Controversy and Collectivity: Articulations of Social and Natural Order in Mass Mediated Representations of Biotechnology

Horst, Maja Doctoral Thesis Controversy and Collectivity: Articulations of Social and Natural Order in Mass Mediated Representations of Biotechnology PhD Series, No. 28.2003 Provided in Cooperation with: Copenhagen Business School (CBS) Suggested Citation: Horst, Maja (2003) : Controversy and Collectivity: Articulations of Social and Natural Order in Mass Mediated Representations of Biotechnology, PhD Series, No. 28.2003, ISBN 8759382112, Copenhagen Business School (CBS), Frederiksberg, https://hdl.handle.net/10398/7130 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/208677 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Controversy and Collectivity - Articulations of Social and Natural Order in Mass Mediated Representations of Biotechnology Maja Horst Doctoral School on Knowledge and Management Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy CBS ii I would like to try presenting culture as a dialogue. This is like joining a powerful movement in the social sciences to turn action into speech and text, and I should say firmly where it is different: I am not taking the Habermasian view of the ideal society as dialogue, because I am not emphasizing possible harmony, but the contrary. The aspect of the cultural dialogue that needs to be understood is accountability. Think of culture as essentially a dialogue that allocates praise and blame. Then focus particularly on the blame. Intercultural dialogue is inherently agonistic; the outcome will at any one point be a victory for one and defeat for another of the contestants; the contest is about the form of the life to be led in common. (Mary Douglas 1997:129) iii Content Preface Introduction Public debate about controversial science ........................................................ 1 Conceptual clarification and analytical strategy ................................................. 10 Chapter 1: Science interacting with the public - A background study of explaining controversies......................................... 17 Traditional PUS – enhancing ‘scientific literacy’............................................... 19 Critical PUS – democratising science................................................................. 26 A third perspective – negotiated credibility in networks.................................... 31 Implications for the present study....................................................................... 37 Chapter 2: Mass mediated networks of articulation - a theoretical and methodological framework............................................... 41 The social construction of news.......................................................................... 42 Articulation of facts............................................................................................. 44 Articulation of news............................................................................................ 49 Script, inscription and subscription..................................................................... 51 Cultural theory..................................................................................................... 56 Three kinds of analyses....................................................................................... 62 Chapter 3: Cloning sensations - Inscription of a technology of fear................................................................. 69 ‘Danes shocked at plans to clone baby’.............................................................. 72 Technical aspects................................................................................................. 74 Regulatory aspects............................................................................................... 78 Wider societal aspects ......................................................................................... 82 Post-script to the story of Seed............................................................................ 87 Four different newspapers................................................................................... 88 Four scripts of social response ............................................................................ 90 iv Chapter 4: Gene therapeutic experiments -Inscription of a technology of hope ................................................................ 93 Pre-script ............................................................................................................. 95 A promising experiment suspended.................................................................... 98 Therapeutic aspects ........................................................................................... 102 Technical aspects............................................................................................... 113 Regulatory aspects............................................................................................. 122 Three different super-scripts ............................................................................. 128 Chapter 5: Articulated collectives - Theoretical translations................................................................................ 135 Authoritative hierarchy ..................................................................................... 137 Competitive individualism................................................................................ 140 Sectarian egality ................................................................................................ 143 Fatalistic isolation.............................................................................................. 146 Controversies as cultural dialogue .................................................................... 149 Chapter 6: Regulation of biotechnological research - Articulations of science, ethics and public debate ..................................... 153 Authoritative hierarchies................................................................................... 157 Competitive individualism................................................................................ 169 Sectarian egality ................................................................................................ 180 Fatalistic isolation.............................................................................................. 192 Regulating biotechnological research ............................................................... 197 Concluding remarks .......................................................................................... 203 Chapter 7: Controversies as conflicts and alliances in cultural dialogue - A concluding discussion................................................................................ 207 Articulated collectives as structure and agency ................................................ 210 Empirical development of controversies about biotechnology......................... 214 Public debate as a vehicle for political closure? ............................................... 230 Danish summary.............................................................................................. 239 Reference list.................................................................................................... 241 Appendix .......................................................................................................... 251 v vi Preface The basic question that drove me towards writing this thesis was a curiosity about our high expectations of public debate as a means of solving controversies about biotechnology. Throughout the analytical process, however, it became obvious to me that just like all the other productive practices of articulation, I, too, was producing something. I produced the actant ‘articulated collectives’ bound to the notion that whenever we make an argument about biotechnology, we are not just making a claim about the technology in question, but also about the order of the world and the way this social and natural order is constructed, maintained and restored. The following pages are an effort to inscribe this actant in a credible way and provide the reader with reasons to accept it as a member of the academic environment. It must be admitted that so far this actant is rather weak. Inscribing it in a dissertation is only a first step, but I hope that it will find applications outside the local context in which it was created so that it might gain in stability and substance. For me, however, handing in the thesis is not a question of abandoning the actant in the text at the complete mercy of its readers. Since the fates of the actant and of the PhD student are inextricably linked to each other I cannot abandon it like an orphanaged child. Rather it is more like all the other children that we foster: they transform us for better and worse, but leaving them is impossible. The best we can hope for is that the sense of parental responsibility diminishes as their individuality grows. Until that happy day, however, I am prepared to assist the actant, just as it does assist me. For that reason I am grateful that the evaluation committee, Alan Irwin, Torben Hviid Nielsen & Merle Jacob, has given me the opportunity to defend it as part of a PhD dissertation and hopefully to mediate it into larger networks providing stability and substance, in short, the opportunity to make it more real. Viewed locally, the network in which the creation of the actant took place does not feel weak. I am indebted to my supervisors: Anker Brink Lund, who has guided me with humour and care since I was a masters student, and to Niels Åkerstrøm Andersen, who provided the necessary challenges for this dissertation to take shape. They both offered indispensable points of reference when I lost sight of where I was going. vii I would also like to thank colleagues at the two institutions where I have been working: The Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy at CBS and the Department of Health Services Research at the University of Copenhagen. Particularly, I would like to thank a number of colleagues who at various times have read part of the thesis and provided me with useful comments: Bent Meier Sørensen, Thomas Basbøll, Steen Vallentin, Thomas Hellstrøm, Birgitte Munch, Dorthe Pedersen, Peter Kjær, Asmund Born, Søren Wenneberg and Mette Lolk at CBS and Mette Nordahl Svendsen, Lisa Dahlager, Klaus Høyer and Margareta Bertilsson at the University of Copenhagen. Helene Gram and Mette Bøgelund did an excellent job with the establishment of the archive of newspaper articles, the quantitative coding of the articles as well as with search of literature and reference work. Working as a true public philosopher, Thomas Basbøll‘s proof reading went far beyond the question of language and taught me much about my own epistemological bearing. None of the work could have been done without the financial support from the Danish Medical Research Council, which funded the project through a generous grant to the research group ‘Molecular diagnostics and disease prevention’ headed by Lene Koch at the University of Copenhagen. I am greatly indebted to Lene, not only as a project manager, making me able to finish on time, but also as a joyful safe haven in the intermittent roughness of academic life. And, finally, I continue to be completely dependent on my husband, Lars Christiansen, and my children, who seems to be the universal stabilising force that continually transforms me into a relatively decent person, as wife, mother and friend. viii This is an idea that is also present in the previously mentioned institutions of the Council of Ethics, the Board of Technology and the BioTIK initiative. It is implied that through public deliberation it will be possible to identify acceptable as well as unacceptable uses of biotechnology. Public debate can in this view also be presented as a basis for policy recommendations. Through the last decade it has been common to regard these initiatives as part of an international trend towards strengthening the accountability of science (Joss 1999; Durant 1999). But it can also be noted that the ideal of a deliberative, public dialogue has played a major part in the Danish social movement of folk high schools and the theological tradition inspired by N.F.S. Grundtvig (1783-1872) and, later, Hal Koch’s (1904-1963) notion of ‘democracy as dialogue’ (Lund & Horst 1999). What is implied in this tradition is that public debate is important in itself because it serves an edifying function (‘bildung’) forming an understanding of the individual and collective human condition. To take part in a social dialogue is not just important as a matter of voicing one’s preferences, but as a process of deliberation that shapes interpretations of the world. As a collective process, this deliberation also serves the end of integration, since citizens are supposed to form shared and common interpretations. This notion of integration through public debate can therefore be observed as an instrument of societal self-reflection. Public debate is seen as the mechanism through which society as a whole can reflect on itself and decide whether a given social trend is desirable or not. The conception of deliberation as a feature of the public sphere that can turn particularities into mutually binding interpretations has been thoroughly discussed by Jürgen Habermas (Habermas 1991; Habermas 1990). In chapter 1, I will return to a discussion of the way this Habermasian ideal has been developed in the context of science and technology studies. The important point, here, is that the ideal has been a productive force in the Danish context in social movements of folk high schools etc. And the notion of public debate as the instrument for reaching closure in the form of legitimate political regulation is a common ideal in Danish controversies about biotechnology. There are, however, also some peculiarities in the way this ideal is invoked in actual public debate. An earlier analysis of the controversies over foetal diagnostics (Horst 1996) revealed that the demands for more public debate were an in7 tegral part of the arguments in the controversies. Even when the debate was prominent both on the political and the mass media agendas, actors continued to issue demands for ‘more public debate’. Moreover, as the example of BioTIK demonstrates, public debate is sometimes presented as a phenomenon in need of artificial life-support in order to function properly. Rather than emerging because members of the public find an issue worthwhile discussing, the debate is orchestrated, because the public apparently needs to be ‘inspired’ to debate and form opinions on the issues of biotechnology and genetics. It is therefore possible to identify a paradoxical situation in these calls for public debate. The more public debate there is, the more it is in demand. And the more it is praised for its bottom-up qualities, the more it is orchestrated as a top-down process. The continuous presence of demands for public debate might indicate limits in the ability to reach legitimate closure through societal self-reflection in the public sphere. This paradox, however, is made less visible by the continuing demands for more public debate, which can be seen to be a way of preserving the ideal of public debate as such. In these demands, the inherent argument seems to be that it is not because public debate does not work as an instrument for closure that controversies persist; it is rather because we have not had enough public debate yet that the issues remain open. Although public debate appears to be valued as a democratic institution of legitimacy, however, there is no unanimous agreement on the specific definition of public debate or criteria for its social performance. It is not just a medium through which controversies unfold – rather it is explicitly thematised in the controversies as an instrument that should be applied in particular ways. The identification of this paradox in the demands for public debate indicates a need to look at the concept of public debate in much the same way as the concept of science, that is, as a concept being problematised and negotiated as part and parcel of the issues being debated. On this account it is not the intention to analyse controversies in order to be able to judge the societal function of public debate. Whether the controversies concerning biotechnology signal a real need for more or less public debate in order to secure legitimacy is not the issue in this thesis, just as I will not discuss whether the notion of deliberation in the public sphere is normatively right or wrong. Rather I propose to look at these problematisations of public debate analytically and see how the ideal of public debate emerges as a means of integration and societal reflection, and discuss 8 whether this emergence is at the same time an indication of possible limits to the realisation of this ideal? Consequently this dissertation will argue that the controversies about biotechnology are political because they have been continuously on the agenda of public debate, despite numerous efforts to reach closure in terms of legislation and non-statutory regulation as well as different participatory methods. The analyses are designed as an exploratory study of the thesis, that the concepts of science, ethics and public debate are debated because the controversies touch upon basic political opinions about the constitution of society. These concepts do not designate external mediators to which it is possible to turn in order to settle controversies. Rather they are part of what the political controversy is about. We do not just disagree about genetic technology, but also about the societal role of science, ethics and public debate. Under these circumstances, a study of public debate is a study of the discursive conditions for the possibilities of regulating a controversial area of present society. Similar to the broad definition of politics adopted earlier, I employ the term regulation as an open term analogous to the use of governance within political theory. But rather than a policy-study of the actual formulation of regulation of biotechnology, the present dissertation is a sociological study of the discursive conditions of possibility for regulation in present Danish society. On this background I have chosen to study mass mediated debate, since it must be expected to convey a diverse set of opinions and arguments at the same time as it makes it possible to study public opinion formation as a dynamic process. Rather than a study of policy documents or interviews with key figures in the policy process, where the possibilities of regulation are already to a certain extent negotiated and delimited according to certain viewpoints, the mass mediated debate must be expected to provide access to a more diverse set of opinions, although this analytical strategy also has some problems, to which I will return to later. These considerations made me conduct an exploratory study from this problem statement: The objective is to study mass mediated controversies about biotechnology as political controversies, by analysing how different arguments construct the relations between particular definitions of problems and their solutions, hereby pointing to the discursive 9 conditions for the possibility of regulating biotechnology in present Danish society. In the following section, I will clarify the analytical strategy behind this formulation of the problems as well as define the central concepts employed in this problem statement. Conceptual clarification and analytical strategy The term controversy is originally adopted from a tradition within the theory of science that focuses on scientific controversies as a particular object for the study of science as a social activity (Brante 1990; Brante & Elzinga 1988; Engelhardt & Caplan 1987). Here, controversy is defined as an explicit dispute between different parties interacting with each other. In order to study controversies, it is therefore necessary to define a set of actors and a core of the disputes coherently. Reviewing the public controversies concerning biotechnology in Denmark, however, I have found it difficult to establish this kind of identification as the basis for an analysis. It seemed more appropriate to regard the debates about biotechnology as an ongoing problematisation with an unlimited set of actors and with unlimited possibilities of association to other themes and issues. Rather than establishing a particular controversy with a particular set of actors as the object of analysis, I chose an analytical strategy that could make the identification of controversies the outcome of the analyses rather than its point of departure. Networks of articulation The basis for this analytical strategy is that controversies unfold in a medium of public articulation. The term public articulation designates a particular conceptualisation of public opinion formation as an ongoing, unlimited, and flexible production of articulation in a public space. In Chapter 2 I will present a theoretical framework for this understanding based on a relational ontology inspired by Bruno Latour. Central to this framework is that public opinion formation is defined as a continuous process of translation, inscription and association. Instead of speaking of public opinion as a particular form (as the outcome of some sort), public articulation is defined as a medium. It is a continuous production of propositions articulated in public, that is, in some sort of collective of other actors. In this process of articulation, relations between different propositions are 10 established continuously, but they are not the ‘substance’ of public opinion. Rather they are relations establishing a network of articulation that exists as long as it is being reproduced. The example of human cloning can perhaps clarify this notion of networks of articulation. In 1987, on the background of distinct public articulations of this technique as an illegitimate and unacceptable way of reproduction, it became illegal to clone humans in Denmark6. Since the end of the 1990’s, however, new articulations of the technique of human cloning have emerged and some articulations now distinguish between reproductive and therapeutic cloning. The term reproductive cloning designates the use of the cloning technique that is still articulated as unacceptable – the production of human babies. But the term therapeutic cloning designates a different use of the cloning technique – the production of human cells, but not a human foetus. And several of these articulations recommend new research with therapeutic cloning, because it might lead to new possibilities of therapy and treatment of diseases. In order to be able to actually conduct this research, however, it is necessary for the statutory regulation to be changed. And one of the necessary conditions for this change is probably articulation of general public acceptability. This is the present situation in which we can say that there are competing networks of articulations of human cloning. New networks might be established in which the distinction between reproductive and therapeutic cloning is employed in a way that makes it possible to associate therapeutic cloning with treatment and care, rather than the manufacture of babies. And the more articulations that employ this distinction the stronger it becomes, so that eventually it might become stronger than the alliance around the previous articulation: Cloning as such is unacceptable. In this way, public articulation of propositions can be seen as a continuous process of creation of relations, in which phenomena are connected to each other, establishing stronger or weaker alliances. This production is contingent, because relations could always have been established differently. But it is not arbitrary. It is always taking place in a pre-negotiated context of earlier connections (Lund 1997). It is not easy to create alliances with an articulation of cloning as the pre6 Act no. 353 from June 3 1987 on the establishment of an ethical council and the regulation of certain bio-medical research trials 11 ferred way of human reproduction. It appears to be rather difficult to disconnect the previous network of articulation around cloning, which apparently includes notions of God’s creation, the autonomous subject and Frankenstein’s monster. Arguments This processual perspective on public opinion formation as a continuous articulation of propositions in public does not view public opinion as an outcome of controversies that can be analysed in order to explain the beginning and the end of controversies. Instead, public opinion formation must be viewed as an ongoing production of articulation that is never settled. Public opinion never becomes a substance that can be measured; rather it has to be studied as a dynamic process. In this process, controversies can be viewed as points of condensation in the constant production of public articulation. Controversies have a theme that makes it possible to speak of a controversy as an association of connected arguments. But how this theme should be defined is a question for the analyses to answer. So the definition of particular controversies is not the starting point of the analyses, rather it is the outcome. But what can then function as the object of analysis? I have settled for the argument as the analytical unit to be analysed. In order to be able to speak of a controversy there must be conflicting articulations of a particular object. Controversies can therefore be said to consist of conflicting arguments, which construct particular relations between problems and solutions with the aim of making an audience adhere to a particular representation of a situation7. To speak of an audience is not necessarily to imply an actual addressee, but only to observe that an argument implies an imagined audience. Within the rhetorical tradition it is possible to speak of ‘the universal audience’ as the imagined audience of an argument that is not directed at a specific audience (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969:31-35). It is, therefore, plausible to say that arguments articulated in public are directed at a universal audience, but since it is a construction on behalf of the articulation there is nothing ontologically universal about this imagined audience. It should be noticed that when I speak of arguments as the establishment of a particular connection between problems and solutions, they are not ontologically 7 This notion of argument is modelled over the definition of arguments in The New Rhetoric: ‘the discursive techniques allowing us to induce or to increase the mind’s adherence to the theses presented for its assent’ (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969:4). 12 given entities, but rather particular constructions that vary between arguments. One example is that the prohibition of human cloning can be constructed as both a solution and a problem. It can be seen as a solution because it prevents unacceptable research, and it can also be constructed as a problem because it is an attack on an ideal about freedom of research and a prohibition against a new and promising type of research. Arguments are therefore a particular kind of proposition that establish connections between particular definitions of problems and solutions, hereby articulating phenomena in particular ways. And the analytical strategy of the present analyses is to study arguments about the development and regulation of biotechnology with the aim of identifying controversies, defined as observable patterns of differences in these articulations. As already mentioned, the dissertation is constructed as an exploratory study of the thesis that controversies persist because they bear upon basic political opinions about the constitution of society. During the study, however, I found it difficult to conduct the analyses with the sole theoretical inspiration of Bruno Latour alone. The relational ontology stipulates that phenomena can only be contextually defined in temporal relations to other phenomena. This analytical perspective is suitable for analysing different patterns of articulation, but the observed pattern does not hold any claim to stability. This became problematic in connection to the ambition of analysing the controversies as political conflicts. When I started to analyse how the phenomena of science, ethics and public debate were presented in different arguments, some stable patterns emerged which were hard to capture by the radically actor-oriented, processual perspective of Latour. Rather it seemed possible to classify the arguments in a relatively stable typology inspired by the theoretical framework of anthropologist, Mary Douglas’ cultural analysis. The combination of the actor-oriented concepts of Latour and the structural framework of Douglas is not of course without its tensions, as I will make clear in Chapter 2. But it allowed me to establish a heuristic typology of different articulations of science, ethics and public debate, which illuminate possible alliances and tensions in the discursive conditions for regulating biotechnology. This combination also made it possible to develop a conceptual framework of public opinion as medium for a constant cultural dialogue about the constitution of society, which I will discuss towards the end of the dissertation. 