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| − | < | + | <h5>How does the source of information influence the the opinion score?</h5> |
Synthetic biology is considered a relatively new field of science and with this comes a mixture of public perceptions varying from outright fear to interest regarding its novelty. The applications of synthetic biology continue to penetrate various fields, from biotech, medical applications, sustainability to decreasing resource dependency. With a wide branching range it can be difficult to assess and view how the research is impacting people; as clearly this can happen in a variety of ways. Being a cutting edge field of research also engages the public’s imaginations from its potential uses. Some of these may enter the realm of science fiction, and any new discoveries that are made can be circulated by the media and filter into popular culture.
Given the bidirectionality of influence between science and society we decided to investigate public perceptions on gene technologies. We began by interviewing a psychologist from the University of Warwick, John Pickering, then we assessed the historic literature on the subject, before conducting our own survey during an outreach session in ThinkTank Museum in Birmingham, UK.
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Following our discussion with John we decided to research the literature regarding the the public’s distrust of gene technologies in the past few decades. For instance a paper examining results from two major studies found that Europeans had a “deeply rooted” negative views of foods that had undergone genetic modification [1].
We also found peer reviewed evidence that the source of information was critical in determining the public’s opinion on genetic modification. For instance, an institution that ranks low in public trust had to have highly persuasive information in order to influence opinion on the matter [2].
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Informed from our preliminary research and our interview we modelled our survey on a previous survey in order to see what the current public opinion regarding gene technologies is. We were also interested to assess what influence source of information had on an individual’s views as well as the influence of age on opinion.
We conducted our survey at the ThinkTank Museum in Birmingham, UK. We were situated in the ‘Talking Point’ where we could discuss, debate and question the ideas around synthetic biology with both younger and older members of society.
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Our survey determined that the most common source of information on synthetic biology came via school and further education.
This may be unsurprising that a science topic is most widely shown in an academic and pedagogic setting. It is also interesting to note the second main area of gaining information is from the Internet.
As the global access to the internet has been continuously growing, more people than ever can now access information from what is perceived as one of the most democratic forms of mass media. The internet changes the speed of sharing information and has changed communication at an incredible pace.
The depiction of synthetic biology in some of these media forms such as books, newspapers and t.v warrant further investigation. For instance, we did not clarify whether the information was by educational sources such as popular science books or documentaries, or from fictional sources.