ABSTRACT
Media coverage of modern biotechnology is the focus of this chapter. 1 The mass media are an important player and arena in the development of a new technology (Bauer, 2002a). They create the symbolic environment that fuels technological optimism and pessimism, as it may be, and thus contribute to a public sphere of technological controversies. Are the mass media an extension of interested actors, and therefore a mere epiphenomenon of the establishment, or are they making a contribution sui generis to technological debates? We will address this key issue by splitting it into three separate questions.
