Media presentation and public understanding of stem cells and stem cell research in Hungary (original) (raw)
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Romanian Media Coverage on Bioethics. The Issue of Stem Cells
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In the last decades, scientific developments are largely discussed and debated mainly at the media level. Based on the agenda setting model, the importance of a certain theme is given by the frequency of its appearances in mass-media. Within this context, this paper focuses on the issue of stem cells and its media coverage in Romania. Using content analysis of the most read national newspapers, the research aims to emphasize two relevant aspects: the stem cells issue is only partly visible in the written media and the debate between ethics and science is rather non-existent.
Media portrayal of stem cell research: towards a normative model for science communication
As the field of science communication has matured over the past 50 years, there has been a significant move away from the conventional understanding that mass media's role in the public communication of science is limited to reporting new scientific discoveries. Media have been increasingly viewed as important for the legitimation of science and scholars have recognized their agenda-setting effects and ability to facilitate interaction between the public, scientific community, policymakers, interest groups, and other social actors. This article draws on analyses of news media coverage of stem cell research between 1998 and 2013 to demonstrate the active role of mass media in validating scientific claims about discoveries in the field and shaping the public understanding of key bioethical and policy issues. It further assesses whether media, in their attempts to construct the Bright^ position, have instigated a rational-critical discourse on the controversy. I argue that media representations in different cultural contexts have largely failed to meet normative expectations about the democratization of public discussions on biomedical innovation, as set out in the public engagement with science and technology (PEST) model of science communication. Rather than deconstructing the major terms of science policy debates as framed by stem cell advocates and their opponents, media coverage has mostly replicated discussions in political and legislative arenas, presenting the controversy as a strict binary opposition. Media have rarely provided critical reflection on the hype surrounding breakthroughs in stem cell research, thus reinforcing the public's unrealistic expectations about the future of this biomedical innovation.
Human stem cell research : tracking media attention in time from 1998-2005
2006
Introduction 1.1 Background and motivation for the study 1.2 Purpose of the study 1.3 Structure of the study Chapter 2 Literature review 2.1. Human stem cell research 2.1.1 The science of human stem cells 2.1.2 The goals of human stem cell research 2.1.3 Research findings: The good, the bad and the ugly 2.2 Human stem cell research controversies 2.2.1 Embryonic stem cell research 2.2.2 Public funding and policy 2.2.3 Policies around the world 2.2.4 Stem cell research and American politics 2.3 Science and the Media 2.3.1 Introduction 2.3.2 Science journalism 2.3.3 Science news vs. 'Science-sasional' news 2.3.4 Media impact 6 2.3.5 The media and stem cell research Chapter 3 Theory 3.1 The theory of agenda-setting 3.2 The surveillance function of the media Chapter 4 Method 4.1 Research questions 4.2 Method of data gathering 4.3 Sampling 4.4 Method of data analysis Chapter 5 Findings 5.1 Science, ethics and policies 5.2 American politics 5.3 Adult stem cell vs. embryonic stem cell reports
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This paper studies the evolution of the media discussion surrounding stem cell research in Russia from 2001 until the issuance of the first national law in 2016 and its impact on stem cell’s ‘social career’ in the public discourse in Russia. It analyses how the interaction of different media frames stigmatized either the biomedical technology, or the expert community. It is argued that the regulatory framework in Russia lags behind technological developments in the country and mostly reacts to signs of fraudulent actions from drug makers or practitioners. Moral issues, in contrast to the international discourse, have been not the main reason in Russia.
Framing ScienceThe Stem Cell Controversy in an Age of PressPolitics
The International Journal of …, 2003
Applying the theories of agenda building and frame building and previous work related to the shared negotiations between sources and journalists in constructing news dramas, this article examines the role of the mass media in the evolution of the stem cell controversy. How does a scientific issue gain, maintain, or lose political and media attention? What forces combine to emphasize certain dimensions of an issue over others? Using data from a content analysis of stem cell-related articles appearing between 1975 and 2001 in the New York Times and the Washington Post, the authors analyze patterns of media attention, media framing, and media sourcing across stages of scientific, political, and policy development.
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Stem cell research has become one of the hottest scientific topics in the past few years. By combining the ability to exactly self-duplicate and the potential to differentiate themselves to constitute any organic tissue, embryonic stem cells have presented geneticists and medical researchers with a new wealth of possibilities to treat and cure degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. By relying heavily on discarded embryonic lines, stem cell research has also generated a new host of ethical and political controversies. The concept of media frames was employed to analyze how some of the main Brazil-and U.S.-based newspapers have framed and presented the stem cell research debate. The analysis indicates that while in Brazil the issue has been presented from a scientific (and mostly positive) point of view, in the United States the debate has been dominated by its political and ethical dimensions.
Public Discourse on Stem Cell Research in Russia: An Evolution of the Agenda
Science and technology studies, 2020
This paper studies the evolution of the media discussion surrounding stem cell research in Russia from 2001 until the issuance of the first national law in 2016 and its impact on stem cell’s ‘social career’ in the public discourse in Russia. It analyses how the interaction of different media frames stigmatized either the biomedical technology, or the expert community. It is argued that the regulatory framework in Russia lags behind technological developments in the country and mostly reacts to signs of fraudulent actions from drug makers or practitioners. Moral issues, in contrast to the international discourse, have been not the main reason in Russia.
This dissertation uses the methods of interpretive social science to explore the multidimensional nature of the stem cell controversy, its competing epistemologies, and types of resolution and policy closure that have been sought in the United States and the European Union. It provides a comparative perspective on the social dynamics of public involvement in stem cell research and evaluates efforts by governments and bioethics advisory bodies to integrate dialogue and deliberation in science policy and decision making. The analysis highlights the agenda-setting and framing roles of the print and electronic news media in the public discourse over stem cells and human cloning, including their ability to validate conflicting knowledge claims about stem cell science and frame uncertainty about its clinical promise. I argue that stem cell policy debates are deeply embedded in particular socio-political and cultural contexts, and therefore regulatory responses to the societal challenges arising from this biomedical innovation have largely been shaped by non-epistemic factors (considerations external to science and its epistemologies). In the US, the issue of human embryonic stem cell research was right from the outset framed in terms of the contentious politics of abortion, became caught up in America’s culture wars, and the funding policy debate revived salient political themes of earlier controversies over abortion and fetal transplantation research. By contrast, efforts by EU policymakers to develop a framework for the ethical governance of stem cell technologies and their applications in regenerative medicine were intertwined with fundamental questions of EU federalism, common European cultural values, and the traditional consensus-oriented politics. I claim that in both cases the moral and policy dilemma was brought to a conclusion by non-epistemic procedural closure. By sealing off the debate through legislative and administrative procedures, policymakers have failed to achieve a morally justifiable resolution of the issues central to the stem cell controversy either through the method of consensus closure or on the basis of epistemic (knowledge-based) factors.