To Eat or Not to Eat: Framing of GMOs in American Media and Its Effects on Attitudes and Behaviors

Abstract

This study examined the framing of genetically modified organisms in two American newspapers, The New York Times and the Washington Post (2000-2016) and tested the impact of risk and opportunity framing on attitudes and behaviors regarding genetically modified organisms. The content analysis (N = 165) showed that the two newspapers did not have a dominant frame type in their coverage. A randomized three-condition experiment (N = 182) showed that the type of framing significantly affected individuals’ attitudes and was able to change them. The type of framing affected individuals’ behavioral intentions through postexposure attitudes but was not able to significantly affect actual behavior.

Keywords

GMO news framing risk framing opportunity framing attitudes behaviors

The commercialization of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), or organisms that have had their DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) altered using technology (Jenkins, 2017; U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2020), has brought significant net economic benefits for farmers in both developing and developed countries, amounting to $18.8 billion in 2012 (Brookes & Barfoot, 2014). Advocates have argued that GM crops have been beneficial not only for the economy by saving money, bringing positive impact on farm income, and alleviating poverty, but also for the environment by reducing CO2 emissions and conserving biodiversity (Khush, 2012). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has determined that GMOs are substantively equivalent to natural products and therefore safe for human consumption (Anker & Grossman, 2009; U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2020). On the other hand, opponents have claimed that GM foods could cause allergies, compromise biodiversity, and foster the emergence of new diseases (Murnaghan, 2018; Robinson et al., 2014).

Public debate regarding the benefits and risks of GMOs has been, at the very least, partially affected by how news media framed the issue (Bardin et al., 2017; Galata, 2017). Although some studies failed to identify the relationship between media consumption and public perceptions of risk (Gunter & Wober, 1983), other scholars have found a link between the valence of information presented and people’s attitudes and risk perceptions regarding GMOs (Viella-Vila & Costa-Font, 2008). Using particular frames or coherent packages of information, news media organize and structure their presentation of issues to the public (Schuck & de Vreese, 2006), which can affect individual’s evaluative processes (e.g., Price et al., 1997) or perceptions about the subject matter (Nelson et al., 1997). This is particularly important when GMO topics are concerned, since biotechnology is rarely part of the everyday personal life of lay public, and the public needs to rely on second-hand or mediated information to understand these topics (Viella-Vila & Costa-Font, 2008). Dominant risk-framing of news articles could overdramatize the reality and thus incite people’s negative emotions and perceptions of risk (Bauer et al., 2001). On the other hand, minimizations of potential risks could lead to underestimation of GM products’ effects on human health and the environment. Media frames could thus become powerful means in constructing risk assessment meanings in public debate, shaping our understanding about biotechnology, and through their impact on public opinion ultimately affect individuals’ attitudes toward GMOs and their purchasing and consumption behaviors.

So far, research on framing of biotechnology and GMOs has mainly focused on identifying dominant type of news coverage in American and international media (e.g., Crawley, 2007; Marks et al., 2002; Nisbet & Lewenstein, 2002; Pollock et al., 2017; Ten Eyck et al., 2001) or people’s attitudes and perceptions of risk regarding GMOs (e.g., Viella-Vila & Costa-Font, 2008). However, content exploration studies and attitudes examination studies have been done either in separate research endeavors or combined in one (e.g., Viella-Vila & Costa-Font, 2008) but still conducted using different measures of key constructs under study. The problem is that the results of these commendable research efforts could be correlational at best. In order to address this problem, the present study first examines the type of framing regarding GMOs in two major American news outlets, The New York Times and The Washington Post from 2000 to 2016 (N = 165). It then tests, in a randomized three-condition experiment (N = 182), the impact of the same type of framing on people’s attitudes toward GM food, their behavioral intentions toward GM food, and actual consumption behaviors.

GMO Debate

GMOs have had their DNA altered using technology to express specific traits such as higher nutritional value, resistance to disease, increased tolerance to floods or drought, and increased shelf life (Jenkins, 2017). Today, GM crops have been widely used in agriculture, with farmers planting major GM crops, such as soybean, maze, canola, and cotton on roughly 185.1 million hectares in 75 countries (International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, 2016). Despite their widespread usage and significant economic impacts, there has been a heated debate about the safety of GMOs. GMOs have been lauded as a way to feed starving people in developing nations (Bonny, 2008; Nisbet & Huge, 2006; Pollack & Shaffer, 2009) and demonized as a threat to public health and the environment (Azadi & Ho, 2010; Robinson et al., 2014).

The most prominent aspect of the debate has been whether GMOs are safe for human consumption. Health concerns have included allergenicity, gastrointestinal disorders, and carcinogenicity (The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016; Robinson et al., 2014), but limited evidence exists regarding potential long-term effects of GM foods (Kuiper et al., 2001). Opponents argue that GMOs have not been in the food supply long enough for scientists to be able to make claims about their safety, especially because no epidemiological studies on humans have been conducted (Robinson et al., 2014). In terms of the environment, manufacturers of GM products, such as herbicide-resistant alfalfa, have claimed that there has been no or minimal risk of contaminating neighboring organic and non-GM crops (DePalma & Romero, 2000). However, farmers who do not grow GM crops have had concerns that GM crops and animals could contaminate other non-GM crops and animals (Lynch & Vogel, 2001; Pollack & Shaffer, 2009).

