmetaphors are revisited in relation to other important representations such as 'geneticinheritance', 'trust' and 'future expectations'.The thesis concludes with a recapitulation of the results of the argumentation, metaphor andsurvey analysis as they merge to form the dominant social representations aboutbiotechnology. The results of the thesis are also discussed in terms of the conceptualadvances and methodological improvements that arise from the research, and insights theyprovide for the future of the debate itself.
Subject	:	Psychology
Added Entry	:	London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London)