13 Empirical site and data collection The last issue to be dealt with in this introduction is the question of empirical data. As it will become clear in Chapter 1, controversies concerning biotechnology have been studied internationally in polls, focus group studies, mass media content, popular culture, scientific texts and policy documents. All these kinds of material exhibit both advantages and problems. As mentioned I have chosen to study mass mediated debate since it provides access to diverse constructions of arguments, and furthermore makes it possible to study public opinion formation as a dynamic process. An important benefit of studying mass mediated articulation is that it is possible to follow controversies over time. Furthermore, many of the mass mediated articulations are explicitly put forward as arguments that present a particular construction of problems and solutions. This makes it a very good empirical site for the study of the continuous production of articulations in public, where arguments present problems and solutions differently. This choice of data, however, also presented some notable challenges, since the mass media cannot be viewed as a neutral mediator of arguments. Rather mass mediated news must be seen as productive constructions of representations of the world. As I will argue in Chapter 2, however, this is not considered a problem for these analyses in particular, but rather a condition of any analysis of public articulation of opinions. Public articulation of opinion always has to take place in a medium, whether mass media, opinion polls, focus groups or consensus conferences. None of these are media, which neutrally transmit an underlying or ‘authentic’ public opinion. Rather, all these media are ways of negotiating or constructing the articulation of public opinions. In this way the thesis inscribes itself in a tradition of work that views public opinion as a ‘social construction’ (cf. Vallentin 2002). Within this perspective, the objective has primarily been to identify the particular conditions for the production of public opinion in the mass media. For example Lund has focused on the journalistic production of public opinion in a particular pre-negotiated context (Lund 1997), whereas Pedersen et al. have focused on the institutionalisation of a political communication system with journalists as a central actors (Pedersen et al. 2000). The perspective in the present dissertation is slightly different since it is not my intention to search for particular features of the journalistic production of news. Rather I am going to argue in Chapter 2, that mass mediated articulations can be viewed as a proxy for the articulation of public opin14 ion in general. Based on Latour’s theoretical perspective, I will argue that mass mediated articulations are not separate formations or reflections of public opinion, but rather a central part of the public production of opinions. It is on this background that I have chosen to study arguments presented in mass mediated articulations of biotechnology. Establishing a credible data source for this study, however, turned out to be a challenge because of my inability to point to any particular controversy that could be defined and delineated as object of study. On this account, I decided to construct an archive of all the mass mediated articles that articulated biotechnology in a given period. In order to construct this archive, however, it was necessary to conduct a preliminary study of content, since content was the means to decide, which kinds of articles to include and which to exclude. The construction of this archive was therefore linked to an analysis of associations between articulated phenomena in these articles. This combined construction of archive and study of content is thoroughly documented in the appendix to this thesis, and it serves as the basis for the further empirical analyses undertaken in this thesis. Here it should be mentioned that in the course of the establishment of this archive, the issue of biotechnology was narrowed to a focus on health care related biotechnology. This was due to a necessity of limiting the study, and articulations of GMO and agricultural gene-technology were found to constitute a vast body of material, which was fortunately relatively easy to disregard, as it seemed to be treated as a different sphere of application primarily articulated in separate articles. Furthermore, methodological considerations also led to a focus on four national daily newspapers, since national newspapers offer the best search facilities while being an important part of the mass mediated production of articulations. Structure The dissertation is structured in three parts. The first part consists of a discussion of the theoretical background as well as the methodological framework for the study. Chapter 1 is a discussion of the theoretical conceptualisations of the changing role of science and the function of controversies. The chapter concentrates on the academic tradition of studies in Public Understanding of Science (PUS), identifying three different models for the conceptualisation of the communicative relationship between science and the public. These three models can 15 be seen to imply three different ways of explaining controversies about biotechnology, the last of which is subscribed to in this thesis. On the basis of this model, Chapter 2 develops a theoretical framework for the study of biotechnological controversies inspired by the concepts of Bruno Latour as sketched in the previous section. The chapter ends by including the structural framework of Mary Douglas’ cultural theory as a necessary counterpart to the relational ontology of Latour. The second part of the dissertation studies how the inscription of occurrences into newsworthy stories constructs problems and solutions differently. Chapters 3 and 4 are empirical analyses of concrete cases of articulations of the technological application of human cloning and gene therapy. They both focus on concrete occurrences, which has been object of a large number of mass mediated articulations. The objective of these two analyses is to study concrete patterns in the inscription of problems and solutions. These patterns are termed scripts and in Chapter 5 the scripts are grouped in a typology of four modes of articulating the collective on the basis of the work of Mary Douglas. The third part of the thesis deals with the question of the controversies as political conflicts over the constitution of society. In Chapter 6 the typology of four articulated collectives identified in Chapter 5 is used as a structured perspective in order to study how different arguments inscribe the phenomena of science, ethics and public debate, and the tensions and alliances between these different inscriptions are discussed. This leads to a concluding discussion in Chapter 7, in which the theoretical, empirical and practical results of the analyses are discussed. 16 science, i.e. the more enlightened you are, the more you will accept scientific rationality and scientifically produced knowledge as a ‘true’ (and hence best) understanding of the world. Lack of consent for science and technology is seen as being due to deficiencies in knowledge. This explanation is especially in focus in the many surveys conducted in order to measure scientific literacy and the general public understanding of science. The controversies surrounding genetic science and technology are no exception to this tendency. Most prominent is the study by the research group ‘Biotechnology and the European Public,’ a consortium which has produced several empirical studies which are interesting in this context (Bauer & Gaskell 2002; Durant et al. 1998). On the basis of a survey conducted in 1996 (Eurobarometer 46.1) they have analysed the public perception of biotechnology in 17 European countries. On the basis of this analysis it was argued that Europeans are more sceptical of biotechnology than other areas of technological innovation, but that people discriminate between areas of application so that the ‘red biotechnology’ of the medical sector is viewed more positive than the ‘green biotechnology’ being developed in the areas of agriculture and food production. The study further identified three predominant logics for the public perception of future developments within biotechnology: A logic of support, a logic of risktolerant supporters (where expected benefits are seen to outweigh expected risks) and a logic of opposition. Regarding medical biotechnology (including genetic testing) approximately half the population was portrayed as supporting the developments and less than 10% were portrayed as subscribing to the logic of opposition (Durant et al. 1998). Drawing on the same data, Hviid Nielsen and colleagues have identified two qualitatively different types of opposition: a ‘green’, post-industrial opposition based on an argumentation about high risk, and a ‘blue’, pre-industrial opposition, in which biotechnology is against tradition and natural order, and therefore just basically wrong (Nielsen et al. 2002). In the context of the present thesis it is interesting that this European study also linked the public’s perception to an analysis of the characteristics of media coverage. They found a general pattern according to which relatively high degrees of scepticism in a country were positively correlated to the amount of negative press coverage. Compared to the rest of Europe, the Danish public was depicted as rather knowledgeable about biotechnology, but harbouring low expectations 23 for improvements in life due to biotechnology, much like other Northern European countries (Jelsøe et al. 1998). Furthermore, the Danish media coverage was found to be the most negatively framed coverage of biotechnology in Europe (Gutteling et al. 2002).9 In a Danish context two later surveys have been conducted showing that the expectations of biotechnology with regard to the improvement of life conditions are still much higher with regard to ‘red’ biomedical research although the general attitudes to biotechnology have become more negative (Mejlgaard & Siune 2001; Thulstrup 2000). The assumption that negative attitudes towards biotechnology are connected with a lack of scientific literacy, however, has not been supported substantially in these surveys, as there are a large proportion of sceptics even among the very knowledgeable (Mejlgaard & Siune 2001; Durant et al. 1998). This observation has promoted a search for other variables to explain the general attitudes towards biotechnology. Other socio-demographic indicators or political/religious values have been considered to this end, and differences between supporters and opponents have been found. Opponents tend to be older, to be women, to be less educated, to be more religious and to hold less materialistic values (Durant et al. 1998), the first three of these characteristics have been supported by Mejlgaard and Siune in the Danish context. Furthermore it has been argued that increased regional development (Allum et al. 2002), a general tolerance of risk (Mejlgaard & Siune 2001), and a general trust in science and authorities (Gutteling 2002; Mejlgaard & Siune 2001; Priest 2001c) can be connected to positive attitudes towards biotechnology. Other researchers, however, have argued that neither knowledge nor general values can be said to explain attitudes towards biotechnology since they only explain a remarkably small percentage of the variation (Midden et al. 2002). This has led these researchers to conclude that - at least by 1996, when the surveys were conducted - attitudes were not yet crystallised in Europe, but with further advances in biotechnology this will change: It seems plausible that, as biotechnology further develops, clearer attitudes will emerge. It should be noted that our data were collected before the important media events of, for example, the 9 This result, however, is probably also connected to the particular methodological design, which only includes the two papers Politiken and Information as well as the fact that the selection was taken from ‘Artikeldatabasen’, which primarily include long newspaper articles. As the analysis of associations in the appendix shows, these are all factors that would lead towards a bias of negative framing. 24 modified soya imports and the birth of Dolly the sheep, issues that projected biotechnology to the forefront of social debate. As it becomes apparent to more people that biotechnology is a diverse field, capable of producing a variety of very different products and services, people are likely to develop more differentiated attitudes. (Midden et al. 2002:223) In this way the authors sustain the view that public understanding of science is a function of public communication, although they do not support the notion of increasing support as a linear function of increasing knowledge.10 But it is also obvious that they seem to view controversies concerning biotechnology in an evolutionary perspective, where knowledge and communication is a decisive factor in the future development of the public understanding of biotechnology and science in general. These measures of public opinion are important as overviews of the current status of public understanding of science, but they also reveal some of the shortcomings of this method. Without listing all the points of criticism that can be directed towards these measures of public opinion it should be mentioned that although it is possible to compare polls at different times, they are still a static measure in that opinions are viewed as a stock of individual attitudes. In this way they leave out the social and processual aspects of public opinion formation. Furthermore they often treat national publics as a general entity. They hereby enforce a view of the national public as a coherent entity, which can be opposed to science, albeit graduated according to different levels of scientific literacy. It is the public which is the object of study, not science which is seen merely as an externally and ontologically given entity. In this section I have presented the traditional PUS tradition as exemplifying an asymmetrical outlook on the communicative relationship in the agora. It allocates a privileged place to science and scientific knowledge just as it perceives the public as a more or less ignorant mass in need of information and education. Accordingly, reaching closure in controversies is a matter of increasing the public understanding and acceptance of science through information campaigns. If the public is sceptical they need to be informed, educated or otherwise made sci10 Rather they seem to subscribe to what has been termed the mobilisation thesis, where increasing knowledge is seen to leading to mobilisation of both positive and negative standpoints. This hypothesis has been contested in a Danish context (Mejlgaard & Siune 2001). 25 entifically literate. This will provide them with an increased understanding. And not only will this make them lead healthier lives and become better democratic citizens, it will also make them more favourable towards science and scientific knowledge. This is, in an important sense, simply what it means to ‘improve the public understanding of science’. Critical PUS – democratising science The traditional model of PUS has been the object of much criticism over the past decade, where critics have referred to it as a ‘deficit’ model (Wynne 1996). What the critics point to with this criticism is the authority assigned to science and the unquestioned presumption of the superiority of scientific knowledge with regards to how to live a healthy life, how to make rational political choices, and the subsequent definition of communicative problems as a lack of understanding, a deficit on the part of the public. In this way, their critique parallels the existing criticism of the transmission model within general communication theory. Here it is argued that the ‘syringe theory’ understands the perception of messages as merely injecting information into a receiver, hereby construing the audience as far too passive. Rather than being passively injected with information in a process of transmission designed by senders, receivers actively select information according to its perceived utility, leaving information that does not gratify any informational needs unnoticed. Furthermore audiences are seen as actively constructing messages in the reception of information – making it impossible for senders to determine the outcome of the communicative process. Along the same line of criticism, Irwin and Wynne edited a collection of essays in 1996, in which all authors were trying to temper the traditional conception of the words Public, Understanding and Science (Irwin & Wynne 1996). It was argued, that the public cannot be understood as a single, homogenous and ignorant mass, but is composed of locally situated groups, each of which make sense of scientific knowledge in their own way. When viewed in their local contexts, particular instances of sense making, previously characterised as ‘deficient’, now seemed perfectly reasonable. Likewise the term understanding had to be broadened so as to denote more than just a one-way transmission of knowledge. Finally, science should not be treated as an unquestioned and automatically privileged sphere of society, but as one social activity among others. The editors concluded by arguing that: 26 The practical target of advancing the public understanding of science depends upon a willingness to facilitate a broader discussion of the contemporary – and changing – character of science and the relationship between this and wider relations of knowledge and citizenship. This will raise difficult questions about the limitations of scientific understanding, the direction of scientific research, the relationship between public needs and private profit, and ultimately, about who should control science. (Irwin & Wynne 1996:221) This view, that is, has implications for the conceptualisation of both the publics and science. Parallel to the emphasis on multiple publics as active participants in the interpretative process, science is not depicted as a single autonomous authority. The asymmetrical relationship portrayed by traditional PUS is substituted with a different relation, where scientific knowledge is one kind of knowledge, which should be evaluated on equal terms with other forms of knowledge. Following these lines of inquiry many researchers have argued for the need to understand the way lay people make sense of scientific knowledge. With special regards to genetics some of these attempts have been carried out as focus group studies (Condit et al. 2002; Barns et al. 2000; Kerr et al. 1998a; Kerr et al. 1998b). These studies stress the capability of lay people to comprehend and appreciate complex sets of problems. It is argued that the large interpretative repertoire of lay people can serve as a valuable hermeneutic contribution to experts conducting bioethical discussions, because it enhances the experts’ possibility of reflexivity and ability to evaluate biotech in a broad perspective of ‘the good life’ (Barns et al. 2000). Likewise Kerr et al. have argued that lay people possess a form of lay expertise and that their accounts of problems are much more openended and reflexive towards boundaries between autonomy and responsibility than traditional experts’ accounts (Kerr et al. 1998a). These studies all stress that lay people’s accounts should be brought to influence policy making since the technology has far reaching consequences for all members of society. In these accounts science is not perceived as a privileged authority producing true knowledge. Rather science is viewed as one social activity among others and is therefore also presented as amenable to control by democratic institutions in society. In this way these writings can be seen as parts of a broad tendency within sociology of risk and public policy to talk about a democratisation of science. These tendencies have been reinforced by the reverberations of the publi27 cation of Ulrich Beck’s Risk Society (Beck 1992). Beck stressed that science was changing and increasingly producing fallible, uncertain and de-monopolised knowledge. The risks implicit in the risk society are not of random accidents but have been manufactured by the advance of science and technology. As a consequence he instigated a call for science to assume responsibility and become reflexive. Science needed to pay much closer attention to its consequences. It should “install brakes and a steering wheel” (Beck 1992:180) by changing its self-conception and the political arrangement it is caught up in. Under terms like ‘reflexive science’ or ‘citizen science’ this request has gained wide support within the sociology of risk (Franklin 1998; Irwin 1995; Giddens 1990). It has thus reinforced a view of science as an activity that should ultimately be externally controlled. Science should be subject to political decisions made by societal institutions instead of developing according to its own internal logic. In later years the term Public Participation in Science has come to emphasise this understanding (Joss 2002; Joss 1999). One of the reasons for the growing interest in participatory methods is an apparent observation of increased public scepticism towards science and technology. In this respect it bears much resemblance to the intentions behind the efforts to create scientific literacy. The problem of scepticism, however, is conceptualised differently just as the suggested solutions differ from the idea of scientific education. Under the heading of public participation, it is not information campaigns but participation in decisionmaking processes, which is supposed to reduce scepticism. For instance, the noted promoter of scientific literacy, John Durant, has recently argued that we need to understand public scepticism as a demand for greater equality between scientists and non-scientists (Durant 1999). These diagnoses and problem definitions point to a different perception of the agora than has been presented in the previous section. Rather than being a medium for the diffusion of information, the agora is perceived as a sphere for democratic mediation and the exercise of control over scientific development. It is argued that ideals of equality and informed public debate is a precondition for creating socially sustainable public policies (Weale 2001; Davison & Barns 1997; Schwarz 1993). A more or less explicitly Habermasian inspired ideal of a public sphere is often invoked in this connection. As an example Edwards point to the public sphere as a vehicle for democratic control with science and for coordination between the public, policy-institutions and science (Edwards 1999). 28 Expert advice takes on a completely different role in this perception of the agora, since science is no longer an autonomous authority, but just one, fallible, voice among many. In this model different knowledge claims should be voiced on equal terms and solutions to problems should be reached through ‘a thick democratic debate’ (Davison & Barns 1997). Within this specific framework of deliberative democracy, procedural standards of fairness and competence become crucial requirements for new participatory processes. As an example Webler and Tuler argue for the importance of fairness and competence, where a fair procedure means that everyone ‘has an equal chance to make his or her voice heard and shape the final decision’ (Webler & Tuler 2002:183). However, they make the case that the process should be ‘competent’ in order to ensure, that ‘the best rules and procedures are used to gather, evaluate and select knowledge’. These procedural standards thus separate form and content in order to stress the importance of the former, arguing the crucial first step is to create consensus on how decisions are made. The ideal of participation on equal terms has also had an impact on practical developments. Governments and other policy institutions in Europe have increasingly been experimenting with activities concerning public participation in science, especially within the field of technology assessment (Joss 1999; Wheale & McNally 1998). Models employed include consensus conferences (Joss 2002), citizens’ juries, electronic public consultation (Finney 1999), and technology foresight (Borch & Rasmussen 2000). Although the practical models differ in scope and method, they all aim to ensure or improve public participation in the evaluation of scientific and technological development or policy formulations concerning science and technology. Much in line with Habermasian ideals of the public sphere and deliberative democracy, Joss outlines three characteristics in the development of participatory methods in Europe: 1) public access in terms of openness, 2) active actor involvement and deliberation in terms of empowerment of participants, and 3) institutional anchoring outside the formal state bureaucracy (Joss 2002). In this connection Denmark is often mentioned as being in the forefront of the development of a participatory agenda with the Danish Board of Technology as an eager promoter. Especially the Consensus Conference is a procedure that has been adopted in many other countries (Joss 2002). In a consensus conference a 29 panel of citizens and a panel of experts adopt different roles as inquirers and expert witnesses, but the goal is a dialogue that treats all participants as equals in that they all contribute on equal terms. Thus it is the citizen panel, which writes the final consensus document and the experts have no way to influence the result at this stage in the process. Andersen & Jæger point out, that support for the consensus conferences in Denmark is probably linked to a strong tradition for integrative political processes in Denmark and a cultural bias towards participation or deliberation in the common Danish perception of democracy (Andersen & Jæger 1999). An argument that is similar to the previously mentioned ideal of public reflection as means for integration and public edification inherited in the Danish Grundtvigian tradition. Not all scholars view the current experiment with participatory methods with equal approval. Levidow and Marris have argued that the participatory agenda and the rhetoric of openness employed within European policy formulation on agricultural biotechnology are part of an effort to increase public trust in science and policy making, but they also stress that these efforts are ‘tagged on to the dominant models of science, technology and the public, rather than superseding them’. (Levidow & Marris 2001). On this account they issue a warning that these efforts might do more harm than good with respect to legitimation and public trust, if the publics do not perceive them as truly participatory, as openings for real democratic change. Wheale and McNally have presented a somewhat similar critique (1998). In an edited volume analysing the social management of genetic engineering, they stress the importance of openness in public deliberation. They argue that the plethora of bioethics committees advising policy-makers pose a danger that politicians use these committees to abdicate from democratic responsibility. This is problematic because public debate should not be substituted with more or less institutionalised expert, i.e. elitist, deliberation on ethical questions. These kinds of criticism stress the importance of the authenticity of participatory methods. In order to improve democratic influence and reduce scepticism through participation it is important that the influence exercised is perceived as genuine. Summarising we can conclude that critical PUS presents a different perception of the agora as a public sphere for democratic debate, where the central issue becomes one of reaching agreement within a community. Closure can no longer 30 be determined with reference to ´truth´ or certainty but should be determined according to what different social actors can agree on. In this deliberative model put forward by critical PUS, the communication process is presented as symmetrical, but it is very interesting that this symmetry apparently is not something that is there in advance or by nature. Rather it has to be constructed and safeguarded by institutional design. It is worth noticing that most of these notions of a democratic agora put forward strong requirements for procedural regulations in order to secure real dialogue and equality of communication partners in the process. It is not enough that science and policy-makers be more open, processes have to be designed for participation and the influence has to be ‘real’. A third perspective – negotiated credibility in networks During recent years, however, criticism of the established critical PUS has emerged and within this criticism we might be able to identify a third notion of the agora as a space for mediating between science and publics. It should be noted, that I have only located this new type of conceptualisation sporadically in the literature. I will point to some contours of this new criticism by discussing some recent analyses by Mike Michael, in which he explicitly criticizes not just the deficit model but also the critical, interpretative PUS tradition. For other hints at this kind of criticism see (Miller 2001; Irwin 2001; Locke 1999). Michael points to a tendency to romanticize the public within critical PUS (Michael 2001). The consensual aspects of lay local knowledge are stressed in an image of the lay public as devoid of internal conflicts due to power and diversity. The lay public is depicted as a homogeneous entity without any sensitivity towards internal differences and cultural dynamics stemming from relations to other cultural domains in society. As opposed to this image Michael argues in favour of stressing heterogeneity, making the move also to a plurality of publics. He conceptualises the relationships between science and the rest of culture in terms of a network, or rhizome, which stresses discontinuity, fractures and nonlinearity. This image does not just have consequences for the understanding of how the relationship is perceived, but also for the notion of science and publics (or society) as distinct spheres. As he puts it ‘this imagery of the rhizome suggests that there is no easy differentiation between the expert and the popular, between the scientific and the lay.’ (Michael 2002:370) 31 In the next chapter I will return to the Latourian concept of network, which I will argue can be used as synonymous to the Deleuzian concept of rhizome in the present context. In my view Michael can be seen to be completely in accordance with Latour, whom he also cites, when he stresses that we should seek to place ‘emphasis on the role of the corporeality, distributedness, hybridity, partiality, and emergence (or, what might be called, the ‘process-uality’) of the public’ (Michael 2002:374). The public must be understood in terms of heterogeneity, always as several publics, and emphasis should be placed on ‘the ways in which disaffection, resistance, or accommodation to expert knowledge are resourced by broader cultural dynamics’ (Michael & Carter 2001:10). The perception or understanding of science by ‘the publics’ should thus be seen in a broader cultural context, where the diversity of publics is recognised, and where connections to other cultural influences and dynamics is given due reflection. Michael suggests, that, ‘perhaps chief among such dynamics is the globalized rise of consumption’ (Michael 2002:369). Michael has elaborated on this figure of consumption as central to the meaning of PUS by emphasizing a shift from the role of citizen to the role of consumer (Michael 1998). Here he emphasises the shift from the role of citizen to the role of consumer, when members of the public are increasingly ‘voting with their purchasing choices to make concerted efforts to influence policymaking’ (Michael 1998:320). This increasing focus on the citizen as a consumer should also have implications for the understanding of PUS. He argues that along these lines we could begin to understand scientific knowledge as a consumable, which is being evaluated and valued according to different standards of usability. Among these standards we could count also its aesthetic value, that is, the ways in which it ‘contributes to the expressive or stylistic dimensions of everyday life’ (Michael 1998:316). Science is thus no longer only evaluated according to its own authoritative ideal, but is given to different standards of evaluation beyond its own control. With the increasing focus on the layperson as a consumer, science, too, becomes a consumable good, which is distributed, consumed and evaluated in competitive settings. As opposed to the ideal that guides critical or interpretative PUS, the rhizomatic view or network model is not grounded in the possibility of reaching a common understanding by following particular procedures. The consumption of science is distributed and fragmented, and the mechanism of evaluation is closely connected to contextual utility, which might differ between individuals. 32 esses necessary in order to understand why the public does not understand the information. But the fundamental idea here is that controversies arise as a result of badly conducted processes of diffusion of information and knowledge. In the second model of critical PUS the problem is not that the public does not listen to science, but that science does not listen to the public. In this model, controversies are signs of scepticism and revolt because the sciences and their publics have become alienated from each other. Although scientific openness about progress and problems is seen as a necessary precondition for diminishing this alienation, the main focus in this perception of the agora is to secure legitimacy through deliberative dialogue and democratic control over science. The direction of information is therefore basically from the public toward science, since it is science, which is supposed to know and follow the consensus, created in the public to serve as the basis for legitimate knowledge creation. In the third model, controversies are seen as struggles in the constant negotiation over the development of technology and the changing and relational definitions of science and publics. It stresses heterogeneity and adversarial mutuality, and does not view controversies as instances of badly conducted diffusions of technology, nor as indisputable, normative calls for democratising science. Rather it views them as integrated and normal features of the mutual constitution of both science and publics. Solving controversies in this model is therefore a question of reaching a provisional closure of a distribution of credibility, but this distribution can in principle always be problematised all over again. These models can be viewed as three different perceptions of the agora as a space for communicative relations, where the medium for relations is construed differently in each case. In the diffusion model the medium is rational arguments based on information about nature with the aim of improving instrumental decision-making. In the deliberative model the medium is rational arguments based on social and cultural norms with the aim of improving an ideal of legitimacy. And, finally, the medium in the network model is rational arguments based on pragmatism and credibility with the aim of reaching interim closure in political negotiations. Viewed in this way these different models can be understood as perspectives on the agora or the communicative relation between science and its publics, each of which stresses different aspects. The identification of these three models should therefore not lead to a judgement as to what is bet39 ter or worse, but rather to a sensitivity towards the strengths and weaknesses of each model. In the present dissertation, I have adopted the third model since it is the explicit ambition to study the processual aspects of the controversies with the aim of understanding how problems and solutions are defined in mutually constitutive relations. An important feature of this network model is an ability to analyse public opinion as a process rather than as an institution with a particular normative function as in the two former models. In traditional PUS, for instance, public opinion can be measured in polls, but strict methodological rules will have to be respected in order not to distort the ‘objective’ description of people’s attitudes and opinions. Critical PUS criticises this conception of public opinion as a passive stock of opinions and argues that attitudes are always socially constructed. Therefore special procedural rules for deliberation have to be followed if a valid process of opinion formation is to be established. In this way, it is possible to argue that critical PUS also institutionalises public opinion to a certain degree, as a phenomenon with special rules that have to be observed if we are to get access to ‘real’ public opinion. I will argue that the emphasis on heterogeneity in the third model abandons this possibility of accessing a particular essence of public opinion. There is no true essence in public opinion – rather it is always mediated – whether in the form of opinion polls, focus groups, mass mediated debate and so on.14 As I have already indicated by the use of the word ‘network’ to describe the third model, it is analytically equivalent to the concepts employed by Latour’s theories. The following chapter is a presentation of the theoretical and methodological framework for a network perspective in the study of mass mediated controversies concerning biotechnology. With inspiration from Latour, I will develop an analytical framework that subscribes to a relational ontology in which the definition of phenomena and actors always is contextual. In this framework, mass mediated controversies on biotechnology can be studied as a dynamic processes of articulation, incorporating a heterogeneous plurality of actions from dispersed actors constantly negotiating public opinions on biotechnology. 14 A different way of saying this is to claim that of these three models, the network model is the only one that allows for a second order perspective, that is, a perspective which observe observations (Andersen 2003) 40 Chapter 2 Mass mediated networks of articulation - a theoretical and methodological framework The mass media are a major arena for public debate about biotechnology. The sheer quantity of information and the enormous complexity in modern societies make mass media an indispensable medium for those social actors who seek to spread their messages. But, as Eide and Hernes have pointed out, mass media is not just an arena were different actors can compete for influence by diffusing their message; media can also be understood as actors in themselves in that they select and represent different messages in particular ways (Eide & Hernes 1987). This double function indicates that mass mediated public debate cannot be taken merely as the reflection of a debate originated outside the realm of mass media and subsequently portrayed in the media. Rather, mediated public debate must be understood as the complex result of processes of opinion formation that take place both inside and outside the realms of mass media. The problem is further complicated by the fact that defining the realms of mass media is not straightforward. We could, of course, conceive of mass media simply as those organisations that normally produce mass mediated communication, such as newspapers and electronic media. This, however, seems to be a rather narrow notion, since it excludes many important actors such as the communication departments of many firms and whole organisations devoted to conducting strategic communicative actions in order to attract mediated attention (PR firms and advertising agencies as primary examples). We could, therefore, consider the mass media as an arena for communication, which includes all kinds of communicative actions that aim at reaching a wider public through mediation. This expansion of the realms of mass media further complicates the causal complexity, which arises from the double function as arena and actor, because it expands the relevant number of actors radically. Briefly put, the resulting causal complexity can be expressed as follows. When analysing mass mediated debate about biotechnology, we are at one and the same time analysing the outcome of a journalistic practice and the sedimentation of a general, social discourse about biotechnology. Accounting for this double influence, many analysts of mass mediated coverage of biotechnology have em41 ployed a two-pronged explanatory approach.15 Mass media coverage is influenced by broader cultural contexts, but it simultaneously influences these contexts in particular ways. Neither of these influences can be left out of an analysis of mass mediated coverage of biotechnology, but rather than treating this as a fundamental problem, I want to circumscribe it by combining the perspectives of arena and actor in a dynamic comprehension of mass mediation as the production of articulation rather than as a mirror of reflection. This chapter provides a theoretical and methodological framework for such a study by drawing on a relational ontology inspired by Bruno Latour. In this perspective, the mass media is at the same time an actor and an arena. Several features of journalistic practice can explain why journalists might be more inclined to do one thing rather than another, but it is equally important that journalists are at the same time completely dependent on all the other actors and institutions existing both inside and outside the organisations of the mass media. And rather than trying to disentangle this complexity, and sort it into different kinds of influences, I will focus on the outcome – the mass mediated network of articulations. The social construction of news The central point in the perspective adopted here is that news is a product of a social process in which a phenomenon is shaped into a newsworthy story. In order to be covered in the mass media, biotechnological occurrences have to be presented as newsworthy stories. But this constructive view does not imply that journalists can construct news in any way they see fit. Journalists cannot write everything they want, but have to make news out of the admittedly large, but also limited, number of available occurrences, sources and sustainable interpretations. So even though news is a constructed reality, there are limits as to how they can be constructed. 15 In the words of Dorothy Nelkin and Susan Lindee: ’We assume that the images and stories of genes in popular culture are not isolated artifacts but social products that both reflect and affect the cultural ethos’ (Nelkin & Lindee 1995:ix). Similar arguments can be found in other analyses (Gutteling et al. 2002:95-97; Priest 2001a:13-15; Dijck 1998:4). With special reference to public opinion formation, Bauer has argued that mass media can be seen as a proxy for public opinion at the same time as it sets the agenda and hereby cultivate particular views (Bauer 2002:155) 42 We might therefore argue that the productive work of creating news is not done by journalists alone, but rather in a relational process of trial and error exploring what kinds of connections between sources and occurrences are possible. In principle this process includes an unlimited number of actors, all with a possible influence on what can be made to seem newsworthy. Rather than ascribe influence to actors, we should insist that journalistic practices, news values and so forth are created in productive relations of negotiation between actors. Journalists do not decide by themselves what is a good story. They rely on an ability to make productive connections between sources and other news stories, between editorial practices and narrative possibilities. In short, the news are not constructed by journalists alone, but in productive networks of an in principle unlimited set of relevant actors. It should be noted that this perspective, inspired by Latour, has great affinities with the constructivist tradition within media sociology, where mass mediated news are analysed as a productive practice of constructing socially viable representations of the world (Berkowitz 1997). The reason for choosing the Latourian framework, rather than that of constructivist media sociology, is that the relational ontology of Latour and his focus on productive associations make explicit what media sociology only implies, namely, that a news story is not a particular instance of construction, posterior to, or disconnected from, the phenomena they are constructed around. Rather mass mediation can be viewed as a mode of production connected to the totality of productions of propositions about the world. That the creation of news should not be seen as fundamentally different from other social practices of representing the world is central to this view of the mass media. Everywhere people articulate propositions, they are engaging in a productive practise of establishing socially viable representations of phenomena in the world. The media, of course, is a particular field of action with particular rules of engagement, but in the framework inspired by Latour, relational construction in the media is not ontologically different from other social practises. This also implies that mass mediated representations of public opinion are not different from other mediations of public opinion, like opinion polls or focus groups. They are each a particular way of constructing public opinion by mediation. They are real as concrete constructions in a particular context, but there is no prior essence that we acquire access to in any direct way. Therefore mass 43 media studies of public opinion formation do not pose a particularly constructed case in opposition to other ways of measuring public opinion. Representation of biotechnology in the mass media can accordingly be studied as one among several ways of constructing public opinion on that issue. It is not a reflection of more ‘true’ or ‘original’ interpretations and images created in other contexts, subsequently being represented in a more or less distorted way in the mass media. Just as mass media is not a tool for doing away with information or legitimation deficits (as in the traditional and critical PUS traditions), it is not a filter, which somehow distorts another ‘more true’ formation of public opinion. But this will be much clearer after I have conducted a little detour into the laboratory of the French bio-chemist Pasteur, where a long list of ‘microbes’ were ‘found’ in the 19th century. Articulation of facts In the relational ontology presented by Latour, the work done by scientists is always basically productive. A successful experiment produces something – for instance the lactic acid ferment as Pasteur did in 1856 (Latour 1999b:113-73). This should not be interpreted to mean that milk could not turn sour before 1856, but the lactic acid ferment did not exist before 1856. Before that fateful year, curdled milk was a result of ‘spontaneous generation’ or of such abstract forces as invasion, disease, or mishap. But Pasteur constructs an experiment, which renders lactic acid ferment into that particular actant that makes milk turn sour: Let us say that in his laboratory in Lille Pasteur is designing an actor. How does he do this? One now traditional way to account for this feat is to say that Pasteur designs trials for the actor to show its mettle. Why is an actor defined through trials? Because there is no other way to define an actor but through its actions, and there is no other way to define an action, but by asking what other actors are modified, transformed, perturbed, or created by the character that is the focus of attention. (Latour 1999b:122). The design of the actor is done through a process of inscription, a term used about ‘all the types of transformations through which an entity becomes materialized into a sign, an archive, a document, a piece of paper, a trace.’ (Latour 1999b:307). In the case of the lactic acid the inscription devices are the set of 44 instruments cleverly arranged in a particular experimental design, which constructs lactic acid as a particular entity with particular characteristics that constitute the actant. A constitutive characteristic of the lactic acid ferment, for instance, is that it can make milk into yoghurt if it is treated properly. The vocabulary, however, of designing experiments in order to inscribe entities as actants should not be taken to imply that Pasteur is free to construct lactic acid ferment as he pleases (Latour 1999b:122-26). The something Pasteur is observing can resist inscription in many ways. If temperature is too high or too low, nothing will happen. The laboratory, therefore, is Pasteur’s examination room – how is the unknown actant reacting to different questions (experimental trials). Through a long list of questions the hitherto unknown actant is inscribed as lactic acid ferment, able to ferment milk if treated in particular ways. In regard to the production of facts, Latour proposes that we substitute the model of statements corresponding to the world with a model of articulation of propositions. Pro-positions are not statements aiming at correspondence, but “occasions given to different entities to enter into contact. These occasions for interaction allow the entities to modify their definitions over the course of an event” (Latour 1999b:141). In this way, inscription by articulation is not performed solely by human actors, but is the common feature of different entities entering into relation with each other. Likewise, propositions are not distinguished from each other by one single test of correspondence but by the many differences between them that make new phenomena visible in the cracks that distinguish them: articulation is in no way limited to language and may be applied not only to words but also to gestures, papers, settings, instruments, sites, trials. (…) If Pasteur is able to speak truthfully about the ferment, it is not because he says in words the same thing as what the ferment is – an impossible task since the word “ferment” does not ferment. If Pasteur, through his clever handiwork, speaks truthfully of the ferment, it is because he articulates entirely different relations for the ferment. He proposes, for example, that we consider it as a living and specific entity instead of as a useless by-product of a purely chemical process. (Latour 1999b:142-43). But the inscription of lactic acid through the experiments is only visible to Pasteur, and therefore the actant is still rather unknown and insecure. In order to 45 make the inscription of the actant more stable, Pasteur has to introduce the ferment to other actors by translating the inscription in the laboratory into propositions articulated in other relations.16 So Pasteur writes a scientific paper about his newly found associate. At first, the scientific community disagrees about accepting this new ferment. But slowly a long list of associations between other actors (both humans and theories, experiments, other bacteria and so forth – what Latour calls non-human actors) and the ferment is forming. The ferment is making so many connections that it becomes tightly weaved into a huge network, which makes it hard to ignore. In Latour’s relational ontology, this network is the same as existence. Latour argues that the length and stability of associations ‘make for a great deal of what we mean by existence and reality’ (Latour 1999b:161). The stronger the network, the greater the existence (Latour 1987). Around 1856 it was not very difficult to reject the lactic acid ferment and still be taken seriously by both scientists and other actors. Even Pasteur would take such a rejection seriously. But these days it is not just the ferment, Pasteur and his scientific experiment, which would have to be refuted – it is also necessary to cut connections to a large field of actors encompassing dairy production, biochemistry, primary school education and much more. Latour has spoken about the power of associations for this notion that the creation of associations is the productive force that makes things come into existence (Latour 1986). Forming associations to other phenomena in the world creates ferments and other facts. The basic work of technoscience is therefore to ask questions about what can connect to what? And the more associations that are created, the stronger the alliances that are formed, the more real any actant becomes: through the artifices of the laboratory, the lactic acid ferment becomes articulable. Instead of being mute, unknown, undefined, it becomes something that is being made up of many more items, many more articles – including papers presented at the Academy! – 16 Latour uses the word translation for the productive process of transformation in which a displacement of a phenomenon from one context to another is taking place: ‘Chains of translation refer to the work through which actors modify, displace, and translate their various and contradictory interests’ (Latour 1999b:311). It is important, that the concept of translation is understood as a processual concept. Latour describes translation as a process of mediation, which always exceeds its original conditions. Translation, thus, is not a question of a purely mechanical exchange where input equals output. Rather, the process is productive, since there is always some kind of change. 46 many more reactions to many more situations. There are, quite simply, more and more things to say about it, and what is said by more and more people gains in credibility. The field of biochemistry becomes, in every sense of the tem, ”more articulate” – and so do the biochemists. Actually, thanks to Pasteur’s ferment, they come into existence as biochemists, instead of having to choose between biology and chemistry as in Liebig´s day. (Latour 1999b:143) In the year 2000 it is hard to understand lactic acid ferment as something other than a brute fact just waiting to be discovered. In the eyes of Latour, however, this is how it looks in hindsight. In 1856 no one knew whether Pasteur had the right connections to last into the following centuries. In Science in Action Latour formulated two parallel rules of method stating that since the settlement of a controversy is the cause of Nature’s representation and Society’s stability, we cannot use either Nature or Society to explain why a controversy has been settled. 17 We should rather consider the efforts to enrol human and non-human resources in the productive work of creating facts symmetrically (Latour 1987:258). Neither Nature nor Society can be seen as underlying structures, or a priori determinants of the given outcome of a controversy. Rather the representation of nature and the stability of society are produced in the settlement of controversies. The solution of a disagreement is the result of productive work, not just the activation of a determining potentiality. This in turn means that the closure of controversies is a matter of granting some phenomena a relative existence only: When a phenomenon “definitely” exists this does not mean that it exists forever, or independently of all practice and discipline, but that it has been entrenched in a costly and massive institution, which has to be monitored and protected with great care. So, in the metaphysics of history that I want to substitute for the traditional one, we should be able to talk calmly about relative existence. It may not be the sort of existence science warriors want for objects in nature, but it is the sort of existence science studies would like propositions to enjoy. (Latour 1999b:155-56) 17 These rules of method also contain an indication of Latour’s criticism of social constructivism, which he later elaborated in, for instance, ’We have never been Modern’ (Latour 1991). The argument is that social constructivism often just substitutes one determining factor (Nature) for another (Society). 47 What Latour wants us to notice with the phrase ‘protecting with great care’ is that institutions are in a sense fragile. Without the concrete actions that uphold the institutions, the institutions will immediately go out of existence. If lactic acid ferments were not used in the production of yoghurt, education of dairymen, biology classes in high school, et cetera, they would not exist as lactic acid ferments. I find Latour's use of the term institution complicated. My own understanding starts with the notion that associations are what constitute actors in relation to other actors. An actor is therefore always an actor in relation to a particular network. Stabilised networks that endure in time and space can be called institutions, and the term can be used as a short cut for the depiction of a network that continues to establish relationally defined actors (human and nonhuman) in particular ways18. Latour’s attribution of fragility to this institution is a bit ostentatious. The efforts it would take to stop this production are enormous, as hundreds of thousands of connections had to be substituted with other connections for the institution of lactic acid to disappear. Instead of talking about entrenchment of the institution, I would rather talk about embeddedness because it signals less need for active protection. To be sure, the life of an institution is in the hands of actors, human and non-human alike, but a well-embedded institution is well connected and thus not easily dissolved. Important is that institutions are relationally defined. If institutions endure, it is because actors keep relating to them as institutions. And secondly, that which counts as an institution in one connection (for instance democracy on the day of general election) might be an object of fierce controversy in other connections (for instance in discussions on whether the government has a democratically legitimate right to declare war on Sweden). On a general level I have found this theoretical framework in which all phenomena have relative existence according to their contextual associations very fruitful for this study of public articulation of biotechnology and as a short hand I have termed it a relative ontology. 