History and Past Activities
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History and Past Activities |
ESA Conference: Ageing Societies, New Sociology
September 23-26, 2003 in Murcia, Spain
Two streams of sessions of the
Research Network 18: Sociology of Science and Technology (SSTNET)
Convenors:
Raymund Werle: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Köln, Germany (werle@mpi-fg-koeln.mpg.de)
Marja Häyrinen Alestalo: Dept. of Sociology, University of Helsinki, Finland (marja.alestalo@helsinki.fi)
Luísa Oliveira: DINÂMIA/ISCTE, Lisboa, Portugal (luisa.oliveira@iscte.pt)
Maarten Mentzel: 38 Johan de Wittstraat, 2334 AR Leiden, The Netherlands (m.a.mentzel@planet.nl)
First Stream: Governing Science and Technology in the Era of Globalization
Wednesday Sept. 24
14.30 - 16.30 session 3 (Campus de La Merced)
Chair: Maarten Mentzel
3.3. Author(s): Olofsson, Anna/Rashid, Saman/Öhman, Susanna
Institution: Mid Sweden University, Dept. of social science
Professional Category: Head of Research and Educational Office (Dr. Susanna Öhman)
City: Östersund
Country: Sweden
E-mail: susanna.oheman@mh.se, anna.olofsson@mh.se, saman.rashid@mh.se
ATTITUDES TO GENE TECHNOLOGY THE IMPORTANCE OF INSTITUTIONAL TRUST
This is a study of attitudes to gene technology in general and GM food and stem cell research in particular. Gene technology is a good example of a new technology that now reached to a stage where we can begin to see some practical use of it. A technology that caused social reaction in the scientific community as well as in the political and public community. Though it is now more than thirty years since its invention it is still pretty unknown for the general public and the hypothesis put forward in this paper is that people partly replace personal experience and knowledge with trust in public actors such as the government, NGO's and the mass media. This trust can then influence their attitudes. The study uses data from three Eurobarometer surveys of genetic engineering; 1996, 1999 and 2002. The results show that trust has an impact on attitudes to gene technology and that different public actors influences different kinds of attitudes. Trust in experts' influences people's judgements of risks with the technology, while trust in official bodies and stakeholders influence encouragement of the technology.
Sociology of Science and Technology NETwork - last update: April 2006