ABSTRACT
The media are key arena through which ideas about bioethics are played out. What rhetorical work is being performed in this context? How do media practices impact on how controversies are framed? And how does coverage change over time? This chapter examines such questions in relation to one of the most controversial aspects of new biotechnologies – the use of embryos in stem cell research. We examine how the embryo is defined, imagined, visualised and represented in such controversies, and examine the strategies adopted by leading protagonists in the debate across a five-year period. We start by analysing the heated debate about shifting regulation that
played out in the UK during the year 2000. We then follow this up by revisiting the analysis in relation to the scientific ‘breakthroughs’ that followed in 2004 and 2005. Our analysis demonstrates how both sides in the dispute mobilise metaphors and use personification to recruit support; and how they promote different ideas about the embryo’s significance, size and social embeddedness and present competing narratives about its origins, destiny and ‘death’. The role of visual representation is key here. It does not follow the usual pattern whereby, in the abortion debate, those ‘on the side’ of the foetus display its image while those who are ‘pro-choice’ shy away from this. In the stem cell debate the pattern is inverted, highlighting the role of technologies of visualisation in defining what counts as human. Our analysis also demonstrates how, in spite, or even because, of the
apparently ‘balanced’ nature of media coverage, it systematically disregards more fundamental challenges to science and curtails discussion of broader social and political issues. We go on to show how, in spite of many continuities in rhetorical strategies between 2000 and 2004-5, the changing scientific context and the shifting form of the news event (for example the ‘science breakthrough’ story) can impact on which discursive repertoires are mobilised and which gain most prominence. In conclusion we reflect on the methodological implications of our research, and how the findings
might inform efforts to support more diverse debates around science and society.
