29 November, 2011

Assuming that the media reflect to a large extend the public debate about biotechnology, both in reporting about this public debate and shaping it, we have analyzed more than 22,700 news articles about biotechnology collected from a wide range of sources between July 2005 and July 2010. These articles were stored in a database with attached information concerning the source, the type of biotechnology, geographical information about the event and major interests described in each article. Analysis of those data tells us something about the position of biotechnology in different regions of the world, shifts in this position over time, differences between agricultural (green), medical (red) and industrial (white) biotechnology, as well as the impact of major news issues on public opinion.

Data collection and analysis was commissioned by the Dutch Commission on Genetic Modification (COGEM).

Huib de Vriend et.al. (2011). Biotechnology in the news: Lessons from a quantitative analysis of news articles about biotechnology between July 2005 and June 2010, August 2011 (CGM 2011-12).