Doubtful dialogues: Public understanding of

This paper draws on theories of discourse to examine how a small sample of the New Zealand public made sense of the controversial science of genetic modification during the 2000/2001 period of the New Zealand Royal Commission on Genetic Modification. Research data was collected from five focus groups involving a total of 29 participants from different occupational backgrounds in the Bay of Plenty area. The analysis considers how participants construct a sense of their knowledge about genetic modification, as well as examining how they discursively understand the science. The paper identifies that many of the research participants felt alienated from the debate about genetic modification and felt that they had no power to contribute to that debate. While research participants wanted to know ‘the facts ’ about genetic modification, they expressed considerable awareness of how ‘facts ’ are relative and socially constructed. A distrust of sensationalist and media representations of genetic modification and the partisan agendas of scientists and business was also evident. These findings are of concern given the New Zealand government’s decision that there has now been sufficient public consideration of genetic modification to support the release of genetically modified organisms into the nation’s environment