Framing public engagement: A critical discourse analysis of GM Nation?

• The paper examines power relations affecting public engagement with technology.
• The paper presents a case study of the GM Nation? exercise held in the UK in 2003.
• The paper conducts a critical discourse analysis of the case study.
• Exercises such as GM Nation? fail to challenge prevailing ‘relations of power’.
• Public engagement with technology is framed by and shape relations of power.

The shift towards more democratic and ‘engaged’ processes of public participation in the governance of science and technology owes much to a deepening crisis of trust in experts and a crisis of legitimation surrounding institutions of modernity. However, previous research has neglected relations of power and domination within national level public engagement exercises. The paper employs critical discourse analysis (CDA) to examine these issues as they pertain to the case of the GM Nation? exercise held in the UK in 2003 on the possible commercialisation of GM (genetically modified) crops. CDA is concerned with the ideological effects of texts — the effects of texts in creating, sustaining and transforming ideologies. The analysis suggests that the GM Nation? debate reproduced and reinforced a structure which stabilised around a neo-liberal economic discourse. The implications of this for policy and practice relating to public engagement in science and technology decision-making are identified.