18 ‘…institutions provide all the mediations necessary for an actor to maintain a durable and sustainable substance.’ (Latour 1999b:307) 48 The collective is made of humans and non-humans together as an immense set of associations, ‘folded’ or black-boxed into a workable practice, but always with the possibility of unfolding. Therefore, the collective is always in flux, always being explored through the processes of translation, articulation and inscription (Latour 1999b:193). Harmony is not part of this perception; rather, conflict and controversy are central features in the constant exploration of the collective.25 Furthermore it is obvious that the collective only exists by being constantly articulated. The central notion of this argument is that subscription and inscription are part of the same movement, which means that the collective is always articulated simultaneously with the singular phenomena. When we inscribe the phenomena in particular ways we are at the same time subscribing to a general articulation of the collective, which makes this inscription possible. In the introduction I defined controversies as instances of competing networks of articulation. Now this statement can be qualified as follows. As I have just argued, any script is always also an articulation of the collective in a particular way, that is, it articulates a particular way of maintaining, re-storing, recognising or re-establishing the social and natural order of the collective. In making any argument, an actor is always establishing some implicit or explicit way of articulating the collective – a notion of how the world works and how social and natural order is composed and restored.26 It is therefore possible to claim that when arguments are adversarial in a controversy, they subscribe to different scripts that articulate the collective in different ways. On this background an analysis of patterns in the inscription of phenomena (scripts) simultaneously points to patterns in the ways that the collective is articulated. In the present dissertation this move from an analysis of scripts to an identification of modes of articulating the collective is conceptualised as induc25 Although I have chosen not to use a Habermasian analytic in this dissertation, it should be noted that this perception is not far from his notion of communicative action. Although many followers have stipulated the ideal of consensus, as mentioned in the deliberative model presented in the previous chapter, Habermas’ own description also stresses that any consensus is always contextual and volatile: ‘the complexity of any lifeworld is narrowly restricted by the limits of the strain that can be placed upon the mechanism of mutual understanding. (…) Ordinary language is a risky mechanism for coordinating action; it is also expensive, immobile and restricted in what it can accomplish.’ (Habermas 1987a:349-50) 26 This construal of arguments is comparable to Stephen Toulmin’s model of argumentation (Toulmin 1983), consisting of premises (problems), conclusions (solutions), and warrants (elements of the collective). 55 tion. The analysis of scripts points to a number of inductively defined ways of articulating the collective. Analysing patterns of subscription is therefore partly the same process as analysing patterns of inscription but the patterns are sought in the way the arguments subscribe to different modes of articulating the collective rather than the way singular phenomena are articulated by inscription. In order to be able to identify a pattern in these different modes of articulating the collective, I found it useful to complement the theoretical framework of the relational ontology, with a typology of four cultural forms identified by Mary Douglas and her colleagues under the term ‘cultural theory’. The original reason for the interest in Douglas was that the inductively defined scripts appeared to have certain similarities with the Douglas’ cultural typology. An exploration of these similarities led to a view of this typology as a powerful heuristic tool in the analytical condensation of the inductively defined scripts into four modes of articulating the collective. The combination of the theoretical framework of Bruno Latour and the more structural analysis of Douglas, however, is not straightforward. Like the extension of most networks, introduction of cultural analysis brings new problems with it. I will therefore present a short introduction to cultural theory, one which is guided by a wish to make it explicit in what way it is possible to combine the theories, but also to exhibit points on which they are incompatible. Cultural theory In their widely cited book from 1982, Risk and Culture, Douglas and Wildavsky (Douglas & Wildavsky 1983) made the provocative claim that it is not so-called objective and rational estimates that guide the selection of those environmental risks that people will most fear, but rather that people fear the dangers that suit their view of the world and preferred social order. They wrote that dangers ‘are selected for public concern according to the strength and direction of social criticism’ (Douglas & Wildavsky 1983:7). When members of American society choose to fear asbestos poisoning more than death from house fires (that asbestos is supposed to prevent), this is because it fits with an anti-industrial criticism that particular cultural and material trends in America have provided the breeding ground for. 56 In their analysis of the increased focus on the risks associated with pollution in America, they identified three types of social order with a particular and distinct set of values and beliefs: Hierarchy, Market and Sect. Whereas the first two were primarily identified by reference to mainstream political theory about bureaucracies and markets, it is obvious that Douglas’ previous work to establish the grid-group schema and its four distinct cultural types or cosmologies were also a heavy influence.27 A cosmology can be described as a coherent pattern of norms, specifying rewards and punishments, by appeal to which the individual would know how to behave in sanctioned ways, how to justify oneself to others, and also to judge the actions of others. Being a system of rewards and punishments, a cosmology is therefore defined as the perception of a system of social accountability, a notion of how the world is expected to work and the way society is organised – in short it is the perception of a naturally ordered social context (Douglas 1978:52-54). On the basis of two structural variables Douglas defines four possible cosmologies. Hierarchy and Sect have a high sense of group belonging, whereas Market and Isolate are low on this dimension. On the second dimension, Hierarchy and Isolate experience a highly pre-structured set of rules and regulations for action, whereas Market and Sect do not experience this outer 27 She originally introduced the scheme in Natural Symbols (Douglas 2001[1970]). When she later elaborated the scheme in Cultural Bias, the ambition was to produce a universal classification of different social contexts, which could be seen to have permissive and constraining effects on individuals’ choices (Douglas 1978:6). Here she refines the grid-group scheme in which grid is the perceived sense of restriction by formal rules and regulations, whereas group is the perceived sense of belonging to a group. Thus, Cultural Bias can be seen as the locus classicus of the theory, there stated in its pure form. It should be noted, however, that this book should not be seen as an authoritative source for the typology I employ here since it has been under continuous development both by Douglas herself and by a group of other researchers in the following decades. Douglas herself has put the cultural typology to use in many different contexts, such as for instance cognition (Douglas 1986; Douglas 1982), consumption (Douglas 1996b) and risk (Douglas 1996a; Douglas 1985; Douglas & Wildavsky 1983). In this dissertation I have primarily followed the trail of the typology as it has been developed in connection with the notion of risk. This is for two reasons. First, the arguments on risk and culture have many similarities with the present analysis of controversies on biotechnology. Secondly it seems that the arguments on risk are somehow less structural in orientation, than for instance the writings on cognition. Comparing a reading of How Institutions Think (Douglas 1986) and Essays in the Sociology of Perception (Douglas 1982) with a reading of Risk and Culture (Douglas & Wildavsky 1983) and the essays collected in Risk and Blame (Douglas 1996a), it seems that institutions do more to determine thought styles than social organisation does to determine risk perceptions. I am not hereby claiming to have identified a consistent or constitutive difference in the writings of Mary Douglas. It should just be taken as an indication of how I have found it easier to combine Douglas, the risk-analyst, with Latour than Douglas, the analyst of individual cognition. 57 pressure. At this point in the dissertation, however, I will not present these four forms any further, since it makes more sense to introduce them in more detail in Chapter 5 in connection with the definition of the inductively defined modes of articulating the collective. The argument put forward by Douglas and Wildavsky in Risk and Culture does not imply that some societies (or collectives) are more rational than others, or that some societies choose to fear the wrong things. Rather it means that any form of society or social organisation produces a particular view of nature and the natural environment, and that this view influences which dangers are selected for social action and criticism. Out of an immense array of dangerous possibilities some things are selected for attention and this selection is not arbitrary but closely interwoven with the needs of social organisation. Thus, their argument was not intended to suggest one-way causality. Rather they argued that the choice of risks and the choice of how to live in a society are taken together. Producing particular patterns of risk assessment is thus a simultaneous production of a particular social order, and in this respect their argument is very similar to the relational ontology hitherto adopted in this thesis: There is no gap between perception and reality and no correct description of the right behavior, at least not in advance. The real dangers are not known until afterward (there always being alternative hypotheses). In the meantime, acting in the present to ward off future dangers, each social arrangement elevates some risks to a high peak and depresses others below sight. This cultural bias is integral to social organization. Risk taking and risk aversion, shared confidence and shared fears, are part of the dialogue on how best to organize social relations. For to organize means to organize some things in and other things out. When we say, therefore, that a certain kind of society is biased toward stressing the risk of pollution, we are not saying that other kinds of social organization are objective and unbiased but rather that they are biased toward finding different kinds of dangers. (Douglas & Wildavsky 1983:8) This use of the term ‘organising’ can be seen as similar to the previously defined concepts of inscription and subscription. And just as I have argued that subscription is not determined by structure, but instead produces structure, Douglas rejects determination and presents social context in a way that is very similar to 58 the notion of actions taking place in networks. She speaks of the social environment as consisting of the ‘deposit from myriads of individual decisions made in the past, creating the cost-structure and the distribution of advantages, which are the context of present-day decisions.’ (Douglas 1978:6) Each day the context is new, but some of its effects are long term, just as the choices we make each day stretch in their longest effects way back into the past and far into the future. This is true of both its affirmative and subversive consequences. A given social order does not exist independently of the simple little daily choices of its inhabitants. A group is not taken to be formed, solid, existing independently of the volition of its constituent members. Their investment of time and energy quickens its life and marks its boundaries. Once they withdraw their own commitment, it dissolves away. Every time a member appeals successfully to the paramount need to ensure the survival of the group, its being in existence can be used as a more powerful justification for controlling individuals. (Douglas 1978:13) The general idea behind the theory is that the cumulative effect of individual choice is the social situation itself. The social environment is not given a priori, but precisely created by the many choices of the individuals. Choices are not pre-determined, though the costs of some choices may be higher than other choices. The individual and the environment interact and either can move, because the environment is defined so as to consist of all the other interacting individuals and their choices. These interactions of individual subjects produce a public cosmology, a world-view, capable of being internalised in the consciousness of individuals if they decide to accept it and to stay with it. Individuals can choose to buy the whole package, so to speak, but Douglas stresses that the approach does not assume that they must. ‘It is not an exercise to demonstrate the sociological determination of thought.’ (Douglas 1978:14) This construal is equivalent to the notion of subscription in which the articulated collectives exist because they are invoked in the scripts that are used for shaping phenomena in particular ways. The notion of internalisation in individuals, however, is not compatible with Latour’s relational ontology. In his perspective the individual subject is just as relationally constructed as all the other actors and internalisation is not an issue. On the other hand, Douglas herself stresses that 59 the relation between the individual and the cosmology should not be understood in terms of one-way causality: Although the argument involves this directionality, it is not intended to imply that a causal relation exists between cosmology as effect and social context as cause. In any social context, it may be assumed that the chains of cause and effect between the structures of social interaction and cosmological and cultural system, which are supporting them, are indefinitely interwoven and interdependent. Cosmological values, being used to provide justifications for the actions expected from a person by the constraints of his social environment, are likely to be involved in the choice of actions. Consequently a stabilising factor is identified. However, the individual, not seen here as being passively acted upon by the forces of his social context, is himself a part of that social environment, and he will be actively maintaining and constituting it. Any individual can interact at any level and choose to accept or reject the social pressures and prevailing cosmology in which he finds himself. (Douglas 1978:53) Cosmologies therefore do not determine actions but are rather created as a result of actions, just as the inscriptions of phenomena in the controversies about biotechnology produce a pattern of subscription to modes of articulating both the technology and the social and natural order of the collective. When people disagree over biotechnology, they can simultaneously be seen to disagree about the way the world is made into a coherent whole, but there is no priority in either of the two perspectives. The influence is simultaneous and should be analysed as such – rather than seeking causal explanations behind particular arguments, the objective is to look for patterns in connections. On this background I have found that Douglas’ perception of culture, as a conflictual dialogue about the exercise of power, fitted the earlier characterisation of controversies as political conflicts about the social and natural order of the collective. She defines culture as equivalent to politics, if politics is defined in a broad sense as power games over who should decide what in any social (political) order. In this definition culture is inherently adversarial. Culture is confrontation, since any perception of a social relation only exists in contrast to other relations. It can always be questioned and contested. Any exercise of power can 60 be challenged by an exercise of counter power, although it can be more or less manifest. Finally, there is no division between small and large political and cultural conflicts, between practical daily conflicts and general, ideological conflicts. Rather, they are extensions of each other in different contexts. Explicit controversies can be about particular details of the daily business of organising a life in common, but can at the same time be seen as general struggles over social order and the principles and institutions to be held sacred. In this connection, however, it should be emphasised that this is a particular reading of the cultural theory of Douglas, which stresses the indeterminacy in cultural forms. It is guided by the intention to make it compatible with Latour’s relational ontology. In some versions of cultural theory, especially when the focus is on epistemological consequences, it seems that determination is more predominant as cultural restraints on cognition (Douglas 1986; Douglas 1982). These approaches have been criticised by Latour for granting undue priority to society. He argues that they wrongly replace nature with society or culture, hereby disregarding the fundamental principle of symmetry as presented earlier.28 On account of this criticism, I have chosen to speak of articulated collectives rather than cosmologies or social order. The term ‘collective’ implies a symmetrical consideration of both social and natural order, and the term ‘articulated’ stresses the fact that the collective is not a structure with an independent existence, but is invoked in arguments by being articulated. The most crucial point in which the present dissertation differs from the cultural theory of Mary Douglas, however, is her structural perception, according to which there are only four kinds of cosmologies and that they can be identified with universal validity on the basis of two structural dimensions. To serve the purposes of this dissertation the typology must be the outcome of a concrete analysis. It is not seen as a structure determining the possibilities given to actors. It will appear from the presentation in Chapter 5, that I have employed the typology as a heuristic device, but I have not hereby proved it universally right or inclusive in connection to any political controversy. Rather I have found the typology useful as a compressed description, which improves the inductive empirical analyses by providing an analytical framework, which makes for greater clarity in the analysis of patterns in arguments. 28 Latour has criticised the sociology of science perspective for this asymmetry (Latour 1999a:21; Latour 1991:27-32). 61 The force of this analytical condensation is to be very productive in the efforts to answer the second part of the problem statement: how different arguments construct the relations between particular definitions of problems and solutions, pointing to the discursive conditions for the possibilities of regulating biotechnology in contemporary Danish society. The analytical typology provides a way of classifying arguments according to the relations they establish between problems and solutions – the way they articulate the collective. On the basis of this classification it can be analysed how different types of arguments frame the question of regulating biotechnology differently. Taken together, these differences are seen as the discursive conditions for the possibilities of regulating biotechnology. Three kinds of analyses In the foregoing, a theoretical and methodological framework for an analysis of patterns in networks of articulations has been presented. I will finish the chapter with a short introduction to the concrete methods of analysis that will be employed. The dissertation is constructed around three different kinds of analyses. An analysis of associations, which is documented in the appendix, two parallel analyses of inscription of occurrences into newsworthy events, documented in Chapter 3 and 4, and finally, an analysis of discursive possibilities of regulating biotechnology as expressed in arguments subscribing to different modes of articulating the collective documented in Chapter 6. Rather than providing an exhaustive account of the methods and data employed at this point, I have chosen to treat the concrete method of analysis in connection to each of these chapters. At this point, however, I will give an introduction as to how the four analyses are related to each other. Associations in news articles In mass mediated articulations of biotechnology, phenomena are inscribed in particular ways by being associated to other phenomena in particular ways. In order to study these inscriptions, however, it was necessary to establish an archive. And, as already mentioned in the introduction, this demanded a preliminary analysis of content, since the archive could not be constructed without a certain amount of knowledge about the content of the articles. On the back62 ground of the theoretical framework presented in this chapter, this analysis of content can now be conceptualised as an analysis of patterns in associations. In the appendix this analysis of associations between different kinds of technological applications, health care related problems and sources are thoroughly documented. It was conducted by working out a coding scheme applied to each article in order to count the frequencies in the appearance of different types of associations and it serves as the basis for the analyses of inscription in this thesis. On a general level it can be said to have created a map of the landscape of genetic news from the following questions: • What is associated with what in mass mediated articulations of biotechnology? • When do these associations seem to point to controversy – divergent notions of the technology as problem and/or solution? In this context it should be noted that the finished archive has come to consist of 1575 articles from four national daily newspapers. For practical reasons I have had to limit the number of media included in the search process, but it was important that the chosen media represent a fairly broad spectrum in order to give the analysis a reasonable amount of generality. Unfortunately, I had to leave electronic media out, since the search process within these media would have been too extensive. This is true of TV and radio, where it is very time consuming to search systematically for coverage of particular issues in Denmark. A slightly different argument pertains to the Internet, where it is relatively easy to search, but where it is extremely difficult to know what archive one is actually searching in. On this background I have chosen to study the written media, more specifically, the national newspapers.29 Focusing on newspapers has a further advantage; it is a type of media that most clearly has a distinct editorial style. This means that it is possible to make some informed choices on which media to choose, since I also had to limit the number of written media. The choice fell on four national newspapers exhibiting characteristic differences. Included are the two large broadsheets, the social-liberal Politiken and the conservative-liberalist Jyllandsposten. In order to broaden the analysis, two other newspapers have also been included: The tabloid Ekstra 29 A study of the food chains in the Danish Media supports this method, since it was shown, that electronic media to a very large degree replicate news stories from the printed media (Lund 2002; Lund 2000). 63 Bladet, and the intellectual niche newspaper Information. Ekstra Bladet has a general reputation of being the most populist and radical tabloid in Denmark. In contrast, Information has a reputation for being elitist with leftist leanings and focused on environmental issues. In the appendix, I present some quantitative figures for the overall editorial style of the articulation of biotechnology in these four papers and I have also included some considerations about other daily newspapers, which are left out of this analysis. A systematic full text search was carried out on these four papers on the basis of a list of keywords and covering the period from August 1997 to December 2001. The archive includes all articles, both news and views in this period, which articulate genetic technology in connection with the human body. It was found to be too comprehensive to also include agricultural technology. Of the 1575 articles, 405 did not cover health care related issues, but rather the use of biotechnology in relation to forensics, for instance DNA fingerprints or other nonhealth care related issues. They were treated separately, since they appeared to be inscribing problems and solutions differently than the 1170 articles, which covered health care related gene technology. On this account it is mainly these 1170 articles that have been the basis of the analysis of associations in genetic news. Inscription of occurrences into news On the basis of this mapping of associations, it has been possible to select two concrete cases for the study of the inscription of occurrences into newsworthy events. They are both cases, in which a particular occurrence has generated much articulation as well as much controversy, and they are therefore seen as exemplary cases for the study of inscription. The first occurrence is an announcement by an American researcher that he intended to clone a human being for reproductive purposes. The second occurrence is an announcement that a Danish experiment with gene therapy as treatment for liver cancer had been suspended. On the basis of the analysis of associations, documented in the appendix, it is obvious that cloning and gene therapy has been articulated in different ways in the Danish mass media. Human cloning is part of the articulation of a problematic field of applications intervening in human reproduction. This also includes foetal diagnostics and other reproductive technologies. Besides being articulated as rather problematic, these applications are also more often articu64 as a fact, albeit one that is unanimously rejected as a socially acceptable way of reproduction. In contrast to this, the ‘facticity’ of Seed’s announcement was more fluid. Several of the mediated articulations of this claim in 1998 at the time explicitly question whether the enormous amount of media attention given to this announcement is justified. In line with several academic studies of mass mediated coverage of science and technology they argue that the level of attention is an expression of undue sensationalism.33 The issue of sensationalism, however, installs an ontological distinction among occurrences, which is not a fruitful trajectory for the relational perspective adopted in this thesis. Instead of registering a ‘sensational’ gap between the empirical facts (about cloning) and the articulation of these facts in the media, the accusation of sensationalism here becomes an important empirical fact in its own right. The newspaper articles themselves raise as an explicit theme the question of whether there are limits as to what can be articulated as news in biotechnological controversies. The case of Richard Seed’s announcement thus constitutes a paradigmatic case for the study of how occurrences are articulated as news: How has this occurrence, whose newsworthiness is explicitly questioned, generated such a large amount of media coverage? This is the reason for considering the mediated articulations of Seed’s announcement as the most interesting case history in the coverage of human cloning. On this account I will deal most explicitly with this story in the following analysis, but the articulations of Antinori and Zavos’ experiments will be referred to later as a way of putting the case of Seed in perspective. As explained in the overall analytical strategy presented in Chapter 2, the objective in this chapter is to analyse how cloning is inscribed in a network of articulation that constructs particular definitions of problems and solutions. On this background I have conducted an analysis of the way Seed’s announcement of the intention to clone a human being is articulated as a newsworthy story. I acknowledge that the process of translation began long before the story entered the Danish media, but I have left the black boxes of these chains of translation closed in order to focus on articulation through inscription alone. In the follow33 The critique has often been put forward by natural scientists, but also some social scientists seem to share the view, see for instance (Nelkin 1995). In connection with the mediated coverage of cloning the critique of sensationalism has been discussed by Gunter et al. (1999). 