Advertising Agricultural Biotechnology: Metaphors and Controversial Products

Abstract

Developments in biotechnology have had a huge impact on agriculture in the past century. Despite reassurances from some experts and agriculture biotechnology manufacturers, a number of groups fear the benefits in productivity do not outweigh the potential threats to health and the environment. This research presents a content analysis of advertisements for agricultural biotechnology products targeted to farmers, focusing on the conceptual metaphors appearing in the ads. Our results suggest that ads for products high in perceived risk are more likely to have a high degree of metaphor presence than to be literal. We find that ads for seeds have higher metaphor presence as the level of genetic modification of the seeds increases and that the product type is significantly related to the conceptual metaphor appearing in the ad. Ads for pesticides were most likely to present agricultural biotechnology in terms of war.