scholarly journals Public Consultation on Proposed Revisions to Norway’s Gene Technology Act: An Analysis of the Consultation Framing, Stakeholder Concerns and the Integration of Non-Safety Considerations

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 7643
Author(s):  
Sigfrid Kjeldaas ◽  
Trine Antonsen ◽  
Sarah Hartley ◽  
Anne Ingeborg Myhr
Keyword(s):  
Genetically Modified Organisms ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Public Consultation ◽  
Gene Technology ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Biotechnology Regulation ◽  
New Gene ◽  
Gene Technologies ◽  
Safety Considerations

In Norway, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are regulated through the Gene Technology Act of 1993, which has received international attention for its inclusion of non-safety considerations. In 2017, the Norwegian Biotechnology Advisory Board triggered a process to revise the Act that included a public consultation and resulted in the “Proposal for relaxation.” Using poststructuralist discourse analysis, we critically analyze the premises and processes through which the proposal for relaxation was developed—including the public consultation—to understand the range of stakeholder concerns and how these concerns shaped the final proposal. We find that the proposal does not include all concerns equally. The Norwegian Biotechnology Advisory Board’s privileging of technological matters and its preference for tier-based regulation skewed the proposal in a way that reduced broader societal concerns to technological definitions and marginalized discussion of the social, cultural, and ethical issues raised by new gene technologies. To prevent such narrowing of stakeholder concerns in the future, we propose Latour’s model for political economy as a tool to gauge the openness of consultations for biotechnology regulation.

scholarly journals Misinformation and disinformation in science: Examining the social diffusion of rumours about GMOs

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 327-340
Author(s):  
Sujia Jiang ◽  
Wei Fang
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Genetic Modification ◽  
Genetically Modified Organisms ◽  
Genetically Modified ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Considerable Controversy ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
The Government ◽  
And Diffusion

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have caused considerable controversy in China in recent years. Uncertainty about the technology, ineffective channels for releasing official information and a lack of sufficient public trust in the government and scientists have led to rampant rumours about genetic modification technology, making it hard for the public to acquire scientific knowledge about it and a rational attitude towards it. In this paper, by using as an example the rumour that genetically modified (GM) soybeans cause cancer, we discuss the content and diffusion of rumours related to genetic modification technology in the new media environment. Based on an analysis of content on the social media platform Weibo one week after the rumour began, we discovered that the ensuing cyber discussions reflected reality, that netizens expressed anxiety and panic while stressing social injustice and reflecting conflict between social classes, and that they exhibited little trust in scientists and the government. On the mechanism of diffusion of rumours on Weibo, we observed that ‘evidence’ that directly or indirectly purported to show that GM soybeans cause cancer was added to the rumours and that the rumours were ‘assimilated’ into people's perception through the stigmatization of GMOs and through conspiracy theories.

Social Media-Based Communities of Practice for Education in Citizenship and Sustainability

2013 ◽  
pp. 988-1008
Author(s):  
Dimitra Florou ◽  
Dimitris Gouscos
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Public Consultation ◽  
Education For Sustainability ◽  
The Public ◽  
Strategic Objective ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Public Sphere

In this chapter we support the view that communities of practice (CoPs) with the support of social media can serve the education for citizenship and sustainability, with a clear benefit on citizens' culture towards future public reforms. This has led to the development and implementation of the policy for sustainability, which is a European and national strategic objective. The chapter begins with a small analysis of public sector reform towards sustainability and the presentation of the basic principles of education for sustainability and citizenship (ESDC) and the model of CoPs and the social media that facilitate their use. It focuses on the analysis of the three models of belonging -engagement, imagination, alignment- in the application of CoPs for ESDC. In combination with this analysis we demonstrate that CoPs can be supported by social media. Finally the chapter reinforces the view that the development of such communities in education offers on the long run the ability to remodel the public sphere, strengthen public consultation, promote proposals from the citizens, promote the policy of sustainability, and finally, the efficient use of new technologies, both in society and education.

scholarly journals Real body, fake person: Recontextualizing celebrity bodies in fandom and film

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Piper
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Common Element ◽  
Fan Fiction ◽  
The Public ◽  
Star Image ◽  
Public Figures ◽  
Real People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Textual Bodies ◽  
Real Person

Comparisons between real person fan fiction (RPF) and film or television texts dramatizing real people have been made in debates over the ethics of RPF as a fan practice. In an effort to direct the scholarly focus on RPF from these ethical issues to the texts themselves, I propose examining the similarities between the textual process of adapting real people to fictional characters on both the cinema screen and the computer screen. This paper examines the work RPF writers do in appropriating the various bodies of their celebrity subjects: the fragmented intertextual body of the star image, and the celebrity's physical body as a signifier of star image and status as a real person in the world. I argue that the fannish textual process of adapting real public figures to fictional contexts shares a common element with adapting public figures to the screen in the biopic: both work to recontextualize the public self of a celebrity through the representation of a fictionalized or speculated private self. To illustrate this, I will be engaging with a case study of The Social Network (2010) fandom through works in its kink meme, and how the adaptations of textual bodies are at work in fictionalized fan writing about real actors performing in the Hollywood fictionalized film about real tech entrepreneurs.

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