Equally split on the use of GMOs for human consumption has been global public opinion. Studies have shown that attitudes have varied around the world, especially between the United States and the European Union, which have different public policies on GMOs. Data have revealed that Americans have generally been more supportive of GM foods than Europeans (see Hoban, 1998; Zechendorf, 1998). This finding was echoed in a more recent study (Bonny, 2008) that used over 10 surveys comparing the United States and the European Union from 1996 to 2008. As Priest (2001) explained, while Europeans vigorously protested and, in some cases, banned the use of GMOs, the U.S. public was complacent with the issue. Researchers have theorized that historical and cultural differences explain why public opinion in the United States and Europe differ on this topic. Runge et al. (2001) posited that Europeans have had a decidedly humanistic attitude toward food focusing more on aesthetics compared with Americans, who have had a more scientific, utilitarian approach to food, focusing on food in nutritional terms emphasizing quantity over quality. These varying opinions are hypothesized to come from how the two different cultures value science. Americans have historically had a more positive outlook on science and technology as a way of advancement of humanity compared with Europe where the devastating use of technologies in the World Wars instilled a certain technological pessimism (Runge et al., 2001). Priest (2001) explains that the reverence for all things scientific in the United States, which includes biotechnology, comes from the historical public attitude toward science and technology as sacred motors for advancements of the U.S. society. Besides cultural contexts, scholars also considered other possible explanations for differences in GM food perceptions between different countries, such as perceptions of technology and attitudes toward risk (Goyal & Gurtoo, 2011). Beck (1992) characterized risk as hazards introduced by society as a function of modernization, mainly following the industrial revolution. GMOs could be considered as part of scientific and technological developments that are potential sources of new chemical, climatic, and medical threats. The public’s orientation toward risk of GMOs is formed, following Beck’s theory (1992) through social rationality, which relies on moral and political arguments rather than technological ones. As primary sources for knowledge about biotechnology issues, the mass media have become important in the chain of formation of social rationality as it has the power to change, magnify, dramatize, or minimize modern risks (Beck, 1992). One process through which this characterization of risk from biotechnology could be imposed on audiences is the process of framing of media messages.

Framing of GMOs in News Media

Frames are features of content that highlight specific information or attributes about that content in order to make it more meaningful to the audience (Chong & Druckman, 2007; Entman, 1993). Entman (1993) asserts that frames rely on selection and salience, as writers select the way in which they present information in order to make the content more prominent to the audiences. Media scholars have employed several specific frames in their studies: gain versus loss frames, episodic versus thematic frames, strategy versus issue frames, or human interest, conflict, and economic consequences frames (for review, see Tewksbury & Scheufele, 2009). A form of gain versus loss framing, valence framing, is a type of framing in which news issues are evaluated in a bipolar way. These valence frames are weighted in either positive or negative terms, indicating the “good” or “bad” elements of a particular issue (de Vreese & Boomgaarden, 2003; Schuck & de Vreese, 2006). Some studies have identified positivity versus negativity of certain issues as “threat” versus “opportunity” (Jackson & Dutton, 1988), others as “winning” versus “losing” (Levin et al., 1986), as a “give-some” versus “take-some” game (Rutte et al., 1987), or as “risk” versus “opportunity” frames (Schuck & de Vreese, 2006). In the latter definition, risk was identified as “the expectation of a future disadvantageous situation and the perception that an action or process may involve an unpleasant future outcome” (p. 11), whereas the opportunity involved “the perception that an action or process may involve a pleasant future outcome and is connected to an expectation of likely future advantages” (p. 11). The present study uses Schuck and de Vreese’s (2006) definition of valence framing as a dichotomy between risk and opportunity and applies it to GMOs. Following their conceptualization, it defines the risk frame as a frame that raises concerns and emphasizes potential negative consequences of the use of GMOs, and the opportunity frame as a frame that raises hope and confidence and emphasizes potential positive consequences of the use of GMOs.

Using a political economy perspective, McCluskey and Swinnen’s (2004) bad news hypothesis argues that news organizations are more likely to emphasize negative stories associated with GMOs over positive ones in an effort to maximize the news outlet’s objective function. Studies that have analyzed the framing of biotechnology and GMOs have partially supported that hypothesis, revealing that the issue has been covered in a rather polarized way. Marks et al. (2002) found that between 1990 and 1999, newspapers in the United States and the United Kingdom focused on the coverage in terms of risks and benefits of biotechnology, and that in both countries, environmental risks were stressed, although U.K.’s coverage of biosafety risks has been more negative. In the analysis of the British press, Cook et al. (2006) found that there were entire newspapers that covered the issue in a pro- or anti-GMOs way, with the former ones characterizing the issue as scientific and the latter one rejecting it. In the United States, general consensus has been that coverage of GMOs in the national press has been mainly positive and has been framed predominantly in terms of scientific progress and economic prosperity (Marks & Kalaitzandonakes, 2001; Nisbet & Lewenstein, 2002; Ten Eyck et al., 2001). For example, in a content analysis of The New York Times and Newsweek from 1970 to 1999, Nisbet and Lewenstein (2002) showed that the coverage of plant biotechnology was more positive in the 1970s and 1980s than later, as the majority of the attention centered on the major scientific advancements and the potential benefits of such new technology. Early positive coverage of biotechnology in the U.S. press can be explained by American reverence toward science and technology, which lasted until the epitomes of its cultural identity, such as biological identity and economic autonomy, became endangered by bioengineering with cloning and attacks on small farmers (Priest, 2001). In this regard, the conversation about GMOs in the national press did not shift until the mid to late 1990s when news media began to debate the ethics of cloning (Nisbet & Lewenstein, 2002). Priest (2001) claims that besides cultural factors, dominantly positive coverage of GMOs in the American media also needs to be considered in the context of a complex dynamic between the U.S. media, powerful institutional factors, and the way in which objectivity and facticity are presented in the U.S. journalism. The author explains that the U.S. media system, completely dependent on market factors and advertising money and monopolized by big media organizations, tends to overrepresent the voices of big corporations, such as biotechnology companies, while discounting critical ones. The same system also pushes journalists into a routinized coverage of events, thwarting their motivation to investigate stories and spend valuable time on understanding and covering complex science news. In such context, journalists become prone to simplifying the coverage and often turn to well-established institutions as sources of scientific facts, again sidelining critical opinions (Priest, 2001).

