ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on two important groups of human actors, users of (direct-to-consumer) DTC genetic testing, and genetic counsellors, as an example of healthcare professionals implicated in this new market. It examines how the healthcare profession of genetic counselling has been represented on DTC genetic testing websites, blogs and other online material. The book considers how these participation practices are paradoxical in terms of their potential to be both alienating and emancipatory. It examines the intersections of new genetics and new media by drawing from three different fields of study: internet studies, the sociology of health and illness, and science and technology studies (STS). It explains the internet opens up new possibilities for people to locate health-related information, and new spatial-temporal relations among patients/consumers, healthcare professionals, and holders of biological information. The Human Genome Project (HGP) was a 'big science' project, largely publicly funded.
