ABSTRACT
Mammography screening is a subject of significant disagreement in medicine, with major U.S. medical organizations promoting at least three conflicting guidelines. Despite this institutionalized, public disagreement among expert organizations, there is surprisingly little research on the discourse of the mammography conflict. Drawing on interviews with a sample of 29 doctors and medical researchers, this paper examines debates over mammography as an “attentional battle”, or a contest over what should be attended as relevant. I trace two broad belief structures, traditionalism and skepticism, that organize the participants’ narratives. Focusing on the examples of early detection and overdiagnosis, I highlight what for both skeptics and traditionalists are the salient “facts,” as well as what is considered “not applicable” to the evaluation of mammography. Such an analytic approach seeks not to make a determination about who is correct, but to more deeply understand the cognitive basis of each view, as well as to highlight any information that may be considered irrelevant and ignored. Through facilitating a more complete and flexible understanding of the potentially relevant facts, as well as the way a commitment to some involves ignoring others, the sociology of attention offers a fresh vantage point on what otherwise seems to be an immovable disagreement.