Other studies have linked the type of media coverage about GMOs in the United States with regional specificities. Crawley (2007) found that audience’s expectations across the United States could determine the type of news coverage on the local level. Thus, in Missouri, where audiences are more conservative and where biotechnology companies represent a significant source of local employment, news messages in the period 1992 to 2004 were framed to highlight the potential economic impact of biotechnology. On the other hand, in Northern California, more oppositional messages dealing with potential health and environmental concerns tended to resonate better with more liberal audiences (Crawley, 2007). Additionally, in a study of 20 major American newspapers from 2000 to 2004, Pollock (2010) found that favorable coverage of GMOs has been linked with increased poverty level in the United States. Taking that research agenda to the international level, Pollock et al. (2017) confirmed that, using the sample of 19 publications around the world, vulnerability indicators, such as poverty level, have been associated with favorable media coverage of GMOs. Consistent with the optimistic message that GMOs may be able to provide higher crop yields in order to feed more people in developing nations, Pollock et al. found that “the higher the poverty level of a nation, the more favorable the coverage toward GMO usage” (2017, p. 587).

To date, the studies that dealt with valence framing of biotechnology and GMOs have focused on identifying the dominant type of framing in particular media outlets across time periods and different regions, as well as correlating it with country-level variables, but definitions of positivity and negativity frames varied between studies. The present study uses Schuck and de Vreese’s (2006) definition of valence framing as “risk” and “opportunity” to examine their appearance in American newspapers before it proceeds to test the impact of such framing on attitudes and behaviors. It thus starts with asking the following:

Research Question 1: What is the representation of risk and opportunity frames in news articles about GMOs in The New York Times and The Washington Post between 2000 and 2016?

Research Question 2: What is the overall tone of news articles about GMOs (a) and their headlines (b) in The New York Times and The Washington Post between 2000 and 2016?

News Framing and Attitudes and Behaviors Toward GMOs

Research has also sought to understand whether framing of news can influence people’s attitudes about certain issues. News frames as packages composed of arguments, information, symbols, and images that news media use to characterize an issue (Gamson & Modigliani, 1987) can affect audience members’ beliefs about the issue and its treatment. It is important to understand that news frames’ effects are not isolated but depend on previous beliefs of audience members as well as their culture-based norms, meanings, and values. As with any innovation, GMOs are subject to the local social structure, which guides how a new idea or technology will spread in the community (Rogers, 2003). Rogers posits that the acceptance of innovations, biotechnological one included, will vary depending on social factors, such as whether or not there is a trusted change agent advocating for or opposing the innovation as well as the information available about the consequences of the innovation. Goyal and Gurtoo (2011) posit that the acceptance of new technologies, especially the complex ones, such as genetic engineering, can be inherently different in developed and developing countries. In developed countries, factors such as nonexistence of desperate need, lack of understanding of the complexity of GM foods, and lack of immediate satisfaction and benefits from genetic engineering can contribute to attitudes toward GM foods. In addition, general attitudes toward science among developed countries can vary and thus contribute toward GMO sentiments, such in the case of generally higher acceptance of technology in the United States, versus Europe and Japan. On the other hand, higher levels of poverty in developing nations can lead to greater acceptance of GMOs, as new technologies and innovation could be seen as tools that can rescue people from their misery. Thus, less expensive production and product costs of GM foods are viewed positively by farmers and consumers in India, China, and Columbia, and appreciated as a way of boosting countries’ food security, and lessen the impact of industrialization (Goyal & Gurtoo, 2011). Emphasizing additional complexity of the issue, Costa-Font et al. (2008) state that other factors such as individual attributes and values, knowledge of the product, consumer perception of risk and benefit, consumer attitude toward GM food and consumer intentions toward the product, available information, trust, and price can all contribute to individual’s acceptance and ultimate willingness to buy a GM product.

Despite social and individual differences, research has shown that news articles can invite people to think about an issue in particular ways (Tewksbury & Scheufele, 2009). One such example dealing with GM products is the now widespread use of the term Frankenfoods. The term was first used in the early 1990s when scientists were introducing consumers to genetically engineered food products to instill and evoke a monster-out-of-control or an irresponsible scientist narrative in the minds of consumers (Coleman & Ritchie, 2011). Indeed, it does seem that there is a relationship in the way people feel about GM products based on the way in which GMOs are covered in the media. In general, average consumers are not very fearful about the health hazards of dealing with GMOs; however, risk framing in the news media does increase fear and uncertainty among audience members (Heiman & Zilberman, 2011). When there is an increase in the amount of reporting about the risks of GM products, audience perceptions of risks also increase and perceptions of benefits decrease. As time goes by, perceptions of risk begin to decrease; however, perceptions of benefits tend to stay low (Frewer et al., 2002; Poortinga & Pidgeon, 2004). Cook et al. (2006) used focus groups to determine that participants formed their views about the subject of GMOs largely based on the structure of the narrative and the framing of the articles they were asked to read. Studying the press coverage in Spain and the United Kingdom and people’s attitudes about biotechnology, Viella-Vila and Costa-Font (2008) further found the link between the valence of media coverage and people’s attitudes and risk perceptions regarding GMOs. Having in mind the above literature, and considering that when presented in isolation of the laboratory setting, the salience of the presented frame could be even stronger, this study hypothesizes that the framing of a news article will not only affect individual’s attitude toward GMOs but will also have the ability to change individual’s preexisting attitudes toward GMOs:

Hypothesis 1: Type of framing will significantly influence attitudes toward GMOs so that those who read an opportunity-framed article will have significantly more positive attitudes toward GMOs than those who read risk-framed news article or balanced news article, when controlling for previous knowledge about biotechnology.

Hypothesis 2: There will be a change in attitudes toward GMOs between Time 1 (before the exposure to the news story) and Time 2 (after the exposure to the news story) in a way that (a) those who read the opportunity-framed article would have a more positive attitude in Time 2 than in Time 1, (b) those who read the risk-framed article would have more negative attitude in Time 2 than in Time 1, and (c) those who read the balanced article will have no significantly different attitude toward GMOs between the two time periods.

