Review of a year of New York Times references to genetically modified organisms

Abstract

In the last ten years the media coverage of the topic of GMOs has steadily increased (Goyal & Gurto, 2011). People are informed about GMOs mainly through the internet and popular press (Goyal & Gurto, 2011). Popular press can influence public perception about an issue by the tone of the articles on the topic and the number of times the subject is repeated (Radford, 1996). Thus this study focuses on studying a source of popular press and how articles within the source are framed. The purpose of this study was to analyze the framing of a year's worth of New York Times articles that reference Genetically Modified Organisms. In particular, this study determines the framing of articles in the New York Times during a one-year period from Jan. 1, 2015, to Dec. 31, 2015. Additionally, this study examined the tone of articles toward the topic of GMOs as well as the number of and types of sources per article. The results of this study will help create a deeper understanding of how framing could be explored as a potential explanation of public opinion towards GMOs and popular press/media's influence.