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Abstract

This article considers the protests through which a group of New Zealand women—MAdGE (Mothers Against Genetic Engineering in Food and the Environment)—enacted a campaign against genetic modification in food. Referring to the predominant visual/symbolic makeup of its efforts to communicate an alternative perspective on the research involved, the article examines the theatrics, posters, and disruptive protest of MAdGE’s campaign. A major feature of the analysis concerns a billboard that provoked outrage in some quarters and led to official deliberations concerning the advertising code of practice in which public morality and the epistemic authority of science were intertwined.

Keywords

genetic modification imagery visual protest symbolic communication

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Symbolic Communication in Public Protest Over Genetic Modification

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