The evidence of news framing on individual behaviors is limited. In political communication, some moderated effects were found (e.g., Boyle et al., 2006; Valentino et al., 2001). In the field of GM foods, studies have shown some negative short-term effects. In Kalaitzandonakes et al.’s (2004) study, there were negative short-term consumer purchasing reactions to the coverage of negative GMO news that was highly focused on the food safety risks. These short-term effects were limited though, as it was found that despite a roughly 5-year period of mostly negative reporting in the Netherlands, Dutch consumers did not significantly change their purchasing behaviors. This could be explained by various factors. One might be that readers did not perceive the information in the articles as relevant to their personal buying decisions (Kalaitzandonakes et al., 2004). Another explanation might be a cultural characteristic such as uncertainty avoidance. Hofstede (1983) theorized that some countries are more or less tolerant to uncertainty. In the case of the Netherlands, the Dutch are more tolerant of uncertainty, which could explain why despite the negative media, they continue to purchase GM foods. Based on this literature, it could be assumed that the way journalists frame the news could have effects on human behavior, albeit short term and conditional. As public debate about GMOs has revolved around the controversy about the risks on human health and environment, it could be assumed that depending on what kind of risk frame participants were primed with, they could be more or less likely to express congruent behavioral intention or actually engage in one. Thus, this study hypothesizes the following:

Hypothesis 3a: Behavioral intention to eat a GMO food would be significantly higher among those participants who read the opportunity-framed article than among those who read risk or balanced article, when controlling for previous knowledge about biotechnology.

Hypothesis 3b: Behavioral intention to support policy restrictions on GMO food would be significantly higher among those participants who read the risk-framed article than among those who read the opportunity and balanced article, when controlling for previous knowledge about biotechnology.

Hypothesis 3c: Participants who read the risk-framed story will be more likely to pick a non-GMO food product when offered than those who read the opportunity-framed story or the balanced-framed story.

Finally, behavioral intention is not a consequence solely of message framing. Models of behavioral change have postulated that attitudes are one of the primary determinants of behavioral intention (e.g., Fishbein & Cappella, 2006) and that they serve as an important mediating variable between exposure to new information, on one hand, and behavioral change, on the other (for review see Fazio, 1990). Petty et al. (2009) give an example that a television commercial might be based on the idea that giving people information about a candidate issue-positions will lead to favorable attitudes toward the candidate and ultimately to contributing money and voting for the candidate. In this study, we assume that an opportunity-framed news article will lead to favorable attitudes about GMOs, which will lead an individual to express the intention to eat a product that contains GMO ingredients. Thus, we hypothesize the following:

Hypothesis 4: Positive postattitudes toward GMOs will mediate the relationship between opportunity-framed news story and behavioral intention to eat a GMO product.

Method

In order to answer the above research questions and test the hypotheses, a multimethod research design was used. First, a content analysis was employed to investigate how GMOs were portrayed in news coverage with either “risk” or “opportunity” frames. Second, an experiment was employed to test the effects of the news frames on people’s attitudes and behaviors regarding GMOs.¹ The mixed-methods approach was used in order to combine in one study content exploration and attitude examination efforts. It offered us the possibility to identify in one study dominant frames used in some American media and then to test the effects of these same frames on the beliefs and attitudes of American audiences.

Study 1: Content Analysis

Newspaper Sample

This study used a quantitative content analysis of newspaper articles from The New York Times and The Washington Post. The two newspapers were chosen due to their stature as national media outlets, and they are commonly employed for content analysis of societal-level issues (Brossard et al., 2004; McComas & Shanahan, 1999). In addition, the two newspapers have substantial presence on social media (as of April 2020, The New York Times has had 46.3 million followers on Twitter, 17 million on Facebook, and 8.6 million on Instagram; The Washington Post has had 15.6 million followers on Twitter, 6.5 million on Facebook, and 2.9 on Instagram) signaling their availability through social media to the population used in the experimental part of the study. In order to identify relevant news articles about GMOs from both The New York Times and The Washington Post, the Lexis-Nexis database was used. The search term was genetically modified organism. The search yielded 211 articles in The New York Times and 56 articles in The Washington Post. After the elimination of articles that mentioned GMOs only in passing, the final sample consisted of 112 The New York Times articles and 53 The Washington Post articles.

Period of Study

The content analysis was conducted on news articles published between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2016. The year 2000 was chosen as a starting point as it represented the time of the signing of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity led by the United Nations, which established guidelines for international trade of GMOs (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, 1992), which coincided with the explosion in news coverage and social debate about the issue (Gaskell et al., 2000). The unit of analysis was the news article.

Coding

The coding was done by two native English speakers, who looked for the presence of predefined codes in each sentence of news articles. The codebook was adapted from Schuck and de Vreese’s (2006) framing study. An intercoder reliability test was conducted based on 35 randomly chosen news articles and yielded satisfactory results. Krippendorff’s alpha results are included below.

Measures: News Frames

This study approached the analysis deductively by predefining possible frames used in the news articles: two sets of four items each indicating the presence or absence of “opportunity” or “risk” frame, adapted from Schuck and de Vreese (2006). The first pair of items asked “Does the article employ emotional expressions in support of GMOs?” and “Does the article employ emotional expressions against GMOs?” Some indicators of these statements included words such as feel, fear, and danger. An example of a risk-framed emotional statement is “Genetically modified foods, which are common in the United States, are passionately opposed by many Europeans, who call them ‘Frankenfoods’ and fear they may pose long-term health and environmental risks” (Alvarez, 2003).

The second pair of items asked “Does the article deliver statements or facts in support GMOs?” and “Does the article deliver statements or facts against GMOs?” Some indicators of these statements included characteristics of GMOs such as nutritional value or risk of contamination to neighboring crops. An example of an opportunity-framed fact statement is

The new breed of salmon can grow twice as fast as its conventional farmed counterpart because it has genes inserted from Chinook salmon and ocean pout that allow the fish to produce growth hormones year-round, instead of only in warm weather months as normal salmon do (Burros, 2002).

