Hegemony in a mass‐mediated society: Concordance about reproductive technologies¹

`Human clones talk about their lives': media representations of assisted reproductive and biogenetic technologies

“…A similar concordance of interest also exists between journalists and consumers, with the latter group often providing highly newsworthy stories (Condit, 1994). As noted by Karpf (1988), Petersen (2001), andConrad (1997), finding the human interest angle behind a complex new medical or scientific development is a common journalistic technique used to create interest and make 'high-tech' procedures and technologies more relevant and personally meaningful to lay audiences.…”

“…As noted by Condit (1994), specialists, scientists and researchers also provide reporters with stories about cutting-edge research and emerging technological developments that are inherently newsworthy, thus offering journalists and editors what they need: interesting and topical stories that help sell newspapers and magazines.…”

“…As Corner et al (1990) and Philo (1990Philo ( , 1993 suggest, news stories may actively 'frame' issues in ways that legitimate particular understandings of them, whilst simultaneously excluding or downplaying other possible explanations, thereby narrowing the scope of public debate. Condit (1994) also notes the tendency of media to 'amplify' certain voices while silencing others.…”

“…Members of these groups are often key sources for health and science reporters, and in many respects, a symbiotic relationship (Karpf, 1988;Weingart, 1998;Michelle, 2006a) or concordance 7 of interest (Condit, 1994) exists between them. For their part, journalists increasingly rely on the 'knowledge capital' and institutional authority of highly qualified specialists and scientists to lend credibility to reports on new developments in emerging fields.…”

“…News coverage of ARTs and related biogenetic developments is thus the cocreation of journalists and their key sources, and this is clearly apparent within the growing body of research in this area (see Nelkin, 1987Nelkin, , 1996Nelkin, , 2001Karpf, 1988;Franklin, 1990;Stone, 1991;Einsiedel, 1992;Condit, 1994Condit, , 1996Van Dijck, 1995Bauer, 1998;Nelkin and Lindee, 1998;Conrad, 1999;Brienbaum-Carmeli et al, 2000;Huxford, 2000;Petersen, 2001;Priest, 2001;Seguin, 2001;Anderson, 2002;Nerlich et al, 2002;Nisbet and Lewenstein, 2002;Hamilton, 2003;Nisbet et al, 2003;Smart, 2003;Väliverronen, 2004 This data was compiled in Excel spreadsheets and the sample analysed as a whole.…”