Nanotechnology Discourses and the Politics of Risk in European Media

摘要

This paper examines how concepts of risk are excluded from nanotechnology discourses in policy and news media domains through discursive devices that assume consensus. We draw from two complementary studies: 1) a discourse analysis of news coverage, policy reports and TV coverage of nanotechnology. 2) content analysis of newspaper coverage of nanotechnology from three European publications: Le Figaro (France), The Irish Times (Ireland) and La Repubblica (Italy).Here we focus on how the concept of risk is framed, that is, either engaged with, or discursively avoided. We take as our theoretical context Giddens's and Beck's idea of 'manufactured uncertainty' and 'dialogicality' from Norman Fairclough's media analysis methodologies.