The third pair of items asked “Does the article outline any specific future benefit/s of GMOs?” and “Does the article outline any specific future threat/s of GMOs?” Some indicators of the opportunity frame include words such as benefits, promise, advantages, proponents, and advocates. Indicators of the risk frame include words such as risks, opponents, damage, and harm. An example of an opportunity-framed statement is “The GM corn is expected to increase yields by 25 percent during moderate drought” (Gillis & Blustein, 2006). The fourth pair of items asked “Is there a direct or indirect quote from a person or institution in support of GMOs?” and “Is there a direct or indirect quote from a person or institution against GMOs?” Direct quotes were identified by the use of quotation marks and attribution to a specific individual or organization. Indirect quotes were defined as paraphrased statements of individuals or organizations. An example of an opportunity-framed indirect quote is “The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Medical Association and the World Health Organization have said that the GMOs on the market are safe. The federal government has agreed” (Wise, 2015).

Each of the eight frames was measured as 1 = present or 0 = not present. After the coding was complete, the binary codes were summed for each article, forming a composite index ranging from 0 (no frame) to 4 (high presence of frame; Krippendorff’s alpha for news frames ranged from .90 to 1).

Article tone was measured as mainly positive (1), mainly negative (2), or neutral (3). The overall tone showed whether there was a bias in either a more positive or a negative direction within the news coverage of GMOs (Schuck & de Vreese, 2006). The coding decision was based on the subjective assessment of the coders regarding the dominant tone of the article after they read it. While news articles can contain both positive and negative statements, the coding decision was made based on the subjective assessment of the coders about the dominant tone of the entire article. The overall article tone cannot be assessed from analyzing frames alone. Thus, the article was coded as positive if its overall tone was mainly in support of GMOs, with little or no text about the potential disadvantages of GMOs. The article was coded as negative if its text mainly opposed GMOs, with little or no text about the potential advantages of GMOs. The article was coded as neutral if neither positive nor negative tone dominated its narrative. That was the case when the article contained an approximately equal proportion of positive and negative statements or when it largely consisted of factual statements about GMOs without any apparent slat (Krippendorff’s alpha was .80).

Headline tone was measured as mainly positive (1), mainly negative (2), or neutral (3) showing whether there was a bias in either a more positive or a negative direction within the headline of the news article regarding GMOs. The coding decision was based on the subjective assessment of the coders regarding the dominant tone of the headline after they read it (Krippendorff’s alpha was .96).

Study 2: Experiment

Design and Participants

In order to test the effects of the frame type (opportunity, risk, balanced) on attitudes toward GMOs, behavioral intention to eat a GMO product, and observed behavior of choosing a GMO food product, a three-condition randomized between-subject experiment was conducted. The independent variable included the manipulated frame type. Covariate of previous knowledge about biotechnology and genetics was used in the models. Students of various majors from two large U.S. southern and southeastern universities were invited to participate in the study in return for extra credit. The data were collected between April and October 2018. A total of 188 participants completed the study. Two were dropped due to unresponsiveness and four more due to inactivity (they interacted with the stimulus for less than 60 seconds). The final sample consisted of 182 participants (97 female; 139 Caucasian, 14 Asian, 9 Hispanic, 11 African American). Their age ranged from 18 to 43 years (M = 21.46, SD = 3.11). In terms of political affiliation, most of the participants identified with the Republican (36.3%) and Democratic Party (33.0%), while 18.7% declared themselves as independent. Approximately 51% of the participants indicated that their main sources of information were social networks, and 43.4% received information mainly from online news portals (TV: 1.6%, radio: 1.1%, and other: 2.7%).

Procedure

Once recruited, participants were asked to come to campus labs for experimental procedures. On arrival, participants acknowledged their consent for the participation in the study and were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions. They filled out a brief online prestimulus questionnaire that measured variables such as media use, main source of information, knowledge about biotechnology, and attitudes toward GMOs. Participants then read the news story about GMOs adequate for their experimental condition and filled out a questionnaire that measured dependent variables and a set of demographic questions. After completing the poststimulus questionnaire, they were asked to turn to the researcher who presented them with two pieces of fruit, one labeled GMO and the other labeled non-GMO. The participants were then asked to pick the piece of fruit that they would be most willing to eat. Participants were then debriefed, and their involvement in the experiment was completed.

Stimulus

The stimulus was designed to look like a news story from a legitimate news source, such as the Associated Press. It included a headline, two photos, and a short news story (approximately 360 words) about the GMO talks at a conference in Brussels. The look, the length of the story, as well as the writing style was the same across conditions. What differed was the bias of the story between conditions. The opportunity-framed story was written to accentuate the opportunities of GMOs; the risk-framed story was written to accentuate risks of GMOs; whereas the balanced condition story included both information about opportunities and risks from GMOs. A manipulation check was conducted on a separate sample of college students (N = 81) to verify whether news frames were salient enough to potential audiences. The results of the manipulation check showed that 82.7% of students recognized correctly the type of frame used in the news story.²

Dependent Measures

Attitudes toward GMOs in pre- and poststimulus were measured using a four-item scale (Gaskell et al., 2006). The participants were asked to rate their level of agreement on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree, with statements about GMOs, such as “Genetically modified foods are useful for society,” defining attitude as a positive or negative valence toward GMOs. The responses for the four items were averaged (attitude prestimulus: Cronbach’s α = .87; M = 4.75; SD = 1.22; attitude poststimulus: Cronbach’s α = .86; M = 4.60; SD = 1.14).

Behavioral Intention Positive was measured by asking participants how likely they would be to eat a product that contains GMOs. The responses were given on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 = extremely unlikely to 7 = extremely likely.

Behavioral Intention Negative was measured by asking participants how likely they would be support policy restrictions on GMOs. The responses were given on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 = extremely unlikely to 7 = extremely likely.

Observed Behavior was measured by observing the behavior of participants after offering them to choose between one apple that was marked GMO and another one that was marked as non-GMO. The apples looked exactly the same in color, shape, and size. The only visible difference was the label. The researcher noted participants’ answers as (1) GMO, (2) non-GMO, and (3) did not wish to choose.

