The macro-environment for liquid biofuels in German science, mass media and government

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the dimensions under which the macro-environment for liquid biofuels has been structured during the time, respectively by German scientists, journalists, and policy-makers, and how these three stakeholders related to each other. Research was carried out on German official government documents (168 documents), mass media news (760 news), and scientific articles (168 articles) on the topic 'liquid biofuels'. Text Mining techniques were used to extract knowledge from textual documents' content. The results indicate that German scientists have used environmental, agronomic and technological dimension more frequently; journalists focused more on geopolitical and economics dimensions; and, policy-makers have emphasized more technological, geopolitical and environmental dimensions. Adherence and Homogeneity Tests suggest that there is some degree of proximity between mass media and government, less between mass media and science, and the least between government and science when configurating the macro-environment for liquid biofuels.