Arenas, Platforms, and the Biotechnology Movement

Abstract

In this article, the author discusses key assumptions of a comparative research project on the public controversies over biotechnology and genetic engineering in as many as sixteen different countries. Key ideas of arenas, platforms, and the technology movement are briefly introduced with markers to empirical results comparing the three arenas of regulation, mass media coverage, and public perceptions and their interrelations in different contexts. A dynamic map of similarities and differences of the public controversy is emerging across several public spheres of biotechnology. The article concludes with reflections on future research: the analysis of the responses to public controversy in the biotechnology movement. Such evidence will complete the conceptual space and contribute to a functional analysis of resistance in the development of new technology.