Control Variables

This study statistically controlled for knowledge about biotechnology and genetics (Gaskell et al., 2006) in order to limit the possibility of Type I error caused by a spurious association between the dependent and independent variables (Hayes, 2005). The knowledge about biotechnology and genetics was measured by 10 true/false questions, such as “Ordinary tomatoes do not contain genes, while genetically modified do,” “The cloning of living things produces genetically identical copies,” “By eating a genetically modified fruit, a person’s genes could also become modified,” and “It is not possible to transfer animal genes into plants.” Seven of these questions concerned textbook, factual knowledge, whereas three were associated with menacing images about food biotechnology. The correct answers were added such that each response could be assigned a score ranging from 0 to 10, which acts as an overall indicator of knowledge (minimum 3, maximum 10, M = 7.81, SD = 1.73).

Results

Research Question 1 asked what the representation of risk and opportunity frames was in news articles about GMOs in The New York Times and The Washington Post between 2000 and 2016. The results show that news articles in both American newspapers contained both opportunity (M = 1.45; SD =1.08; Sum = 239) and risk frames (M = 1.53; SD = 1.25; Sum = 252). There was no statistically significant difference between the average number of opportunity and risk frames, t(164) = −0.78, p = .44 (two-tailed), and the Pearson’s correlation between the two variables was significant (r = .39, p < .001). This indicates that the articles in the two American newspapers were framed as neither exclusively risk- nor exclusively opportunity-oriented, but they contained both frames. This is further supported by the analysis of the article tone (Research Question 2a) and headline tone (Research Question 2b), which indicated that the majority of articles in the two American newspapers had a neutral tone (59.4%) and a neutral headline (49.7%).

Hypothesis1 predicted that the type of news framing will significantly affect attitudes toward GMOs in a way that those who read an opportunity-framed article would have significantly more positive attitudes toward GMOs than those who read risk-framed article or balanced article. The results of one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) showed that the types of frames significantly affected attitude toward GMOs, F(2, 178) = 8.04, p < .001 (partial η² = .083). Bonferroni test of pair-wise comparisons showed that the difference between opportunity (M = 4.99; SD = 1.03; M_adjusted = 4.97; SE = 0.14) and risk frame (M = 4.15; SD = 1.21; M_adjusted = 4.21; SE = 0.13) was statistically significant (mean difference 0.76, p < .001). Individuals who read the opportunity-framed news story had significantly higher attitude toward GMOs than individuals who read the risk-framed news article. The balanced frame (M = 4.66; SD = 1.01; M_adjusted = 4.62; SE = 0.14) did not differ statistically from the other two frames. The covariate in the model, knowledge about biotechnology, was significant (p < .001)³

Hypothesis 2 predicted that there would be a change in attitudes toward GMOs between Time 1 (before the exposure to the news story) and Time 2 (after the exposure to the news story). Hypothesis 2a was supported. The results of paired-samples t test show that there was a statistically significant increase in positive attitudes toward GMOs scores between Time 1 (M = 4.79; SD = 1.13) and Time 2 (M = 4.99; SD = 1.03) among the participants who read the opportunity-framed story, t(59) = −2.83, p = .006 (see Table 1). Hypothesis 2b was also supported. There was a statistically significant decrease in positive attitudes toward GMOs scores between Time 1 (M = 4.58; SD = 1.34) and Time 2 (M = 4.15; SD = 1.21) among the participants who read the risk-framed story, t(61) = 5.16, p < .001. However, participants who read a balanced story did not keep their attitudes toward GMOs on a similar level; rather, their attitude toward GMOs significantly decreased between Time 1 (M = 4.89; SD = 1.18) and Time 2 (M = 4.66; SD = 1.01), t(59) = 3.16, p = .003. Hypothesis 2c was not supported.

Table 1.

Paired-Sample t Test Comparing Attitudes Toward GMO Before and After Exposure to Stimuli.

Story frame	Time 1		Time 2		t test
Story frame	M	SD	M	SD	t test
Opportunity-framed story	4.79	1.13	4.99	1.03	−2.83**
Risk-framed story	4.58	1.34	4.15	1.21	5.16***
Balanced story	4.89	1.18	4.66	1.01	3.16**

^**p < .01. ^***p < .001.

In order to test Hypothesis 3a, a one-way ANCOVA was conducted to compare the effectiveness of the three types of frames on participants’ intention to eat GMO foods, when controlling for previous knowledge about biotechnology and genetics.⁴ The results show that the type of frames significantly affected the intention to eat GMO foods, F(2, 178) = 4.10, p = .02 (partial η² = .044). The covariate was significant in the model at p < .001. The difference between opportunity (M = 5.15; SD = 1.55; M_adjusted = 5.12; SE = 0.21) and risk frame (M = 4.21; SD = 1.87; M_adjusted = 4.30; SE = 0.21) was statistically significant (mean difference 0.82, p = .02). Individuals who read the opportunity-framed news story had significantly higher intention to eat a GMO food product than individuals who read the risk-framed news article. Balanced frame (M = 4.98; SD = 1.69; M_adjusted = 4.93; SE = 0.21) did not differ statistically from the other two frames.

In order to test Hypothesis 3b, a dependent variable of intention to support policy restrictions was entered in the model, while other variables in ANCOVA stayed the same. The results show that the type of frame significantly affected the intention to support policy restrictions F(2, 178) = 2.98, p = .05 (partial η² = .032). The covariate was significant in the model at p = .008. The difference between opportunity (M = 3.78; SD = 1.68; M_adjusted = 3.81; SE = 0.21) and risk frame (M = 4.56; SD = 1.55; M_adjusted = 4.51; SE = 0.20) approached statistical significance (mean difference −0.70, p = .05). Balanced frame (M = 4.22; SD = 1.64; M_adjusted = 4.26; SE = 0.21) did not differ statistically from the other two frames.