71 ing sections I will present these inscriptions after an introduction about the way Seed’s announcement was introduced as breaking news. ‘Danes shocked at plans to clone baby’34 On January 7 1998, the morning news on the main Danish radio news channel, DR, brought the first report of an American scientist, Richard Seed, who had announced that he was now ready to clone people for the purpose of producing children for infertile couples. The statement was originally put forward at a scientific meeting in December 1997, but it wasn’t until it reached American national radio on January 6th that it created headlines internationally (Nisbet & Lewenstein 2002). The news evoked a response in most Danish media in the course of the following days. On January 8 and 9, the Danish newspaper coverage consists mainly in reports about Seed's announcement and articles reporting national and international reactions. It is noteworthy that the articles about this issue often include a perspective that suggests Seed's lack of credibility, which in some sense takes the edge off the way the announcement is otherwise articulated as a sensation. Nevertheless, the event is articulated as a major problem, one which Danish readers ought to be aware of. Even though it seems like an exotic piece of news from abroad, it is still close enough to home to pose a threat to our domestic conception of the ‘good life’: Danish researchers and politicians are angry and astounded over the plan by the American researcher Richard Seed to start experiments with human cloning. Attempting to produce cloned babies is absurd and perverted, exclaims Peter Holm, a researcher in genetic engineering at the Centre for Embryology in Foulum who also works with cloning. (...) Richard Seed’s plan about cloned babies confirm for many people that certain researchers will do whatever seems possible even if the majority is against it. Spokesman for the Social Democrats Torben Lund: - American researchers have now confirmed the existence of an unacceptable and unethical slippery slope when progress is 34 Headline in the daily paper Politiken, January 1998. 72 controlled by the moral and economic interest of the individual researcher alone. This development35 must be curbed.36 In this way, human cloning is articulated as a potential disaster, which should be avoided, and Richard Seed is cast in the role of the villain against whom forces must be mobilised in order to protect ourselves. Seed is presented as the stereotypical mad (if ingenious) scientist who unscrupulously conducts hazardous scientific experiments that pose a threat to the rest of society. In the course of several days, however, the announcement comes to be articulated in a different context. It emerges that the European Council has already prepared a declaration, which prohibits human cloning, to be signed on one of the following days. It is probably fair to assume, that this occurrence is granted more attention because it can be associated with the story about Richard Seed. The declaration fits in the narrative as a kind of solution to the problem posed by Seed’s plans. Although the signing of the declaration is not directly linked to the story about Seed, the coverage implies a connection. It is presented as a more or less direct consequence, and so it seems that political action has been taken in order to prevent human cloning from happening: Frankenstein is to remain a movie monster, and the American expert on cloning, Richard Seed from Chicago, must be stopped at any price. The European Council will lead the way and demand a worldwide ban on the copying of human genes. Last night in Paris, 19 of the Council's 40 members signed a convention, which makes it a crime for scientists and laboratories to carry out human cloning37 The story about Richard Seed could have ended here. Viewed as a mediated narrative, the declaration from the European Council could function as a plausible ending, which re-establishes a sense of calm in the articulations and allows an 35 The translation of the Danish term ‘udvikling’ is tricky throughout the dissertation and I am not always satisfied with the solution. This passage is a good example. To want to ’curb progress’ is almost a contradiction due to the positive connotation of ’progress’, which it does not necessarily share with ’udvikling’. My solution in this case came at the cost of using two words to translate the same Danish word in two different sentences. This was in order to capture, in my opinion, the different senses which ’udvikling’ takes. 36 "Danes shocked at plans to clone baby," Politiken, 8 January 1998. 37 " Europe against cloning," Jyllandsposten, 13 January 1998. 73 implied reader to sleep peacefully, order now having been restored.38 The problem of the possible human clone is curbed by the solution brought forward by Europe's decision to pass a bill against cloning. The association between the two events creates an interim closure or solution39 to the problem of cloning. The story of Seed does not, however, disappear from the mass mediated agenda in the following weeks. On the contrary, articulations about the probability of creating a human clone proliferate and different inscriptions of problems and solutions occur. Below I will identify the main patterns in these different inscriptions, using the way cloning is articulated as problem as the analytical discriminator. All articulations reject cloning as a legitimate means of human reproduction, but there is a great variety in the reasons for this rejection, just as there are large differences in the solutions proposed. A preliminary three-fold division has been found appropriate as the articulations primarily problematise technical, regulatory and wider societal aspects more or less discretely. This division does not imply any essential difference, but just that the primary focus in a given articulation is on one of these three aspects. Technical aspects Many of the articulations deal with the technical aspects of cloning. Cloning is presented as a technical procedure, which should be evaluated according to its technical viability. A central issue seems to be the probability that Seed will actually succeed in cloning a person, both in terms of the present stage of the technology, but also in terms of whether his technical skills are adequate. Several comparisons to the cloning of Dolly are put forward, often used as a means of evaluating the probability of technical success as well as a general evaluation of the technical problems in human cloning: The ‘fathers’ of Dolly the sheep reject the possibility of cloning people at this stage. (...) Harry Griffins argument is not, that it isn’t theoretically possible. The cost and risk of trying is simply far too 38 Elsewhere I have argued that this is a common feature of the mass mediated dramaturgy of serialised risk stories (Horst & Lolk 2000). 39 As mentioned in Chapter 1, studies of scientific controversies have used the terms ‘closure’ and ‘solution’ to signify different ways to end a controversy. The fact that the story of cloning continues in spite of the EU declaration’s seemingly unanimous rejection could be taken to indicate that closure or solution is not easily reached. 74 great. (...) - In order to make Dolly we used 277 fertilized eggs, which required 430 un-fertilized eggs. Every donating woman in Seeds experiment can supply 10-12 eggs, but in the clinic the fertilization will only be successful in 10-20 per cent of the cases. This means, that Seed needs between 100 and 300 donating women to make one child. This is the first obstacle, says Harry Griffin. – The second obstacle is worse. As surrogate mothers these women will carry all the defective experiments – dead foetuses, abnormal and deformed children. Abortions and even birth of handicapped children will follow, so who will volunteer, asks Harry Griffin.40 The implications of this comparison with Dolly are clear. It is assumed that it is roughly the same kind of technical endeavour to clone a human, but it was only because this experiment was performed on sheep that the costs in terms of dead and abnormal foetuses were acceptable. Cloning is thus articulated as a more or less neutral technical procedure that can be applied to different ends. In itself the technique is not controversial, even though it might be demanding and even exciting. Rather it is the particular application on humans, which is problematic. Technical evaluations are also applied to articulate future possibilities and implications of human cloning. Although they often leave open the question of whether or not it will actually be possible to clone a person one day, a central feature is a preoccupation with scientific knowledge or facts. This is used to discuss the possibility of an actual human clone, but also to assess the benefits and dangers in the process. Furthermore, technical facts can be used to discuss the outcome, that is, the kind of creature that a human clone would be. Indeed, it appears to be an object of sizable interests, what it means to be a clone: Even if we were to succeed in the cloning of a human being, it would never be an identical copy. If we were to clone Elvis, the clone would not be a new Elvis. There are several relevant factors: First of all, the conditions in the uterus during the embryonic development would be different, secondly, new genetic components would have arisen (the mitochondria from the egg cell contain their own DNA and is thought to contribute 0-10 percent of the hereditary characteristics), and thirdly, family background will be different for the copy.41 40 “Baby cloning is unlikely,” Politiken, 18 January 1998. 41 "The Lab is swarming with sheep," Politiken, 18 January 1998. 75 It is typical for these articulations of cloning as a technical procedure to rely heavily on scientific expertise by including quotes from researchers articulated as scientific authorities, for example, and by presenting scientific facts as the basis of the assessments. In the above example, the influence of mitochondria and their relative contribution works rhetorically as a sign that this is not mere speculation but in fact an estimate on the basis of scientific knowledge. These articulations can be understood as efforts to enhance the implied reader’s factual knowledge about science in general and genetic research in particular, through communication of factual information and knowledge about the scientific rationality. They are generally presented with emphasis on the hopes connected to genetic research and a basic faith in the scientific community. Cloning and recombinant DNA research are not just notions from science fiction, which researchers grapple with in order to prove their own virtuosity. The most important application and the most important objective of research comes via these new techniques for developing new treatments, diagnoses and pharmaceuticals for the benefit of people all over the globe. And this trend started long ago. In this connection human cloning is merely to be seen as a curiosity – at least for the time being.42 As this quote implies, Richard Seed is often articulated as an exception to a general rule according to which science is a means to create a better world. Many of the articles explicitly establish a distinction between genetic researchers in general and Seed, who is often presented as a complete outsider. He is articulated as not having the right credentials, and therefore he should not be trusted to be able to do what he claims. As a leading gynaecologist puts it: I have very little confidence in the American, Richard Seed, who believes that he will soon be able to clone humans. Nobody has seen his name in acknowledged scientific journals. He is, as far as I have understood, not even a medical doctor, but a physicist.43 In this way human cloning is articulated as an anomaly. It is the exception to the rule of science as a beneficial activity in society. Seed is an outsider, rather than 42 “New and better medicine,” Politiken, 18 January 1998. 43 “Danish doctors refuse cloning,” Jyllandsposten, 12 January 1998. 76 a proper scientist, and it is ‘bad’ science to clone a human, since the procedure has not yet been perfected on animals, and therefore can be expected to create many unwanted side effects. These articulations also imply that it is unlikely that Seed will succeed in actually cloning a person, since it is so difficult and costly in terms of both money and participants in the trial. Yet, it is not ruled out that it is possible, but only that under the present circumstances it is irresponsible because of the present state of the art. On this basis, I will call the pattern found in these inscriptions the script of scientific information. This script inscribes cloning in a network of articulation that draws heavily on the articulation of scientific facts and scientific authorities. In this script science is generally articulated as an advantage because it provides society with effective means to cure diseases. Cloning is presented as a more or less neutral technology, but the specific application of human cloning for reproduction is rejected, because it is technically unfeasible. In this script Seed’s announcement is primarily problematic because it reveals him to be irresponsible; i.e. he does not adhere to scientific and rational evaluations of what is sensible and feasible. This is problematic in two ways; firstly, because Seed might do something that is against scientific standards for good behaviour; and secondly, because it can give science a bad reputation if people outside the realms of science believe that human cloning is just around the corner. The solution to this problem seems to be twofold. First, it is argued that it is highly unlikely that Seed will succeed in cloning a person, because it is technically unfeasible. Second, a distinction is created between ‘proper’ scientists and people like Seed, where ‘proper’ science is articulated as an activity that is beneficial to society and would never experiment with human cloning in order to create a human baby. So in spite of its immediate ability to stimulate popular anxieties, Seed’s announcement is not very worrying, since it is highly implausible that he will actually be able to clone a human person, while those scientist who might be able to succeed are not willing to undertake such experiments. In this script problems are generally articulated as caused by ignorance or neglect of scientific knowledge and therefore information and education seem to be solutions to the problem. The public is articulated as in need of information about relevant technical details in order to evaluate the possibility of cloning on the basis of factual information, rather than be frightened unnecessarily by people like Richard Seed. Within the scientific community knowledge about the techni77 cal details also ought to prevent researchers like Seed from engaging in these kinds of experiments. Regulatory aspects A second type of articulation focuses on regulatory aspects and presents human cloning as a problem that can be dealt with in terms of political, social or professional regulation. These articulations do not question the scientific plausibility of Seed's announcement, but asks what kind of regulation is necessary in order to prevent this kind of deviant behaviour by some researchers. They all unanimously back the intentions of the EU declaration against cloning and articulate prohibition as an obvious precaution against the dangers of cloning: Tomorrow Denmark and 11 other European nations will sign a declaration, which prohibits human cloning. All other countries ought to follow as soon as possible. We will undoubtedly hear several worn-out phrases about not being able to hinder progress and that inventions cannot be undone. It will not hold. That something is possible does not automatically mean it has to be permitted. The technologies of cloning are an instance of scientific progress, which must be met immediately by restrictive international legislation.44 The particular articulation of Denmark as a regulative arena is interesting as many of the articles specifically refer to the fact that Denmark has already had a statutory ban on research in human cloning for some time. The implications seem to be that Denmark is somehow in the forefront of ‘ethical’ regulation of biotech. Sometimes this is made explicit: ‘It gives us a global responsibility to show the rest of the world, that a ban is most effectively enforced when it is based on the ethical views in the population.’45 It is interesting to note how ethics in this context is articulated as an essence. Ethical views seem to be a substance in the population, which is furthermore presented as a unified container for this substance. The ethical views of the Danish population is somehow a unified entity that can be measured and compared to legislative regulations – as if they were independent from each other at the outset. 44 “Copy Humans,” Editorial in Jyllandsposten, 11 January 1998. 45 “Debate on Cloning brings great emotions to boil,” Jyllandsposten, 12 January 1998. 78 As in the above example, the focus on regulatory aspects often leads to a kind of ethno-centrism, where it seems to be taken for granted that the population of Denmark is somehow taking the ethical high road on biotechnology. It is common in this context that human cloning is primarily articulated as a problem for less ethically responsible cultures or nations. This also appears in connection with evaluations of the European ban on cloning. In spite of widespread support for this ban, the question of whether it will actually have the desired effect seems to be a recurring theme. It is claimed that researchers like Seed are always able to find some country where it is not illegal or the ban is not enforced: ‘It will be like prohibiting the pill or abortion,’ says jurist and commentator Paula Metzger. ‘If you can’t get it here you will just have to go somewhere else’.46 Statutory regulation is therefore not unanimously articulated as the solution to the problem of cloning because even if it were globally prohibited some countries might not enforce this regulation. In light of these discussions, it is also questioned whether legal constraint is the most desirable form of control or whether there are better options. A major issue is the question of freedom of research versus external regulation of research. Two issues are articulated as relevant in these discussions of pros and cons of the external regulation of research. The first is the problem of delimiting and specifying regulation: How should regulation be designed in order to achieve its goal in the best possible way? The second issue is that of agency and authority: Who should be the regulating authority? In several articulations it is presented as premature to create statutory regulation since there is still far to little scientific knowledge about cloning. If we establish a ban on cloning we might prevent research that will later prove useful: The immediate reaction to the news about researchers experimenting with human cloning is to impose a total ban on cloning. But that requires a scientific definition of the limits of acceptable experimentation in the fight against genetic diseases, and we have not yet gotten that far.47 46 “The Dream of Cloning Humans,” Jyllandsposten, 9 January 1998. 47 “WHO: Cloning of humans is reprehensible,” Jyllandsposten, 9 January 1998. 79 The assumption implicit in this quote is an expectation of great positive outcomes of future medical science, and the objective of regulation should be not to limit these possibilities unnecessarily. In this way many of these articulations engage in questions of striking the right balance between restriction and permission, thus articulating a distinction between ‘good research in animal cloning’48 and bad research in human cloning. Two years later this distinction between good and bad research in cloning is rearticulated as the distinction between therapeutic and reproductive cloning, but these terms were not used in the mass mediated articulations of 1998. The articulation of this pragmatic distinction is explicit in presentations of the British rejection of signing the European declaration against human cloning: The British leave the possibility of human cloning open. A scientific committee is to review the presumed advantages within the next ten years. And experiments with human cloning could be possible in Great Britain from 1999. (...) Like President Bill Clinton in the USA, British Ministers have responded with utmost scepticism to the break-through in the cloning of the sheep Dolly in recent years. However, the British will not reject all possibilities of human cloning experiments as long as their aim is to remedy serious hereditary diseases.49 The other issue concerning regulatory aspects and freedom of research is the question of who should be in charge: ‘Is it legislation, public opinion or the personal ethics of researchers, which will determine whether or not we can welcome the first little cloned baby to the world in a couple of years time?’50 This issue is naturally linked to the previous one – the argument about legislation being premature leads to arguments in favour of leaving it to professional standards and collegial pressure. ‘I don’t think any proper medical doctor would give it a try. He or she would be frozen out of the scientific establishment’51. Other articulations pinpoint public opinion as an important factor: ‘The most effective weapon is debate and resistance in the public together with condemnation from scientific colleagues.’52 So it seems that although there is unanimous 48 “Clinton wants to ban cloning,” Politiken, 2 February 1998. 49 "The British leave the possibility of cloning open," Jyllandsposten, 12 January 1998. 50 “Debate on Cloning brings great emotions to boil,” Jyllandsposten, 12 January 1998. 51 “Danish doctors reject cloning,” Jyllandsposten, 12 January 1998. 52 “WHO: Cloning of humans is reprehensible,” Jyllandsposten, 9 January 1998. 80 Post-script to the story about Seed’s announcement I have only found a few references to Richard Seed in the mediated articulations of human cloning in subsequent years, and none of these present him as a successful researcher in the area of human cloning. But from 2001 the two researchers Antinori and Zavos seem to be articulated in a role similar to that of Seed in 1998. On February 28, 2001 a report about human cloning from the Council of Ethics is presented in Denmark in which the distinction between reproductive and therapeutic cloning is articulated as a means to distinguish between different kinds of application of the cloning technique. This report is articulated in several news articles and after the March 9 it is associated with an announcement by Antinori that he intends to begin trials involving reproductive cloning. In August 2001, this claim becomes articulated again when Antinori’s colleague has apparently made a presentation at a conference claiming that they had contact with several hundred couples consenting to partake in the trials, scheduled to begin November 2001. The articulations of the statements by Antinori and Zavos follow the same scripts as Seed’s announcement. In many ways their announcement is presented as a re-awakening of the threat posed by Seed. But in these articulations from 2001 the focus is more on the regulatory and societal aspects than on the technical aspects. It seems to be taken for granted that cloning is technically feasible, so the focus is directed towards the possibility of regulation: Let us face it. At some point in time a human clone will be presented. Irresponsible researchers without ethical breaks, let alone common human decency are working at it and will do everything to carry their preposterous projects through without pangs of conscience. Sooner or later they will succeed, but by that time, at the latest, international regulation ought to exist, which warrants prison terms for such a crime against humanity. This will not prohibit them from carrying their experiments out in states that have a more relaxed attitude on human rights and ethical problems, but civilised societies ought to take vigorous exception.61 Furthermore, it should be mentioned that in 2001, cloning is no longer unanimously articulated as a problem. Rather, the scripts of scientific information and 61 “Mad research” in Jyllandsposten, 10 August 2001. 