In recent years, a number of so-called "farm protection" or "ag-gag" laws have been proposed and passed in state legislatures across the USA. These laws generally ban the undercover photographing or videotaping of industrial animal agricultural production and processing facilities. Proponents of the legislation suggest that such bills protect local farm economies and prevent misinformation campaigns by animal rights activists. Diverse sets of critics have argued against the bills, suggesting that they prevent whistleblowers from exposing animal cruelty and stand in the way of the public's right to know. This paper analyzes the debate by blending theory from science and technology studies regarding the social production of knowledge and ignorance with communication theory that explores the power of storytelling in shaping public understandings of social life. It investigates the stories told by three oppositional stakeholder groups-members of industrial animal agribusiness who defend the legislation, small-scale producers and consumers who believe the legislation prevents productive transparency, as well as animal advocacy and first amendment interests who believe the legislation masks fundamental flaws in the contemporary animal agricultural system. The paper provides insight into how competing mediated narratives frame ideological battles over the present and future of animal production processes. It demonstrates how fundamental and often opposing value systems construct what we consider knowledge and non-knowledge in the context of our contemporary risk society and in the digital media age.
The emergence of the “4th Industrial Revolution,” i.e. the convergence of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, advanced materials, and bioengineering technologies, could accelerate socioeconomic insecurities and anxieties or provide beneficial alternatives to the status quo. In the post-Covid-19 era, the entities that are best positioned to capitalize on these innovations are large firms, which use digital platforms and big data to orchestrate vast ecosystems of users and extract market share across industry sectors. Nonetheless, these technologies also have the potential to democratize ownership, broaden political-economic participation, and reduce environmental harms. We articulate the potential sociotechnical pathways in this high-stakes crossroads by analyzing cellular agriculture, an exemplary 4th Industrial Revolution technology that synergizes computer science, biopharma, tissue engineering, and food science to grow cultured meat, dairy, and egg products from cultured cells and/or genetically modified yeast. Our exploration of this space involved multi-sited ethnographic research in both (a) the cellular agriculture community and (b) alternative economic organizations devoted to open source licensing, member-owned cooperatives, social financing, and platform business models. Upon discussing how these latter approaches could potentially facilitate alternative sociotechnical pathways in cellular agriculture, we reflect upon the broader implications of this work with respect to the 4th Industrial Revolution and the enduring need for public policy reform.
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