Hypothesis 3c predicted that participants who read the risk-framed story will be more likely to pick a non-GMO food product when offered the opportunity than those who read the opportunity-framed story or the balanced-framed story. Although the percentage of those who saw a risk frame and picked non-GMO apple (78%) was higher than the percentage of those who saw an opportunity frame and picked the same apple (64.9%) and those who saw a balanced framed and picked the same apple (70.7%), proportionally those differences were not statistically significant. A chi-square test for independence indicated no significant association between type of frame and GMO-related behavior, χ²(1, n = 174) = 2.43, p = .30, φ = .12.

To test the potential mediating role of participants’ postexposure attitudes toward GMOs on their expressed likelihood to consume GMO products in the future, the PROCESS macro for SPSS (Model 4) was run with 5,000 bootstrap samples (see Figure 1). The results confirmed that those individuals who were provided with a positively framed news article about GMOs were more likely to have more positive attitudes of GMOs (b = .84, p < .001). More positive attitudes toward GMOs also resulted in individuals indicating that they would be more likely to consume GMO products in the future (b = 1.12, p < .001). However, story framing did not have a significant direct effect on intention to eat GMO foods (b = −.004, p = .986). There was a significant indirect effect of postattitudes on intention to eat GMO foods, wherein opportunity framing led to more positive GMO attitudes than risk framing, and resulted in greater intention to eat GMO foods (95% confidence interval [CI: .483, 1.425]; see Figure 1). Thus, Hypothesis 4 was supported.

Figure 1.

Mediating effects of postattitudes toward GMOs (genetically modified organisms) on behavioral intention to eat GMO food.

Discussion

This study examined the framing of GMOs in two American newspapers, The New York Times and the Washington Post (2000-2016), and tested the impact of news story framing on individuals’ attitudes and behaviors regarding GMOs. The results of the content analysis showed that the two newspapers contained both risk and opportunity frames and that neither of them was dominant. The analysis also indicated that the majority of articles in the two American newspapers had a neutral tone and a neutral headline. These results are in line with general tendency of objectivity in journalism, which posits that journalists should report both sides of the story in the attempt to stay unbiased and impartial. The results however contradict some of the previous studies that found that American media leaned more toward valenced framing of GMOs and biotechnology in certain time periods (e.g., Marks et al., 2002; Priest, 2001). This could be explained not only by the use of different media samples, different time periods under study, but also by the fact that our study did not analyze change of news framing over time by comparing different time periods.

The results of the experimental part of the study showed that participants who read the opportunity-framed news story had significantly more positive attitudes toward GMOs than those who read the risk-framed news story. Their attitude toward GMOs from the time before they read the story to the time after the exposure to the news story about GMOs changed significantly, congruently with the type of frame they were exposed to. Second, behavioral intentions of participants significantly differed between conditions, again in congruence with the type of news story they read. This supports literature about the effects of framing on people’s attitudes (e.g., Simon & Jerit, 2007; Viella-Vila & Costa-Font, 2008) and their behaviors (e.g., Boyle et al., 2006; Valentino et al., 2001). The present study shows that immediately after the exposure to the framed message, participants are able to change their attitude toward an object and to express positive or negative behavioral intentions congruent with the news frame they are exposed to. The frames of risk and opportunity were strong enough to elicit attitude change toward the GMOs and expression of behavioral intention. This suggests that how news media talk about a GMO issue, in terms of risks for human health or environment or opportunities for economic development or feeding starving population around the world, could change people’s moral evaluations about the GMOs, their assessment of usefulness and risks of such foods, and their attitude toward encouragement of the use of such foods, and could steer individuals into either pro-GMO or anti-GMO behavior. In addition, the study contributed to our understanding of the mechanism through which news framing affects behavioral intention. It found that the path is fully mediated through attitudes. This supports previous literature about attitude–behavior correspondence (for review see Fazio, 1990) indicating the consistency between positive attitudes toward GMOs and intention to eat a GMO product. It further supports the theories of indirect media effects, some of which have precisely argued that in order to achieve behavioral change, mass media messages should be primarily framed to affect people’s attitudes toward a target, which ultimately will affect their behaviors (for review see Petty et al., 2009). This argument is particularly relevant for our study, as framing affected behavioral intention almost entirely through postexposure attitudes.

The findings of our study indicate that biased news stories have the power to affect people’s attitudes and behavior toward GMOs, even after only several minutes of reading. Although these changes might be short term, there is a possibility that they turn into long-term ones creating misperceptions about important economic, social, health, and environmental issues.

It is interesting to note that among the participants who read the balanced article, positive attitude toward GMOs did not stagnate as hypothesized, but decreased. This could suggest that when put together, negative frames could outweigh positive ones, even when presented in a balanced article. Research shows that people are prone to selectivity bias in a way that when presented with both positive and negative news, they are likely to focus and remember negative information (Trussler & Soroka, 2014). In addition, it might be that the risks of GMOs are more salient to participants as they touch the subjects of human health, triggering motivation and interest in the subject and consequently in-depth information processing. Research shows that in the context of in-depth information processing, negative frames are more persuasive than positive ones (e.g., Block & Keller, 1995). This could further question the sustainability of the objectivity principle. If in the case of presentation of both types of information, negative ones outweigh positive ones, is it then possible that news media give really “equal” space to both sides of the story, when one of them, particularly the one that appeals to risks and fears, would outweigh the other one, no matter the presented scientific arguments?

Finally, although the results of this study showed that valence framing can affect attitudes and behavioral intention, it did not seem to affect the actual behavior, operationalized in this study as making a choice between a non-GMO apple and a GMO apple. It might be the fact that participants’ actual behavior was being observed by the researcher, leading them to pick a more socially desirable answer. It could also be that, when an individual is actually presented with a GM product rather than being asked to evaluate a hypothetical object on a survey questionnaire, it suddenly makes that object more palpable and real, transforming potential risks into more salient threats and putting them in real-life personal context. Overall, the majority of participants in all three conditions picked a non-GMO apple, which shows that they considered a non-GMO product as a safer choice in an experimental condition. Future studies should delve deeper into investigating the factors that affect actual behavior regarding GM products and examine whether in nonexperimental settings individuals consider non-GMO products as safer choices.

