“Activism in paradise”: A critical discourse analysis of a public
Tracking number
relations campaign against genetic engineering.
ICA-15-10063
2
since 17 April 2000 (Fitzsimons, 2000, April 17). This paper explores the ways in which a
coalition of environmental interest groups in New Zealand called “GE Free” campaigned to
increase public awareness, and to influence Government policy, about issues surrounding
genetic engineering. The specific campaign analyzed in this paper took place between July
and October 2001, after a report written by a Royal Commission on Genetic Modification was
released and before the Government announced a policy direction in this area. The campaign
argued against the introduction of commercial field trials in New Zealand.
How do concepts of national and political identity inform public knowledge and public
opinion in New Zealand about current issues such as genetic modification? In this campaign,
the GE Free coalition sought an identity as a “grassroots community” of New Zealanders, to
actively assert their democratic rights and demonstrate their viewpoint on genetic
modification to the Government. This paper explores the intersection of public knowledge,
public opinion, and democratic power, in relation to genetic modification in New Zealand.
Public knowledge about genetic engineering is a contested site with a range of different
discourses evident that represent different positions on the risks associated with the
technology, the ethics of particular procedures and outcomes, and the future worth of genetic
engineering to New Zealand. In this contested site, interest groups vie to control both public
knowledge and public opinion in an effort to influence decision-making about policy
direction in relation to genetic engineering.
Public knowledge and public opinion may be partly based on social or cultural experience -
the established value systems and ways of knowing which comprise our cultural identity - but
interest groups and experts in relevant fields continually contribute additional information to
Convention