87 pragmatic regulation employ the distinction between reproductive and therapeutic cloning to articulate the first kind of application as a problem, but the latter as a possible solution to problems of disease. Especially in the script of pragmatic regulation this distinction is used to establish a possible difference between good and bad research, but the articulations are diverse on this point. In this way regulation is still articulated as a contested area, where a pragmatic solution has not yet been reached. A similar observation can be made from the inscriptions following the scripts of absolute resistance and fatalistic irony, in which the distinction between therapeutic and reproductive cloning is not accepted as a pragmatic solution, but is instead seen as yet another reason to reject cloning as such. Four different newspapers In the previous presentation of the articulations of cloning, I have not distinguished between different newspapers and types of articles, but the analysis did reveal some distinct differences that I will now summarise. Generally, it should be noted that the different types of scripts are not used in newspaper articles on a one to one basis. Instead, several articles employ more than one type of inscription in each article. Furthermore, the use of these different inscriptions does not follow simple demarcations between different types of articles such as a distinction between ‘news’ and ‘views’. Still, some patterns can be detected. The scripts of scientific information and pragmatic regulation often dominate the news articles, whereas the scripts of absolute resistance and fatalistic irony often function as a kind of counter-perspective towards the end of news articles or as the main script in opinion pieces. Following the articulation of the announcement as a far-reaching threat in the first couple of days, the subsequent inscriptions in Politiken primarily follow the script of scientific information. They use Seed’s announcement as an occasion for presenting the trend within genetic science and human cloning - how far has it come, what are researchers capable of? Reproductive cloning is articulated as very problematic but also as considerably more unlikely than a more positive application of cloning techniques for the purpose of manufacturing medicine and transplant organs – what is later termed therapeutic cloning. Politiken, however, also articulates Seed’s announcement in the script of absolute resistance – in particular in opinion pieces and editorials. The general picture in this paper is a dualistic articulation of genetic science as an activity that holds a great deal of 88 potential but also great risks. As citizens, we (the implied readers) are inscribed as having an obligation to be on the alert, but also to familiarise ourselves with science. We might say that the inscriptions in Politiken, taken together, seem to represent a tempered form of the script of scientific information. Fundamentally, science is presented as a benevolent activity in society, but this is tempered by articulations of a concern over whether science ‘really’ represents progress. In this way, Politiken can be said to articulate a dilemma between, on the one hand, accepting science and, on the other, taking a critical stance. In contrast, Jyllandsposten mainly employs the script of pragmatic regulation and presents Seed’s announcement as an occasion for articulating opportunities for the regulation of research. A general theme in these articulations is the question of how to work out regulation that allows, on one hand, for the desired research to take place, while on the other hand preventing unwanted research like reproductive cloning. The articulation of this objective is presented as a pragmatic evaluation of possibilities of striking the right balance, for instance in discussions of whether national legislation is adequate and whether professional self-regulation is better than statutory legislation. On the whole, the articulations in Jyllandsposten seldom inscribe Seed’s announcement in the script of symbolic resistance or fatalistic irony. And they also rarely employ the script of scientific information. One example of this, though, is an editorial that articulates the clone as comparable to an identical twin – that is, something exceedingly recognisable and therefore rather harmless. It therefore seems that Jyllandsposten inscribes Seed’s announcement as less alarming than Politiken. Furthermore, it is interesting to note, that Jyllandsposten articulates the subsequent announcements of Antinori and Zavos in far less news articles than Politiken and Information. The articulations in Information cover Seed’s announcement mainly in notices concerning international reactions, but also through opinion pieces inscribing the announcement in the script of absolute resistance and fatalistic irony. There are almost no inscriptions of the concrete technical aspects of Seed’s announcement, that is, almost no articulations of the question of whether Seed is actually capable of human cloning. But when the general growth and development of genetic science is articulated it is inscribed as having far-reaching consequences. Thus, human cloning is primarily articulated as a realistic future development of present day scientific trends – as method for reproduction and for other uses, e.g. 89 the production of organ sacks that can be used as donors. Unlike the presentation in Politiken therefore, the critique of technology is not articulated as a dilemma of simultaneous consent and rejection, but in unanimous rejection. It should also be mentioned that the later announcements of Zavos and Antinori generate many articles in Information, including reports from the press conferences by a journalist who has been in Italy. Compared to the articulation of Seed’s work, however, the articulations of this event are more often scripted according to the script of fatalistic irony, describing cloning as an inevitable fact. Ekstra Bladet, likewise, articulates Seed’s announcement as symptomatic of a wider societal trend and makes almost exclusive use of the script of fatalistic irony. Ekstra Bladet does not articulate Seed as a scientific outsider at all – rather he is articulated as a typical or ‘normal’ scientist. In this way Ekstra Bladet can be said to articulate a counter-discourse, one that is directed against science. In contrast to Information, Ekstra Bladet articulates a critique of science that does not present science as something that can be regulated or even made understandable, but only as a detestable, uncontrollable ‘other’. To sum up, it seems that Information, an intellectual niche paper, appears to have similarities with Ekstra Bladet, a tabloid, in the way they inscribe cloning as a problem. They both question science in general and articulate far-reaching consequences of the technological trends, although the articulations in Information more often use examples offering concrete technical details. The difference between the two is that Ekstra Bladet primarily adopts the script of fatalistic irony, whereas Information more often employs the script of absolute resistance. There are also similarities in the adoption of the script of absolute resistance in Politiken and Information along these lines. But this should not obscure the fact that the largest overall similarity in articulations can be found between the two broadsheets Politiken and Jyllandsposten on the one hand, where the articulations primarily employ the scripts of scientific information and pragmatic regulation, and Information and Ekstra Bladet on the other hand, where the articulations primarily adopt the scripts of absolute resistance and fatalistic irony. Four scripts of social response With the use of the conceptual framework of inscription in networks of articulation, four scripts have been identified in the way Danish media have inscribed 90 Seed’s announcement into a coherent news story. As scripts they can be seen as four distinct patterns, all which articulate cloning as problem, but each pointing to different solutions (or responses) to the problem. In the following scheme I have summarised the way the four scripts present Seed and his announcement in different networks of articulation constructing problems and solutions differently. Figure 3.2 Articulation of Seed Problem Solution Scientific information Outsider – and probably harmless Frightened public and possibly irresponsible scientists Information and knowledge diffusion Pragmatic Regulation Outsider – point to a need for regulation How to regulate without preventing good science Pragmatic evaluation of pros and cons in regulation Absolute resistance Normal scientist Symptom of harmful trends Resistance and delimitation of scientific development Fatalistic irony Normal scientist Symptom of harmful trends outside control Fatalistic detachment This analysis has shown that all scripts reject cloning and thus cultural unanimity could be stressed. The issue of cloning revives the powerful myth of Frankenstein (Turney 1998) and hereby the questions about creating life and designing babies, which is generally articulated as very controversial (see also the analysis of associations in the appendix). Along these lines it is argued, that cloning is articulated as a fundamental threat to notions of individuality and uniqueness in most western cultures and this is why this issue receive much attention (Priest 2001b; Hopkins 1998). On the other hand, this analysis has shown that there is differences in the way cloning are constructed as problematic. Notions of individuality are not all that is at issue in this connection. Rather cloning is also problematised as a general symbol of a scientific trend on the wrong track. While it is no doubt true, that the issue of cloning pinpoints particular cultural values it is also important to notice, that the scripts reveal distinct differences in the way problems and solutions are constructed. In spite of the unanimous rejection of human cloning, the mass mediated articulations are not homogenous in their inscription of the issue. And I will argue that the most striking difference between these four scripts is the divergence in the articulation of science and the scientific trends. The difference is comparable to 91 the rhetorics of hope and fear as identified by Mulkay (Mulkay 1993) in the analysis of the English debate about embryonic research, see also (Einsiedel et al. 2002). As in the rhetoric of hope, where science is presented as the means to create a better world, both the script of scientific information and pragmatic regulation articulate science as a fundamentally beneficial activity. In these scripts human cloning is an anomaly, an unwanted side effect of the otherwise desirable activity of genetic science. The crucial point in these scripts is that it is possible to act within an existing framework of society (either in terms of science or politics) in order to prevent cloning from happening. Society is perceived as basically controllable and therefore it is possible to foster sensible and efficient progress in both genetic research and society at large. We can also say that these positions fundamentally articulate the social order positively. In contrast the scripts of absolute resistance and fatalistic irony articulate science as a fundamentally problematic activity much in line with Mulkay’s identification of the rhetoric of fear. Science is presented as an activity, which is beyond our control and proceeding according to its own disconnected and undesirable norms. It grows without any form of actual control and general reason, and must therefore be regarded as a threat to ‘the good life’. These scripts inscribe science as something that is beyond (and perhaps out of) control. The rejection carried by the script of absolute resistance is not one that implies the exercise of control in order to turn genetic research towards acceptable trajectories, but an act of resistance in terms of a fundamental – one could say dogmatic - rejection of the whole logic or rationality of contemporary genetic science. By contrast, the script of fatalistic irony articulates detachment as the obvious social response to this development run wild. In Chapter 5, I will return to a general discussion of the differences and similarities between these scripts, but I will first conduct another analysis of inscription of problems and solutions where the focus is on the issue of gene therapy. 92 Chapter 4 Gene Therapeutic Experiments - Inscription of a technology of hope Like cloning, gene therapy is a technological application that has been discussed for several decades; but there are also some clear differences between the two fields of application. In this chapter I will develop these differences in an analysis of the mass mediated articulation of gene therapy, parallel to the previous analysis of cloning. Unlike cloning, gene therapy seems to be an accepted area of research with high amounts of positive attention in the media. In a US context, Alan Stockdale argues, that gene therapy has been surrounded by an aura of ‘miracle technology’ and that this aura was ‘initially fed by research hype and extensive, but uncritical, media coverage’ (Stockdale 1999). Nevertheless, according to Stockdale this aura has changed in recent years in the US. Despite many experiments, the great expectations have not been followed by corresponding successes in actual patient treatment, and by 1995 a report from the National Institute of Health recommended lower expectations towards gene therapy. A similar trend can be observed in Denmark, where a special committee established to review gene technologies in the health care sector in 2002 suggested a wait-and-see policy on gene therapy.62 It should be noted in this context that only a few experiments with gene therapy have been conducted in Denmark and so far none have reported significant effects. As it appears from figure 4.1, one incident has generated many mediated articulations. This is an experiment with gene therapy on liver cancer patients at Århus municipal hospital. Although the attention peaked in July this experiment continued to be articulated frequently in the following months, and more than a third of the entire number of articles on gene therapy within the 4½ years in fact articulate this particular experiment. From the analysis of associations (see the appendix), it is also clear that the articulations of this experiment are important in the frequencies counted. The association between gene therapy and cancer is very high and gene therapy is very often presented with a focus on the tech62 Genteknologiudvalget: Fremtidens bioteknologier – muligheder og risici. Videnskabsministeriet http://www.vtu.dk/fsk/publ/2002/genteknologi/genteknologi.pdf 93 noscientific stage of applied science rather than on basic science or public regulation. I have therefore chosen to focus this chapter on the articulation of this experiment. I will, however, also briefly sketch the mass mediated inscriptions of gene therapy in the time before July 1999 as a sort of ‘pre-script’ to the articulations of this experiment. Figure 4.1: Coverage of gene therapy tid okt01 jul01 apr01 jan01 okt00 maj00 feb00 nov99 aug99 maj99 feb99 nov98 aug98 maj98 feb98 nov97 aug97 Count 50 40 30 20 10 0 Like the preceding analysis of the inscription of cloning, it is my intention here to analyse how gene therapy is inscribed as news stories in order to make news in Danish mass media. The objective is to study patterns in these inscriptions by focusing on the way they construct particular definitions of problems and solutions. I found that the division between technical, regulatory and wider societal aspects, employed in the previous analysis of cloning, were also useful in the analysis of the pre-script, but it had to be revised for the analysis of the articulations of the experiment after July 1999. Regarding these articulations, it seemed more appropriate to make an overall distinction between two different ways of presenting the experiment. The first focuses on therapeutic aspects and primarily articulates the experiment as a problematic treatment of patients. The other primarily articulates the experiment as a problematic research experiment and fo94 cuses on technical and regulatory aspects. In this manner the case is more complex to analyse than the case of Richard Seed’s announcement, since it results in a more complex pattern of inscription, where several competing scripts articulate problems and solutions differently. It should be mentioned that I also investigated whether the four different newspapers could be said to follow similar or different patterns as in the analysis of cloning. The mediated articulations, however, turned out to be very unevenly distributed between the newspapers, and therefore it is not possible to identify the same kind of distinct pattern between different newspapers. I have therefore chosen merely to note the differences whenever it seems relevant as information about the general pattern of inscriptions. Pre-script Before July 1999, the articulation of gene therapy must generally be said to be rather positive. In contrast to cloning, gene therapy is presented as a solution to health problems. High hopes are associated with this application of genetic technology, even though the factual reports on successes seem to be lacking. This generally positive emphasis aside, however, the articulations in the period from August 1997 to June 1999 vary substantially across the four different newspapers in the analysis. The coverage in Politiken, Jyllandsposten and Ekstra Bladet is only scattered. Information, on the other hand, stands out as the paper with the most diverse and frequent articulation of gene therapy, presenting it as both a possible solution and a possible problem by focusing on technical, regulatory and wider societal aspects. In Politiken and Jyllandsposten the articulations of gene therapy focus primarily on either technical or wider societal aspects. The articulations of technical aspects seem to be short presentations of single experiments, all of which present gene therapy as an inevitable solution, bringing effective treatment for humans. Among these is also the first articulation in Jyllandsposten of a doctor in Århus, Steen Lindkær Jensen, who is at that time attempting to get permission to start a promising treatment of liver cancer with gene therapy. In these articulations, technical problems of the technology are mentioned, but they are presented as temporary and surmountable. 95 The two papers do, however, differ in their articulation of gene therapy as a symptom of a wider societal trend. In Politiken the few articulations of this kind, do not place this technology at the centre of attention, but mention gene therapy as one out of several technological applications, which are all presented as problematic. In Jyllandsposten, however, the articulations are reversed so that gene therapy is presented as a positive symptom of an inevitable progress brought about by technological development. Here, too, gene therapy is not the central theme, but is mentioned along with other technologies as a symbol of humanity’s effective struggle with nature’s imperfections. The only critical articulation of gene therapy in Jyllandsposten is concerned with gene therapy as a new form of doping within elite sports. This issue is also found in Politiken, and in this context gene therapy is articulated as plain and simple cheating, undermining chances of fair play. Taken together these two broadsheets present gene therapy as a coming solution to health problems, although they stress the need to be careful in choice of applications. This largely positive view of the future is not anchored so much in estimates that draw on technical evaluations as it is in high hopes for technological progress. The only obvious inscriptions of gene therapy as a problem consist of sporadic presentations of gene therapy as a means to improve normality, for instance in elite sportsmen, such improvements being construed as ‘cheating’. Compared to the two broadsheets, the tabloid paper Ekstra Bladet has even fewer articles about gene therapy. It does not seem like a newsworthy issue in itself, but on three occasions it is articulated in a way that can be viewed as presenting ‘counter’ inscriptions to articulations in other newspapers. By this term, I mean that they refer to the same occurrences as the other papers, but with reverse inscriptions of problems and solutions. Most interestingly is that several articles in Ekstra Bladet present a critique of the experiment with gene therapy in Århus half a year before it is articulated as a problem in the other papers. The first of these articles focus on a concrete patient articulating him as victim, because he had apparently been treated badly by Steen Lindkær Jensen. The next article casts doubt upon the doctor’s integrity, but after a few weeks a third article presents the experiments with gene therapy in Århus as more promising. These three articles cover many of the features later articulated as problems in the other papers: the financial dependency of foreign hospitals, the quality of treatment, the abuse of trust in patient-doctor relationships, the connection between public and private health care, and so on. Nevertheless, these articulations 96 included in the project. The treatment of these patients has therefore not been authorised by the scientific ethical committee. Furthermore, at least one patient has felt pressured to pay 15.000 British pounds to an account in London as payment for the unauthorised treatment.71 In this way the story is presented as a story about a doctor not managing his relationship with his patients according to Danish legislation. Since it is mandatory to have experiments on human beings approved by the scientific ethical committee, the information that patients have been treated outside the guidelines of the experiment implies that Lindkær Jensen has been violating current restrictions on experiments with patients and abusing his position of power in order to make illegitimate financial demands of the patients. At this point, however, there seems to be a dilemma in the mediated articulations. It is one thing is that the activities of Lindkær Jensen are shady and subject to investigation, but the suspension of the experiments has had the added consequence that the involved patients have been barred from gene therapy previously scheduled. This suspension is presented as highly problematic for the patients who are in turn presented as completely dependent on this therapy for survival: Advanced liver cancer is equivalent to a death sentence, but scannings of the patients in professor Lindkær's experiment showed unique results. Several people spoke of an out right miracle. About the very solution of the mystery of cancer. But if the experiment were to stop now, the patients’ cancer could spread again within few weeks, while the staff at L2 would be unable to do anything. Without new inoculations of gene-manipulated virus the patients would die. The staff knew this and so did the administration. Also the managing staff at the ward, which had forwarded their knowledge to the executive office [and triggered the suspension of the experiment], realised that this would mean death of the patients. Still they had chosen to talk about the professor’s conduct of the experiment.72 71 Politiken 1 July 1999: ”Sloppiness stops gene experiment”. 72 Jyllandsposten 4 July 1999: ”Professor under pressure”. 103 As the very dramatic style of this quote underlines, the story is here presented as a drama about individual doctors who take responsibility for deciding upon patients’ life and death. At this point many articulations leave open the question of who should be cast in the roles of hero and villain. Is Lindkær Jensen a villain because he has abused his position of power and failed in his responsibility towards the patients, or is he a hero fighting to cure patients by all available means? It is however clear, that patients are articulated as the unfortunate party. They are the ones who are seriously ill, regardless of whether Lindkær Jensen was trying to rescue them or take advantage of their situation. Gene therapy, on the other hand, is articulated as a cure for cancer and the main problem is therefore to find a way of securing patients access to the therapy. The context of great expectations, as presented in the pre-script, means that gene therapy can be inscribed as an unproblematic tool in the battle against cancer. As the articulations proliferate they seem to follow three different scripts that construct the parts, or roles, as victims, heroes and villains differently. In the following sections I will present these scripts. The script of patient rights During the first weeks, it seems that the mediated dilemma about the withheld treatment finds a dramaturgical solution when the interest is concentrated on the small group of 8-10 patients. Apparently they had been promised gene therapy by Lindkær Jensen, but had not received it before the suspension. On this account the authorities are seen as saviours when they establish an emergency plan in order to fulfil this promise. This plan is subsequently closely followed in the media. It appears to be quite difficult to acquire a portion of manipulated virus to treat the patients, and the efforts by the authorities to secure the continued treatment is articulated as an important and prominent story: Negotiations in London secure cancer patients continued treatment with gene therapy (..) states chairman of the health care committee in Århus regional council, Knud Erik Særkjær [the liberal party] to Ritzau. (…) Særkjær received confirmation by phone from London.73 At the same time as the ‘negotiations’ over access to manipulated virus is covered in minute detail, the principles behind this ‘emergency plan’ is also dis73 Politiken 11 July 1999: ”Patients secured gene therapy” 104 cussed. It is presented as extraordinary to offer this treatment outside the scope of a research experiment, but the emergency plan is commonly articulated as a justified solution. The epithet ‘emergency’ as applied to the plan is justified by articulating the patients as victims, with a rightful claim to the gene therapy, since they are seriously ill and had previously been promised this treatment: Chairman of the central scientific ethical committee, Kamma Bertelsen, is in principle against permitting gene therapy as treatment, when there is no documentation of effects and side effects: “The fact is that nobody knows anything about the treatment. But because an unfortunate situation has arisen, where ten patients have been promised hope, I find it justified that they receive treatment as long as the authorities will vouch for it” she says74. More common, however, is that the emergency plan for continuation of experimental gene therapy is presented almost as if it was a routine treatment of patients. In this way, the experimental and highly insecure status of this therapy is not articulated as a problem. Rather it seems to be of paramount importance to ensure that these patients receive the therapy they have been promised since they are victims in a double sense: They are ill, and on top of this they have been promised and then denied what seems to be an effective therapy. None of the mediated articulations of this emergency plan seriously question whether the gene therapy will work at a basic level, but seem to take for granted that it will have some sort of positive effect. The articulated problem is not whether the therapy will work as treatment, but rather whether the patient will get access to it: As late as last Friday this patient envisaged his own death by September 1st at the latest, if the suspended treatment was not resumed: - I know that otherwise I will only have a month or two to live” said Peter Balle. – But now I believe I have a chance.75 On this basis I have termed the pattern in these inscriptions the script of patient rights. It is characterized by a focus on patients and the treatment they receive or do not receive in the health care system. The issue is not whether the therapy 74 Jyllandsposten 10 July 1999: ”Tightened regulations 75 Ekstra Bladet 7 July 1999: ”Now I believe in life again” 105 will work, but rather their rights to receive a treatment when promised one. Once this promise is made, the health care system is obliged to deliver. In this way the patient is a user with certain legitimate rights and the health care system is contractually obliged to fulfil certain obligations towards the patient. The script of comportment When the little group of patients had received gene therapy according to this emergency plan, the articulations move the focus back to the whole group of patients treated by Lindkær Jensen. As mentioned above, Jyllandsposten continuously articulates new ‘disclosures’. One recurrent issue is the clinically and technically careless execution of the experiment. For example, it was alleged that the genetically manipulated virus in use had been contaminated. Another issue is the apparent financial demands made of the patients, which is articulated as particularly morally reprehensible: The researchers responsible for a cancer experiment at Århus Municipal Hospital has on a number of occasions charged incurably ill patients 170.000 Danish kroner in exchange for treatment with gene therapy. The demand for money was put forward by the British-Egyptian liver specialist Nagy Habib and passed on by the Århus professor Steen Lindkær Jensen. This is revealed by documents that Jyllandsposten has come into possession of.”76 These disclosures of demands for payment raises a fundamental question about whether Lindkær Jensen has honoured his obligations as physician treating seriously ill patients. In Denmark health care service is free of charge; introducing the question of paying for a treatment for cancer is articulated as decisive and very problematic, although the problems are presented in different ways. At times, Lindkær Jensen and his partner in London are articulated as common criminals trying to defraud patients out of substantial sums with the offer of an unproven, and possibly ineffective, therapy. And even if this accusation is not articulated directly, the two doctors are still frequently presented as being morally in the wrong: Patients with advanced liver cancer were promised a 70 per cent chance of positive results, when they came to see Nagy Habib in 76 Jyllandsposten 8 August 1999: ”Cancer doctors demanded money” 106 London. According to relatives the promise was made by the British-Egyptian liver surgeon in connection with the payment. (…) Chairman of Danish Cancer Society, Jens Kristian Gøtrik, criticises the liver doctors for having suggested great prospects to the patients: “It is quite unfair to suggest great prospects to very ill people, when you don’t have any documentation that it is true and on top of that to demand money for it.” (…) “The doctors have no guarantee or documentation that the treatment will help. Still you suggest great prospects. Anyone would sell all their belongings and this is why it is close to deception”, says Yvonne Herløv.77 This quote presents patients as subjects who would be prepared to do anything in order to be cured of cancer. In this vulnerable situation it is especially important that doctors do not take advantage of the situation and exploit their position of authority to further selfish interests. Since cancer patients are unable to look after their own best interests, it is of vital importance that doctors assume responsibility for the patients, both in concrete experiments and in medical research in general: As a responsible doctor you withhold comments on research until it is concluded and you know the facts. Otherwise you risk making a lot of unhappy people insecure and confused and creating false expectations. Mortally ill patients’ time is precious,” says Kamma Bertelsen.78 By articulating the time remaining to dying patients as too precious to squander on false expectations, a particular moral is articulated, where the important thing is to face one’s fate. It is important that dying patients acknowledge that their time is running out instead of clinging to a false hope of being cured. These articulations imply that scientific (statistical) evidence is equivalent to the truth, and that disregarding statistics is the same as believing in fairy tales. So, rather than occupying themselves with the unrealistic expectation of being cured, they ought to focus on the really important task, which is to understand their fate and come to terms with it. In this way patients are presented as subjects in need of guidance. They are easily led astray by a false hope, because they are trying to avoid their fate. 77 Jyllandsposten 22 August 1999: ”Patients given good odds”. 