Community Media As Sites of Resistance to GM Technologies

• In Event: ICTs and Marginalized Populations

Abstract

Increasing, communication scholars are examining ways the public responds to new technologies, including agriculture technologies such as genetically modified crops. However, few studies explore how organized publics use communication technologies to organize and resist against emerging technologies. Based on an ongoing ethnography that includes in-depth interviews and focus groups, this paper assesses how a community of poor women farmers in a semi-arid region in south India use community media to organize and resist the media-academic-industry nexus to promote agricultural technologies, specifically Bt cotton. We conclude by focusing on democratization of communication media as a key site for increased public deliberation and participation in the science-policy interface, particularly in global South that has witnessed intensified debates on genetically modified crops.

Authors

• Jagadish J Thaker, Massey University

• Mohan Jyoti Dutta, National U of Singapore