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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Biowatch South Africa And The Challenges In Enforcing Its Constitutional Right To Access To Information, Wilhelm Peekhaus
Biowatch South Africa And The Challenges In Enforcing Its Constitutional Right To Access To Information, Wilhelm Peekhaus
Wilhelm Peekhaus
This paper examines the difficulties encountered by Biowatch, a South African civil society environmental organization, in its attempts to obtain access to government information in respect of genetically engineered plants. After establishing the context of South Africa's access to information regime, including a brief discussion of several of its weaknesses, the paper engages in an extended account of the Biowatch case as an exemplar of some of the more pronounced challenges to the effective implementation of the country's access to information legislation. The elaboration of the case is based on interviews conducted with the Director of Biowatch and counsel from …
The Neoliberal University And Agricultural Biotechnology: Reports From The Field, Wilhelm Peekhaus
The Neoliberal University And Agricultural Biotechnology: Reports From The Field, Wilhelm Peekhaus
Wilhelm Peekhaus
Following in the footsteps of a variety of previous research that elaborates on the current state of affairs in academia, this article sets out the argument that neoliberalism and its corresponding iterations of science and technology and research funding policies in this country have implications for the types of knowledge that can be generated within and communicated without contemporary institutions of higher education. Using agricultural biotechnology as the lens through which to focus analysis, the article outlines a number of empirical examples that illustrate how the free flow of knowledge either critical of or not readily appropriated by capital is …
Monsanto Discovers New Social Media, Wilhelm Peekhaus
Monsanto Discovers New Social Media, Wilhelm Peekhaus
Wilhelm Peekhaus
As a number of critical commentators have pointed out for some years now, the Internet and other information and communication technologies are subject to capture by actors motivated less by calls for openness and democratic communication practices than by control, power, and profit. Employing the concept of “framing,” this paper offers a case study of how one company in particular, Monsanto, recently has engaged in vigorous efforts to develop and implement new communication and public relations strategies employing various forms of new social media. The findings are based on interviews with key communications personnel at Monsanto’s corporate head office in …