78 Jyllandsposten 25 July 1999: ”Doctors criticise Århus-politician 107 As a counter weight in this situation, doctors are articulated as subjects who need to assume the responsibility for guiding patients in the proper direction. To be a responsible doctor is to avoid inspiring unrealistic expectations or false hopes. This is a central issue in many articulations of Lindkær Jensen as an irresponsible practitioner of medicine. He did not behave properly since it was irresponsible to induce false hopes, when the patients should have been guided towards accepting their fate. In contrast to Lindkær Jensen, however, other researchers are more responsible. Simultaneous to the case of Richard Seed, these articulations employ the distinction between proper researchers and outsiders, such as Lindkær Jensen, where ‘proper’ and responsible doctors ought to behave according to certain norms: Doctors and researchers behind clinical experiments are often under pressure from dying patients who view the experiments as a last chance. (…) “As a doctor it can be very difficult to say no. The temptation to venture outside the protocol is extremely high,” says Jens Astrup. “But from the point of view of medical research one must insist that experiments with experimental treatment have to follow the protocol strictly. Otherwise we will treat a lot of patients without knowing for certain whether the treatment has worked. In the worst case we would be tempted to use a lot of resources on a promising treatment, which is later demonstrated to have no effect, and then we have given patients a false hope,” says the professor.79 As exemplified in this quote the battle against cancer will only be successful if doctors and patients behave according to certain prescribed roles and rules. In these inscriptions patients are articulated as vulnerable subjects who will want any possible treatment, but where it is important that they face the facts and realise their destiny. The role of the patients is therefore to acknowledge the scientific claims of medicine as the truth about their destiny and to face this fate and realise that time is short. The understandable, yet ‘irresponsible’, wish of patients to receive any treatment, should be countered by responsible doctors, who put the situation in its proper perspective. Doctors are hereby presented as the active subjects, responsible for order, so that patients do not expect to be cured, when the statistical chances are minimal or non-existent. It is very typical that researchers and medical doctors are articulated as sources of authority in this 79 Jyllandsposten 25 July 1999: ”Doctors under severe pressure from patients” 108 type of inscription. Since both patients and doctors have to behave according to pre-defined roles and rules of behaviour, I have chosen to term this pattern in inscriptions the script of comportment. Central in this script is that both doctors and patients have to behave responsibly in the face of cancer and not go around expecting cures when they have not been scientifically proven. The script of heroic action In stark contrast to these inscriptions of the importance of responsibility and facing one’s fate, other articulations present the patient’s battle against cancer completely differently. In these articulations the high expectations seems to be a positive resource for patients struggling to find a cure for their cancer. In an interview, Steen Lindkær Jensen denies the accusations of financial gain as his motivator: The professor emphasises that money was never his incentive. It was the patients and the hope of saving lives. “Many of them were young people, as young as 30 years, who had been given up on by everybody else. They had been told that it was over. But they deserved a chance and I tried to give them that,” he says.80 Rather than false expectations, Lindkær Jensen is here talking about a ‘last chance’ for patients that nobody else cares about. And he is not the only actor associated to this kind of articulation. Some of his patients and their relatives are also presented as sources in a presentation of his experiments as a last chance. In this connection the articulation of Lindkær Jensen is completely different from the previous scripts. Rather than a criminal outsider or an irresponsible practitioner of medicine, he is presented as a hero and a genius. Normal rules of conduct should not apply to him because his efforts to cure cancer patients are so important that they allow for smaller mistakes and carelessness: Professor Lindkær is really a friend of the patients. It may be that he has left some things in a mess and that safety procedures have not been followed and that the manipulated virus was contaminated. But what does it matter, when it helps,” says the son. “My father has gained 10 kg after the gene treatments. Now he can fix both the house and the garden and he couldn’t do that three months ago,” says the son and compares Lindkær to Einstein, 80 Jyllandsposten 11 July 1999: ”Professor speaks out” 109 who also needed help with practicalities from those around him. “Who wouldn’t take a risk, if you had been told you were going to die,” says the son.81 Two things are worth noticing in this quote. First of all the treatment is presented as a working therapy, or at least it is not seen as problematic. But secondly, this is not a decisive fact. It does not matter fundamentally, whether the chances are large or small, in the judgement of the experiment. Even the slightest chance is reason enough to justify the experiment. What was ‘false expectations’ in the previous inscriptions is here articulated in a positive way as ‘a last hope’. Correspondingly Steen Lindkær Jensen is praised for offering this last chance. He is a hero. My wife did not make it long enough to receive gene therapy, but she had a hope that she held on to for several days. Then the cancer tightened its grip and by the end of March it was over. Thank you Steen for your fight to change the establishment, for your efforts to find new means in the fight against this terrible disease. I am convinced that you will find a place where your will to help mortally ill patients will be appreciated!82 Whereas medical researchers serve as sources primarily in articulations of Lindkær Jensen as an irresponsible practitioner of medicine, the picture is more diverse when it comes to patients. It seems that the different inscriptions of Lindkær Jensen are rather closely associated with the individual progress of a patients’ disease. Two relatives (of dead patients) are presented as sources in articulations of Lindkær Jensen as a common criminal, but many patients present him as a true hero fighting for the cure of the patients in the manner illustrated by the foregoing quotes. Two of the patients interviewed have apparently been cured of their cancer and their articulation of Lindkær Jensen and his partner Habib is very positive. But the presentation of these doctors as heroes seem to lead to an articulation of other actors as villains: I feel fine and the British-Egyptian professor, Nagy Habib has told me that I do not have cancer in the liver any more. The ten tumours have disappeared after my gene treatment and I feel privileged that 81 Jyllandsposten 22 August 1999: ”The price of hope” 82 Politiken 25 July 1999: ”Thank you for the hope” 110 I had the 210.000 kroner that my treatment has cost me. But I think it is scandalous that Århus Municipal Hospital is so oriented towards economy that I survive because I have the money, while the person in the next bed dies.83 It is interesting to note how the saving of this patient is articulated as almost dependent on luck. He was privileged to have the money, while the imagined patient in the next bed was not so fortunate. The hospital, on the other hand, is presented as a system that ignores the interests of the patients and acts instead on financial grounds. In this way the health care system seems to be a kind of inhibitor to the cure of cancer, rather than a system for taking care of patients. Thus, in order to be able to defeat cancer, it is necessary for the patients also to fight ‘the system’, because the establishment and its book-keepers have abandoned the chance of curing cancer on the grounds of what is seen as irrelevant:84 The case tells us something about bookkeepers and a machinery of power, which runs whatever way the wind is blowing. The victims are the mortally ill cancer patients, which on top of their harsh destiny have experienced that the treatment was suspended, resumed and stopped again while the parties involved in the smear campaign against Lindkær ran to and fro with vague rumours and hear-say. Formalities and loose allegations were more important than the cries for help of mortally ill patients, and the continuation of a treatment that has given them one last hope. Now the politicians and the hospital promise to turn over a new leaf. The treatment will be resumed immediately. But without Steen Lindkær. He was cut out by the bookkeepers. They way the system works, they win almost every time.85 On the basis of these quotes I have called this pattern in inscriptions the script of heroic action. In this script, the main roles as hero and villain are completely opposite from the script of comportment. Here Lindkær Jensen is a hero because he fights to give patients a last chance, whereas the health care system is the main villain, since it is bureaucratic and does not serve the interest of the patients. The patients on the other hand are still, of course, victims of cancer, but 83 Ekstra Bladet 19 September 1999: ”Liver cancer patient cured with genes” 84 This type of story about the ‘little man’ against the system is traditionally associated to Ekstra Bladet, but it should be noted that the previous quotes are from other papers. 85 Ekstra Bladet 7 September 1999: ”The system requires bookkeepers” 111 they are not in need of guidance in order to face their destiny as in the previous script. Rather it is articulated as natural that they fight in order to get a ‘last chance’. It is also interesting to see, how this ‘last chance’ is really only a possible chance. Since patients cannot rely on the health care system for a fair treatment, they have to count on heroic action from men like Lindkær Jensen as well as their own ability and good fortune - finding Lindkær Jensen, travelling long distances to receive the therapy, and paying the bills out of their own pockets. Summarising we can say, that the articulations of the therapeutic aspects of the experiment presents gene therapy as a tool in the ongoing battle against cancer and are dramatised as stories about heroes and villains trying to rescue concrete patients from imminent dangers. This type of articulation follows three different scripts that construe patients and doctors in different roles. In the script of patient rights, the patients are presented as subjects with a right to receive treatment in the health care system. The problem is the broken promise of therapy and a re-establishment of the contractual order is, therefore, the solution. In the script of comportment Lindkær Jensen is articulated as a villain taking advantage of the vulnerable situation of patients in disregard of his duty as a responsible doctor. In this script patients are irresponsible subjects unable to look after their own best interests. And although the doctor can be tempted to follow the wishes of the patient it is unacceptable since it induces false hopes instead of leading the patients on the right path. The basic problem in this script can therefore be seen as a lack of recognition of pre-defined roles and responsibilities, and the solution is to enforce these roles and rules. Only responsible action will make patients face their destiny, and make doctors fulfil their function. In contrast to this, the third script of heroic action, articulates Lindkær Jensen as a hero fighting to cure patients in spite of resistance from the established health care system. In these inscriptions treatment of the patients is the only important issue and even a small hope is worth fighting for. Central to this second kind of script is a belief in chance rather than rule-following behaviour. Lindkær is a hero, because he is taking chances in the struggle against cancer instead of just adhering to statistically established predictions of incurability. Patients are correspondingly articulated as legitimately trying to win the fight against cancer by believing in ‘the last hope’. 112 and see, science will satisfy our expectations and bring effective solutions to problems of disease and suffering. The script of scientific comportment It might be expected that the use of scientific knowledge in order to sustain unfettered hopes for the future would often be articulated in association with actors like researchers and members of the medical scientific community. But many of these sources seem to put a lot more emphasis on the necessity of hard work and conditioned expectations, instead of an unconditioned faith in science: Genetic material will probably be the drug of the future for all types of conditions. But realistically one should not expect an immediate miracle cure. It is more likely going to be a long and laborious process, which will only gradually begin to bear fruit,” says one of the country’s leading geneticists, professor and dr.med. Lars Bolund.92 The notion of a miracle is used several times as an articulation of what medical science is not about and what researchers do not do: They are not miracle workers. Quite on the contrary, as seen in the above quote, it is hard work to make the gene therapy effective. On this account it is necessary that patients do not expect too much, too soon. Rather, as shown earlier in the script of comportment, cancer patients must endure and accept that a miraculous cure is not the immediate consequence of this research: [Jens Astrup] has not lost faith in the idea that gene therapy will one day be used against brain cancer. “But first the methods must be developed, and the treatment must become more effective. Maybe it will take 10 years before we can expect a proper breakthrough,” says Jens Astrup. The other experts that Jyllandsposten has spoken to also maintain that we shouldn’t use the poor results to disregard gene therapy: “You have to take into consideration, that only desperately ill patients can participate in gene therapeutic experiments like the ones in Århus,” says Claus Nerlov from Rigshospitalet. “The medical-ethical rules are so strict that you cannot give patients an experimental treatment with unknown effect, if you have another well tested treatment that works. The criterion to be included in the experiments is simply 92 ”Doctors under severe pressure from patients” Jyllandsposten 25 July 1999 119 that all other forms of treatment have been given up. This means that it actually takes a miracle for the gene therapy to lead to full recovery. And it is always hard to launch a new treatment by producing a miracle.93 These articulations of the necessity of moderating expectations all seem to subscribe to a general sense of hope and progress brought about by medical science. Gene therapy is expected to be a future solution to the problem of cancer, but in these articulations, this solution will not just come about by itself. The development of effective solutions depends on hard work and the right attitude – and therefore ‘we’ have to be realistic about the rate of progress and discuss this new technology with due respect to its problems and shortcomings. As already mentioned, this call for moderation seems to be prevalent in many articulations associated with medical researchers. Generally it seems to be linked to an idea of responsibility in the conduct of scientific research. Precisely because gene therapy is at a very early stage, is it important that all parties involved act responsibly and follow central prescriptions of the ‘proper’ scientific production of knowledge. Just like the call for patients to be responsible, medical researchers also have to behave properly. Following this argument, the experiment in Århus is seen as problematic because it violates the rules of conduct in proper scientific research. In this way it almost seems that it was medical science that was a victim in the experiments in Århus: The idea behind the disputed experiment is so good, that it should be tested in clinical experiments, but the course of events has been so messy and unprofessional, that it almost does more harm than good. We are in a preliminary phase with gene therapy, where we have to do all to make sure, that all results are documented in a correct fashion, so that we will get a clear answer to whether they work or not. By allowing experimental treatment outside the scientific protocols, the door to quackery in the health care service is opened,” says Lars Bolund.94 The quote implies an expectation that gene therapy will become an effective solution in the future. But rather than presenting this expectation unconditionally, 93 ”The quest for geniality” Jyllandsposten 25 July 1999. 94 ”Doctors under severe pressure from patients” Jyllandsposten 25 July 1999. 120 it is presented as conditional on an ability to behave properly. Gene therapy will not work just because we keep experimenting with it. Rather it will only work if researchers behave properly and follow rules of conduct for the proper and responsible scientific production of knowledge. In this way these articulations appear very similar to the earlier identified script of comportment. The solution to cancer is dependent on all actors behaving according to their predefined rules. Researchers have to follow rules of conduct for research. Patients have to be prepared to wait and submit themselves to research experiments; the rest of us have to respect the hard work of researchers, rather than expecting miracles. I have therefore also identified the pattern in these inscriptions as a script of comportment, where the ‘proper’ rule-following behaviour, according to an appropriate code of conduct, is central for the great expectations to come true. Figure 4.3 Focus on technical aspects Evaluation of experiment Problem Solution Anti-scientific information Lindkær is an unrecognised genius and experiment was stopped for political reasons Envy and power struggles between consultants Rejection of smear campaign Great expectations One step on the road towards effective cures for cancer Lack of scientific progress Faith in scientific experiments Comportment Irresponsible experiment violating rules of scientific conduct Lack of recognition and respect for rules in scientific search for knowledge Enforcement of code of conduct Summarising the patterns in the inscriptions of the technical aspects, it has been possible to identify three different scripts articulating different problems and solutions as I have summarised in the following table. They are similar in that they all expect gene therapy to be a possible future solution to the problem of cancer and other deadly diseases. But they differ in the way they present the problems in reaching this solution. 121 Regulatory aspects The second set of articulations of the experiment as a problematic research experiment focuses on the regulatory aspects. It questions whether the experiment was violating existing regulation and also whether present regulation of research experiments is sufficient in order to avoid a similar case. After the first few weeks of interest in the emergency plan, many of the articles turn toward more general issues of legality and control in medical experiments including human patients. Central are the questions of whether it was illegal and who should be blamed, and these articulations reach a dramaturgical culmination in the beginning of September, with the publication of a report by five university professors, examining the scientific and regulatory aspects of the conduct of the experiment: The disputed experiments involving a gene manipulated virus for patients with advanced liver cancer will never be resumed at Århus Municipal Hospital. This is made clear by University of Aarhus and Århus County after the committee on health care service in Århus County Wednesday put an end to the case by accepting the newly published report about the case. “The experiment in question will never be resumed. If a similar project should be undertaken in the future, it will be with completely new protocols and on a quite different and more qualified basis,” says head of Institute for Experimental Clinical Research at Aarhus University, professor Jens Christian Djurhuus, who is responsible for all health care research at the Århus Hospitals.95 Apart from the previously mentioned counter narrative in Ekstra Bladet, most of the articulations of the regulatory aspects subscribe to an interpretation of the experiments as more or less illegal and certainly on the edge of current regulation regarding research on humans. The legal problems are primarily articulated by stressing the necessity to conduct future research with much higher quality standards. There are, however, different conceptions of the way to ensure this higher standard. Whereas some point to a need to change the rules in order to prevent similar problems in the future, others articulate the current system of regulation as sufficient. 95 ”Cancer experiments will never be resumed” Jyllandsposten 9 September 1999. 122 The script of consumer protection Many of the articles take as a point of departure the actual course of events in Århus, and subsequently articulate more general implications regarding the issue of control and regulation of medical experiments on patients in the health care system in general: The experiments with gene therapy at Århus Municipal Hospital were never controlled by the Research Ethical Committee in Århus County, which has approved the project. This became clear under a hearing in the committee for research in parliament, where minister of research Birte Weiss (of the Social Democrats) explained the suspended experiments with injections of gene manipulated virus in cancer patients. The government is prepared to change the rules, so that medical experiments with humans in the future will be subject to intensified regulation. “We must seize the opportunity to build confidence. Maybe it takes a change in legislation, maybe just a clarification. But it is a problem we have to solve,” said Birte Weiss after the hearing. She is now expecting an initiative from the Central Research Ethical Committee on how to improve control of research.96 The question of building confidence is a common theme and it is articulated as important in order to secure patients’ trust in researchers and medical research. The experiments conducted by Lindkær Jensen are seen as endangering the public’s trust in science and scientific researchers, hereby creating difficulties for research itself in a very direct sense. If people do not trust scientific research, they will not partake in scientific experiments and this will be devastating to the future development of new therapies and scientific knowledge in general, since such development is dependent on the willingness of patients to volunteer for these research projects. On this account action has to be taken in order to reestablish the public trust in science: If we are to maintain the peoples’ trust in scientific experiments we have to give the research ethical committees a practical way of following up on the licences they issue to the researchers. It would also be appreciated if it were complemented with random controls. As long as researchers know it can happen they will have a preventive effect. The ministers of health care and of research have 96 ”Intensified control with gene research” Jyllandsposten 10 august 1999. 123 to do something about this. Otherwise we, the opposition, will press for action,” says Ester Larsen.97 This quote illustrates a kind of articulation, where researchers are presented as subjects that have to be controlled in order to behave properly. In order for the patient to be treated fairly and decently it is necessary for an external agent to control the actions of researchers. Otherwise they might act in their own interest and in disregard of the interests of the patients. Patients seem to be viewed as consumers in a health care system, consumers, which have to be protected against unwarranted actions by the providers of the service, i.e. medical doctors and researchers. In this way, control of research in the health care sector is articulated as a kind of consumer protection. This interpretation is explicit in the following quote where the actor has a reputation (at least in medical circles) for being very critical of the lack of protection for participants in medical research: Lone Scocozza has been a member of a research ethical committee for six years. Here she got the impression, that many doctors view the committees as an irritating encroachment in their freedom of research. They find the control difficult, bureaucratic and costly. “But in reality the control ought to be intensified. An ethics patrol could be set up to make unannounced inspections at the hospitals. Restaurants have to submit to this kind of inspection by the Food Safety Agency. As it is today far too much goes on in hiding in the hospitals. Only what the press discovers by chance comes out.”98 In this quote government regulation is suggested as a means to defend the consumer rights of the patients, just as regulation protects the consumer rights of customers in restaurants. It is necessary to have an external guarantor, who will make sure that doctors are not taking advantage of patients in an ‘unfair’ way. The articulation of the need to conserve the trust of patients therefore seems to be a question of ensuring that patients believe they will get a just and fair treatment when participating in medical research in the health care system. And researchers are articulated as unable to be a guarantor that this belief is justified. Thus external regulation can be seen as a remedy for the imperfections of the health care system in securing a fair or well functioning relationship between the 97 ”Reprimand in cancer research case” Politiken 28 July 1999. 98 ”Sloppiness stops gene experiment” Politiken 1 July 1999. 124 two parties – patients and doctors/researchers. On this account I have called this pattern in inscriptions the script of consumer protection. It is interesting that this script is often connected to great and unquestioned expectations of future therapies as presented in the script of great expectations. In these cases the argument seems to be that if left to pursue its own logic of inquiry, research in gene therapy will undoubtedly lead to a breakthrough. Society does, however, need to make sure that researchers do not violate the interests of patients in this quest and external regulation is therefore needed to protect the weaker parties. In this way the argument bears some resemblance to the regulation of market forces undertaken in most welfare states. But in this connection it is not the negative consequences of economic market forces but of the logic of scientific inquiry, which has to be controlled by the central authority of the state. The script of self-discipline The previously identified script of consumer protection is often associated with politicians or other actors outside the medical establishment. In contrast, it is by far the most common journalistic practice to present medical professionals as actors stating that external regulation is unnecessary or even damaging to the scientific production of knowledge. Especially in the latter period of mediated coverage many researchers are presented as sources in articulations where it is argued that the general lesson from the experiment in Århus should not be more external regulation: The head of research at the three hospitals in Århus now warns the politicians and the Central Research Ethical Committee against imposing further control of medical research after the case with gene therapy in Århus. “I fear that we will end up with much more government and more control of research. It is completely unnecessary. We already have sufficient possibilities for protection,” says Jens Christian Djurhuus, head of the Institute of Experimental Clinical Research at Århus University.99 Furthermore, external regulation is articulated as unnecessary since the current system is presented as sufficient. The experiment in Århus did not go wrong because of a lack of regulation, but because Steen Lindkær Jensen was an outsider, 99 “Warning against increased control” Jyllandsposten 16 August 1999. 