Author : Juanillo, Napoleon K. Jr.

Summary : The main purpose of this monograph is to provide an empirical profile of key Philippine stakeholders. This baseline data offers a good starting point for communication strategists, policy makers, planners, decision makers, and other researchers interested in understanding some of the important contexts that drive public perceptions, knowledge, attitudes, and information-gathering behaviors of Philippine stakeholders in relation to agricultural biotechnology. The data is not by any means exhaustive, and the contextual interpretations that have been discussed in the monograph are partly meant to motivate readers to offer their own reflective insights, analyses, and explanations for the patterns they may now be able to see based on the survey data. Social science research on public understanding of biotechnology deals with a plethora of amorphous variables. Evidently, the sheer complexity of these social phenomena cannot be totally captured by survey research. Indeed, the survey data that we thought can provide answers are clearly leading us to questions that are more complex. In the final summative and integrative monograph that compares that data across five countries in Southeast Asia, we will discuss the next possible direction for research on public representations of agricultural biotechnology.