ABSTRACT
The ability of media to suggest which issues are important and to create a sense of how others feel about them are thus indirect but nontrivial forms of influence. This chapter questions that is it possible to identify which interests the media serve? Scholars often see media as instruments of social control, despite media organizations’ perceptions of themselves as fulfilling a “watchdog” role. The coding scheme used for these analyses stemmed from Gamson and Modigliani’s work on nuclear power in which framing was a key variable in understanding how media coverage was presenting the issues. Given discourse on the transatlantic divide, one may assume that it is only the US and Canada where biotechnology and other genetic topics are being framed as progressive. Biotechnology, genetic engineering, and other issues related to genetics have all become part of the mainstream news and popular culture, as well as the science-based literature.
