Communicating Biotechnology: Relationships Between Tone, Issues, and Terminology in U.S. Print Media Coverage

Abstract

As part of a nationwide study on the public acceptability of agricultural biotechnology, researchers performed a content analysis on two years of print news coverage of biotechnology (2000-2002). Qualitative analysis methods included examining text from selected national newspapers, regional newspapers, and trade publications for common issues, tone, and terminology. A team of three coders, trained to an acceptable level of agreement (Cohen's K = .80), exam-ined and coded the articles. The relationship between the tone of the article and the terminology used in reference to biotechnology (e.g.,