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  • Virtuous or Vicious?: Agency and representation in Biotechnology's virtuous cycle

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    Author(s)
    Sunderland, N
    Griffith University Author(s)
    Sunderland, Naomi L.
    Year published
    2009
    Metadata
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    Abstract
    This article provides a fresh examination of claims that biotechnology and other high profile areas of scientific research and development create a "virtuous cycle" that delivers benefits to society and ecology through an array of consumer products. Specifically, the article investigates who and what has agency in this virtuous cycle and who and what does not. I argue that official discourses on and definitions of biotechnology create strict demarcations not only on who can act in relation to biotechnology research development options, but also on where and at which stages of the virtuous cycle these agents can act. For ...
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    This article provides a fresh examination of claims that biotechnology and other high profile areas of scientific research and development create a "virtuous cycle" that delivers benefits to society and ecology through an array of consumer products. Specifically, the article investigates who and what has agency in this virtuous cycle and who and what does not. I argue that official discourses on and definitions of biotechnology create strict demarcations not only on who can act in relation to biotechnology research development options, but also on where and at which stages of the virtuous cycle these agents can act. For example, scientists are presented as passive rather than active agents whose influence is limited to the laboratory context despite rhetorical use of their identity and credibility across all contexts of product development and consumption explored. Agency is highly significant in biotechnology and other areas of scientific advance because it determines who or what has moral decision making power regarding the place of new technologies in society. The article concludes with a discussion of the social and ethical impacts of these demarcations of agency in biotechnology's virtuous cycle.
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    Journal Title
    Journal Technical Writing and Communication
    Volume
    39
    Issue
    4
    Publisher URI
    http://baywood.com
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.2190/TW.39.4.c
    Copyright Statement
    © 2009 Baywood Publishing. The attached file is reproduced here in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. Please refer to the journal's website for access to the definitive, published version.
    Subject
    Communication and media studies
    Publication URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10072/30625
    Collection
    • Journal articles

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