Limitations

This study, as most of other experimental framing studies (for review, see Tewksbury & Scheufele, 2009), measured the effects of framing immediately after the exposure to the framed message. As such, it did not measure the longitudinal effects of framing. Knowledge activation model of Price et al. (1997) posit that framing effects are most clear in a longitudinal context, when associations between issues and considerations built at exposure pass the test of later interpretations and judgments (Tewksbury et al., 2000). Future studies should replicate this study adding several time points at postexposure to distinguish between the effects of immediate priming and more long-terms effects. In addition, this study did not investigate when and under what conditions the attitudes changed by media messages are predictive of behavior. Future studies should make efforts to test moderating variables that could help us understand this process. This study used the samples of The New York Times and The Washington Post in order to examine the framing of GMOs in American media. Although these news outlets are frequently used in the literature for content analyses of societal-level issues, they do not represent the multitude of American media landscape especially in a politically polarized environment. Future studies should use a larger sample of newspapers, both national and local, to examine the generalizability of these findings. Finally, this research used a student sample for its experimental study. Although the number of participants per condition was satisfactory for experimental studies, taking into account the nature of the sample (student sample) the results cannot be generalized to the entire American population. Future studies should try to use a more representative national sample in order to examine the generalizability of these findings.

Other Theoretical and Practical Implications

This study extends the use of Schuck and de Vreese’s (2006) conceptualization of risk versus opportunity framing, by moving it from a political context to one of science and technology. It thus shows that valence framing of news stories, in which a news story is evaluated as a dichotomy between risk and opportunity, is applicable to news stories about GMOs. However, this study’s findings that the articles about GMOs in The New York Times and The Washington Post (2000-2016) were mainly neutral in tone and contained both risk and opportunity frames could signal that journalistic framing of stories about biotechnology could have moved from a dominantly polarized way of reporting documented in previous studies (e.g., Cook et al., 2006; Nisbet & Lewenstein, 2002; Priest, 2001) to a more nuanced approach. The process of news framing assumes that complex issues, such as biotechnology, are given shape by journalistic selection of certain aspects of the story versus others. Our study found that both risk and opportunity frames are present in reporting about GMOs in two American newspapers but that neither were dominant. This could signal that the reporting about biotechnology might have moved from an ethos of advocacy, in which media outlets are encouraged to highlight some aspects of biotechnological innovations at particular times, and ignore other biotechnological issues, to a more neutral role of the fourth estate in society. Thus, it might be helpful to extend the examination of the framing of GMOs in the American press to the area of journalistic role performance.

Recently, scholars have moved from a purely normative examination of journalistic roles to focusing more on how the normatively defined roles, such as watchdog role, interventionist role, loyal role, or entertainment role, are manifested in actual journalistic practice (e.g., Hellmueller & Mellado, 2015; Mellado, 2015; Mellado & Lagos, 2014). The findings of this study point out that journalists of The New York Times and The Washington Post have been mostly neutral when reporting about GMOs in the period 2000 to 2016, which might point to the attempts for a realistic approach of telling how the world is. The realistic approach is based on the assumption that there is an existing set of events in the outside world, which can be reported objectively by an unbiased journalist. In this context, journalism’s role in society becomes to mirror this reality with objectivity and dispassion (Bauer et al., 2001). This could contribute to the expansion of the current research on journalistic role performance (e.g., Mellado, 2015) by adding another performance role of journalism as a neutral mirror of the society. In this function, a journalist’s role would not be to investigate a controversial issue (e.g., watchdog role performance), take sides on a certain issue (e.g., intervention role performance), support an official position on the issue (e.g., loyal role performance), give consumer advice on the issue (e.g., service role performance), sensationally cover the issue (e.g., infotainment role performance), or focus on the civic aspects of an issue (e.g., civic role performance), but to present in an unbiased manner arguments for both sides of the story by trying to mimic the reality of the outside world and maintain an overall neutral tone of reporting. This way of reporting could be especially valuable with regard to the coverage of potentially controversial issues, such as the use of biotechnology for altering the genes of plants and animals. Even more so, having in mind the findings of other scholars (e.g., Priest, 2001), who warned that in a purely commercial media system, such as the American one, neutral reporting on issues of biotechnology becomes impeded by institutional influences and cultural and professional biases. Theoretical implications of this study thus push the notion of journalistic objectivity in the center of the debate about framing of biotechnology in news reporting, and call for future studies to further its conceptualization and operationalization in the context of the realistic approach in journalism role construction. This research topic taps into an increasingly important topic of American discourse: the role of scientific information in the formation of attitudes and behavior. Our study showed that the news coverage of GMOs in a biased manner can have effects on people’s attitudes and behavioral intentions toward them, but the broader context could include other scientific topics, such as climate change, pandemics, or artificial intelligence. As these topics represent crucial and complex societal-level issues, future studies should test the replicability of our framework on examining the news coverage of these important topics, as well as individuals’ responses toward it.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Ivanka Pjesivac

Notes

Author Biographies

Ivanka Pjesivac (PhD, University of Tennessee) is an associate professor in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. Her research area falls in the intersection of journalism, information processing from digital media, and news media trust and credibility. Her studies have been published in prominent journalism and communication journals, including Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Journalism, Journalism Studies, Journalism Practice, Mass Communication and Society, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Health Communication, and so on.

Marlit A. Hayslett (PhD, University of Georgia) is the Director of Communication Training and Strategy in the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs at the University of Virginia. In this role, she leads the development of the science communication curriculum for graduate students. Her research explores how science is communicated to governments in order to make decisions on international science policy issues.

Matthew T. Binford (MS, Middle Tennessee State University) is a doctoral candidate in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Georgia. His research primarily focuses on how political messages are distributed on social media, how this information is processed by audience members, and the larger impact social media and political messaging have on public opinion. His work has been published in the Journal of Information Technology and Politics, Open Information Science and presented at major national and international conferences.

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