Resistance to BT Brinjal in India: cyberactivism in Greenpeace website

Abstract

This paper captures the online discourse on BT Brinjal (Bacillus Thuringiensis Brinjal) in an online forum initiated by www.greenpeace.org in 2010 following the government’s decision to palm off the hybrid variety to farmers. In addition, the study provides insight into the ‘tones’ and ‘perspectives’ of the discussions surrounding BT Brinjal mostly in opposing the cultural shift from the organic to the genetically modified crop the government was attempting to impose on the social consciousness of the public and especially farmers. The study takes off from the Habermas public sphere theory applied to the interactive potential of the Internet. Deliberative and democratic social actions through the participation of citizens in the digital medium do not produce groups that arrive at a consensus. Instead, what is engendered are different publics, smaller, loosely connected, and engaging in ideology-based issues, producing polyvocal discourses.