125 who did not act according to the rules. On this background some of the researchers quoted leave a door open to tighten the control of science, like for instance the head of the Central Scientific Ethical Committee, Kamma Bertelsen. At the same time, however, it is pointed out that it will be impossible to create a system of regulation in which it is not possible to bend the rules or simply cheat: Kamma Bertelsen consider the system of Research Ethical Committees, which has to approve all experiments with humans, as well functioning (...) “It is not the fault of the system, that researchers in Århus have behaved stupidly. No matter how much you check, it will always be possible to cheat,” says Kamma Bertelsen.100 Thus it is not the system of regulation, which is articulated as a problem, but the occasional outsider, who cheats or otherwise does not respect the current regulation. External regulation is not presented as a solution since it will not have the intended effect of stopping the outsiders from behaving wrongly. Rather external regulation is presented as a problem. It will only make research more difficult, since the jurisdiction of researchers conducting scientific research will be curtailed. Thus more external regulation is articulated as nothing but an extra burden on the well-behaved researchers, without having any intended effect on the outsiders. Consequently, strengthening internal self-discipline within the research community is the most effective remedy for ‘black sheep’. As an example of this, the head of the Medical Research Council (SSVF) argues in an opinion piece in Politiken, that the research council will be happy to assist in a professional evaluation of research projects, with the explicit purpose of avoiding further legislative initiatives. This articulation clearly argues against external regulation and presents internal discipline and order as a much better solution: It is the hope of SSVF that this case will not lead to a tightening of legislation or regulations so that clinical research will be bureaucratised to a degree that will put obstacles in the way of a continued advancement of patient treatment. We do not find evidence to support this. The necessary regulation is already in place and SSVF would happily take part in a better implementation of it. We also have suggestions for a strengthening of the regulations. Our proposal is built on recognition that centralised 100 ”Hard to control experiments with patients” Politiken 29 July 1999. 126 mechanisms of control often become bureaucratic and costly and only has preventative effect in those who already adhere to the rules. If there are black sheep (and where is it possible to avoid this) they will hardly ever be stopped by systems of random checks. We are therefore in favour of decentralised self-discipline. (...) Let us not be caught up in a panic and introduce restrictions that will harm research and hereby the treatment of patients. Let us instead use the debate to strengthen clinical research to the benefit of the patients, so they can feel secure also in the future, and so doctors and other research personnel can take on the task with their heads held high. Do not forget we all have a common goal that the treatment offered in Danish hospitals are well founded. The only way to secure this is through clinical research.101 The argument towards the end of this quote fits well with the above-identified script of comportment. We all have to realise that doctors are carrying out a task in the interest of the common good, and the successful fulfilment of this task is dependent on a respect for the proper conduct of clinical trials. Society should not hinder this task by imposing external regulation that might inhibit scientific researchers in the performance of their task. In stead it should be left to the scientific system and its internal hierarchy to make researchers behave in the proper fashion. I have called the pattern in these inscriptions the script of self-discipline. In this script medical research is presented as a self-disciplinary system, where irresponsible ‘black sheep’ are best dealt with internally. Rather than increasing external regulation, proper conduct should be ensured through internal standards. External regulation is presented as unnecessary and bureaucratic measures of control, which will only have preventative effects on the already well behaved. It will not prohibit black sheep, but only make research more difficult. The problem of ‘improper conduct’ on behalf of some ‘black sheep’ is not fought by external regulation but by internal self-discipline in accord with the code of conduct already existing within scientific practice. Summarising the inscriptions of gene therapy as an object of regulation, they basically follow two opposite scripts. The script of consumer protection articu101 ”Beware of panic decisions” opinion piece by chairman of the Danish Medical Research Council, in Politiken, 29 August 1999. 127 lates a need for increased external control in order to ensure that researchers do not mistreat patients. This leads to the articulation of a kind of consumer protection needed in order to regulate the imperfections of the scientific endeavour by protecting the weaker parties. Lindkær Jensen is seen as an outsider, but he is the expected villain, whom society has responsibility to protect patients against. In contrast to this, the script of self-discipline articulates external regulation as a problem since it will make scientific research more difficult and bureaucratic. This script presents the internal system of order and discipline produced by the scientific system as the best solution to problems of misconduct. Increasing the internal mechanisms of control and discipline should therefore solve problems like Lindkær Jensen. Figure 4.4 Focus on regulatory aspects Evaluation of experiment Problem Solution Consumer protection The present system failed in stopping illegitimate experiments of Lindkær Jensen Researchers unable to guarantee the consumer rights of patients External regulation of research Self-discipline Lindkær Jensen is an irresponsible black sheep, who ought to know better Preventive measures directed at irresponsible black sheep, should not compromise scientific freedom of research Self-discipline and responsibility in scientific conduct Three different super-scripts Throughout this chapter I have identified eight different scripts. Although it seems like a fairly large amount of differences, it is possible to detect an overarching pattern. I will argue that there are different super-scripts that can be identified on the basis of the way they articulate Lindkær Jensen, the patients, the objective of genetic research and the articulated possibilities of finding a cure for cancer. Certain similarities make it possible to talk of super-scripts as a ‘meta-pattern in the eight scripts according to the following scheme: 128 Chapter 5 Articulated collectives - Theoretical translations During the analyses certain resonances with the cultural analysis of Mary Douglas became more and more intriguing, as the pattern that emerged inductively in the previous chapters came to resemble the four cultural types identified by Douglas. The last part of the thesis is devoted to explore these similarities. In this chapter I will translate the scripts into a typology of four modes of articulating the collective with the help of Douglas’ cultural analysis. In order to do so, the four types of culture will be presented and the different scripts will subsequently be related to this typology. By way of conclusion, I will examine the link between scripts and arguments in the move from a typology of cosmologies to a typology of articulated collectives. In a recent essay Douglas reformulated the cultural typology in terms of attitudes to power: I can shorten the introduction to the theory of culture that I wrote with the late Aaron Wildavsky by summarizing four kinds of competing dialogues about risk in any industrial society. The basic discriminator is the attitude to power and authority: There are two ways of exerting power, one bureaucratic and hierarchical, and the other by bargaining and exchanging; there are two ways of resisting the influences from these bases, one by active criticism, and the other by withdrawal. The four cultural types that are thus distinguished (you can call them hierarchy, market, critical activist, and isolate) are always in flux, always open to conversion to one of the other positions. (Douglas 1997:129) Throughout Douglas’s body of work the names for the four types have varied.102 I have found diverging attitudes to power a very productive discriminator in the 102 Originally the four fields were labelled as different types of individuals. This fits with the predominant perception in Cultural Bias that an individual can only belong in one culture at a given time (Douglas 1978). Naming the inhabitants can thus identify the culture. In the context of this thesis, however, I cannot use this notion of individuals as bearers of particular cultures. In a relational ontology an individual cannot be defined by culture as if it was an intrin135 following presentation of the four types. Firstly, because the attitude to science seems to be important in the different scripts, and this can be seen as adjacent to the attitudes to power, since science is generally articulated as a powerful community, activity or system.103 Secondly, as I argued in Chapter 2, the combination between Latour and Douglas has had the consequence that the universalistic, structural part of the argument in Douglas’ theory has been left on one side. In this dissertation it is not claimed that these four typologies are the result of a structural typology with two constituting dimensions of grid and group, but rather as possible worldviews in a heuristic typology that has proved productive. On this account I have chosen to speak of four ways, or ‘modes’, of articulating the collective rather than four cosmologies. In order to emphasise that the typology is not a classification of individuals, but of ways of thinking about social order I have chosen to construct a set of names for the four different articulated collectives, which are inspired by Douglas later writings,104 but are not completely similar: Establishment exercising power Authoritative Hierarchy Competitive Individualism Opposition to exercise of power Sectarian Egality Fatalistic Isolation In the following sections I will present these different modes of articulating the collective and also illustrate how I see the previously identified scripts as subscribing to these four modes. I should make clear that the following sections are not an exhaustive presentation of the four cultural forms and the changes they subsequently appear to have undergone at different times in the writings by and on Mary Douglas. Rather I have selected elements useful in the particular context of analysing public debate on biotechnology. Thus it will be fair to say that I am translating bits and pieces from the large body of theory provided by Dougsic property. Rather the cultural stance will always be an outcome of a particular relational context. Douglas herself replaces the word cosmology with thought style (Douglas 1996b), but for my purpose it still puts too much emphasis on individual thinking. 103 It will be a central focus in chapters 6 and 7 to discuss the different attitudes to science as a powerful system. 104 Primarily (Douglas 1996b:43) 136 las into a working framework for the present analysis of the similarities between the previously identified scripts and four modes of articulating the collective. Authoritative hierarchy The social order of the Hierarchy is highly structured in separate and graded compartments resting on a common notion of authority. In this form, the parts are oriented towards the whole, so that hierarchical relations are relations between ‘larger and smaller or more precisely between that which encompasses and that which is encompassed’ (Douglas & Wildavsky 1983:90). The unity of the hierarchy has precedence over the parts, but this does not mean that the parts are neglected. The hierarchy is oriented towards the separate compartments because they are the building blocks of which the hierarchy is constructed, but each separate compartment has to fulfil a special function in order to maintain the whole. The individual is thus characterised by an assigned role, more than a status as individual actor. The hierarchy operates with a great potential for a specialisation of roles, and it may consequently distribute its resources unequally between members. The legitimacy of this specialisation and the authority vested in higher positions is based on the common acceptance of the unity and precedence of the whole, since each individual fulfils a particular role with assigned privileges and obligations. The hierarchy tends to be deductionist in its style of reasoning and rule following in its behaviour (Douglas 1997). In principle, members of the hierarchy should be able to deduce a right course of action from the unifying order on which the hierarchy is based. Subsequently the identification of a ‘right’ course of action can be the basis of common rules and regulations that guide the actions of the members of the hierarchy. Since people are normally understood to be more fallible than institutions, the appeal to common rules tends to produce stronger institutions. It means that controversies are resolvable through an appeal to universal principles or general rules of behaviour. Adversarial positions should be reconcilable at a higher level; we just have to make the general order to which we belong manifest. Douglas (Douglas 1997) notes that in regard to risk assessment, science serves the function of formalising the questions, hereby keeping them out of politics. Science is the realm of cool evaluations whereas politics is likely to be viewed as an avatar of untimely emotional interference and extra-rational influence. Ultimately, it seems that the hierarchical idea of 137 solving controversies over risk is extremely technocratic, but it is also quite robust: The hierarchist cannot envisage the continuity of past and present being seriously threatened. He expects that the same stable social system that has protected his people so well in the past will be able to do so in the future. It is not that he is willing to let the future go to hell. Just the opposite. By maintaining the advantages of the hierarchy in the present, he is, in his view, giving future generations the best possible protection. (Douglas & Wildavsky 1983:99) Traditions are important in hierarchy as the future is predominantly seen as a linear extension of the past. Just as the whole is more important than the parts, the longer term seems more important than the shorter. It can be seen as quite appropriate to make small sacrifices for the common good in the long run. Sustaining the hierarchical order is equivalent to protecting the common good since the logic of the system is based on the hierarchical relations that guarantee the meaning of each separate entity. In relation to the issue of power, we can say that hierarchy is a way of reproducing existing power-relations, but from the presentation it should be clear that this reproduction is not primarily a matter of protecting privileges – although this is a very obvious consequence. Rather, the protection of privileges is a derivative of the need to protect the hierarchical order. It is because the hierarchy should be kept intact that the authority of the leading positions is respected, not because the individuals occupying the leading positions should be kept in power. As an ideal, power is exercised in the hierarchy for the sake of the common good, not in order to privilege certain positions.105 The focus on responsibility and education in the script of scientific information as identified in Chapter 3 makes this script seem to belong in this context. In this script problems are seen to be caused by ignorance or neglect of scientific knowledge, and therefore public information and edification (‘bildung’) seems to be the solution. Seed is a problem because he does not respect the scientific code of conduct. He does not accept the obligations connected with his role as 105 It is obvious that this ideal of power is in line with the weberian ideal of legitimate bureaucratic power, just as the general presentation of the authoritative hierarchy is similar to the general notion of bureaucracy within political theory. 138 scientific researcher – for instance that he should not involve himself with human cloning when it is not scientifically viable. On the other hand, the threat Seed poses is not devastating. The fact that he is not behaving properly is precisely what causes him to be excluded from the institutional settings of science; he will therefore not be able to create a human clone. The real problem resides with the general public: it is ignorant of scientific knowledge and therefore seems to be frightened by the news of Seed, who is really not worth worrying about. This problem, however, can be solved by raising the general level of scientific literacy within the public so that it will be brought to see and accept scientific rationality. In this way the public should be brought to accept the institution of science as a rational system of knowledge creation, in which problems are solved by searching for scientific answers. Secondly, the notion of a need for individual members to realise their prescribed role in the super-script of discipline in Chapter 4 also appeared as connected to the authoritative hierarchy. Scientists, patients, citizens and politicians have roles with duties and obligations. Roles and norms need to be followed since it is by respecting the hierarchical institutions, that problems will be solved. If we want science to deliver solutions to problems like cancer and other deadly diseases we have to behave properly. Patients should not expect miracle cures, but accept the scientific authority of researchers and participate in scientific trials conducted according to the general rules of conduct for science. Likewise, researchers should behave with respect for their own scientific authority and not violate the rules of the scientific community. The super-script of discipline articulates improperly behaving researchers like Lindkær Jensen (and Seed for that matter) as irresponsible ‘black sheep’ who should be dealt with internally. In the hierarchical order of the institution of science, this kind of un-behaving scientists should be made to behave responsible by enforcing internal discipline and rule-following behaviour. External regulation, on the other hand, might destroy the order of the hierarchy, and should therefore be avoided. Summarising the scripts of scientific information, comportment and selfdiscipline, they all seem to subscribe to a general notion of an ordered whole, in which the decisive issue is for every individual to play their prescribed roles with predefined privileges and obligations. Researchers should behave according to the scientific code of conduct, patients should accept their situation and subject themselves to the rules of the system and the general public should re139 spect the general authority of scientific rationality. Knowing about one’s prescribed role and acting accordingly seems to be the key issue in terms of solving problems in all these scripts. Competitive individualism In contrast to this focus on roles and rules, competitive individualism (market) is characterised by individual autonomy and strongly competitive conditions. Consequently the exchange mechanism of the market is the means of co-ordinating activities, rather than a central authority prescribing the right course of action. In this social context the individual is not constrained by any external boundary or by any essential status or formal rules connected to particular roles. This does not mean, that there is no classification or stratification, but just that all ‘the existing classifications are only provisional negotiable boundaries’ (Douglas 1978:21). This mode of articulating the collective tends to be sceptical of master plans and grand theories from which ‘right’ decisions should be deduced. Instead, it claims that decisions about preferences should be an individual matter. This, however, does not mean that nothing is sacred in competitive individualism. The autonomy of the individual is a staunchly defended notion in this articulated collective, since it is an essential condition of negotiation and bargaining: In such an environment [the individual entrepreneur] cannot claim autonomy for himself without setting it up as universally valuable, a right of his fellow citizens, too. He will claim for everyone the rights freely to contract and freely to withdraw from contractual obligations, so long as the procedures for contracting and withdrawing are publicly accepted. For his kind of society, by definition, refuses to give some individuals a hereditary or other right to exact privileges or to turn the free market into monopoly. (Douglas & Wildavsky 1983:95) The system of exchange is also held sacred as the general principle of coordination, which must be protected for social order to be sustained. Following this, a basic faith in quantification is important, since this constitutes the machinery of choice, the medium in which one decides among several options. The more allies an individual is able to muster in comparison with competitors, the merrier. Consequently, competitive individualism is characterised by a prag140 matic style of reasoning. Douglas and Wildavsky state that utilitarianism is exactly the theory to explain the behaviour of individuals operating in an entirely individualist society: ‘the ideas of human rationality conform to the classic assumptions of utility theory – to rank objectives, choose the one with the highest value, and go for it’ (Douglas & Wildavsky 1983:97). Stability, on the other hand, is not important in this mode of articulating the collective. Decisions are negotiated in order to maximise utility, but they can always be changed if new possibilities emerge or hitherto unknown aspects can be claimed significant. Contrary to the authoritative hierarchy, the time-span incorporated in these decisions seems to be extremely short. Uncertainty and risk are not seen as unfortunate circumstances to be regretted or ignored, but on the contrary as opportunities to be exploited. The world is changing constantly; uncertainty is just another word for the hope of a better tomorrow. If allowed to operate freely, the exchange mechanism of the market will make sure that all resources are put to their best uses. ‘With his evolutionary faith that the market will select the best and reject the worst, the individualist feels confident that his activities will leave the future better off. In a sense, he is future oriented; he places his bets on guessing right’ (Douglas & Wildavsky 1983:99). Whereas the authoritative hierarchy is oriented towards the future as a continuation of the past, competitive individualism sees the future as the result of the pursuit of individual interests in the present. Like hierarchy, in which power is exercised in order to protect the authoritative order, the exercise of power via the market is seen as a common good, since it fulfils the utilitarian dictum. On the whole and in the long run we will be better off if decisions are left to the market. Contrary to hierarchy, however, the individual’s struggle for power positions is acknowledged as an important part of the process. It is precisely because every individual actor tries to pursue his own interests and strengthen his individual power-base that the common good is obtained.106 This is obviously built on a different pre-conception of the individual. Rather than fulfilling a role with predefined obligations and privileges as in an authoritative hierarchy, actors working under conditions of competitive individualism are defined as individuals by their interests and resources. 106 Just as authoritative hierarchy is in line with notions of weberian bureaucracy, this notion of power is completely in line with the way power is exercised through the invisible hand of classical economical theory. 141 In the script of pragmatic regulation, identified in Chapter 3, the key issue is to generate an evaluation of different kinds of regulation with respect to their benefits and drawbacks. The aim of creating the most effective regulation of cloning, which would prohibit cloning, but permit beneficial, ‘good’ research, makes this script very similar to competitive individualism. Central here is the pragmatic evaluation of pros and cons and the image of science as a beneficial activity, which is expected to lead to positive outcomes, but where the boundaries have to be negotiated with the rest of society. In the scripts of patient rights, great expectations and consumer protection, which were presented in Chapter 4, the notion of science as a beneficial activity in need of external regulation is also articulated. Central in this super-script of external regulation is that, if it is left to pursue its own goals, medical science can be expected to produce effective cures of disease, but this pursuit makes science and scientists blind to the interests of other actors. In this way, Seed and Lindkær Jensen are seen as villains, but villains who are only behaving as we could have expected, because it is in the nature of scientists in pursuit of the goal of knowledge to try to reach it with any available means. As an external mediator it is therefore necessary for politics to define the borders of what is acceptable behaviour within medical science. And as the weaker parties, patients have to be protected against undue exploitation, that destroys their status as independent actors. On this account patients are not constituted as objects subject to an authoritative hierarchy of medical science, but as consumers with rights that have to be respected in their relation to the health care system. As is the case with competitive individualism, actors are articulated as autonomous, pursuing their own interests in negotiations with other autonomous actors. This is expected to lead to positive outcomes at a general level, but in order to mediate between what may be enormously asymmetrical positions of power it can be necessary to impose external regulation. Summarising these scripts, medical progress is seen as beneficial, but it has to be conducted with respect of the autonomy of other actors – for instance patients. What is essential is the establishment of actors as independent individuals with a personal make up of resources, preferences and interests. And it is the pursuit of these preferences and interests that will result in the most prosperous use of resources and the attainment of a utilitarian common good, although some 142 regulations might be necessary in order to foster and maintain free negotiations between actors. Some remarks on the relation between authoritative hierarchy and competitive individualism are in order at this point. I have earlier quoted a recent statement by Douglas of these positions as the two ways of exercising power. It should now be clearer what is meant by this claim. Despite their differences, they are both concerned with upholding the present social system as it is. Neither is envisaging a future that differs substantially from an extension of the present (and past). Douglas and Wildavsky write that both ‘have imperialist tendencies, since both can solve their organizational problems by expanding the field of operations – bigger markets, larger collectives’ (Douglas & Wildavsky 1983:97). They both enforce universalistic rules, but where the hierarchist prefers rules of instruction, the competitive individualist prefers rules of fair play that do not stipulate what is to be done. We can say that while hierarchical rules ideally prescribe the right thing to do, the rules of competitive individualism should be procedural, prescribing how autonomous individuals can reach a pragmatic decision in a concrete situation. Sectarian egality The two other modes of articulating the collective, sectarian egality and fatalistic isolation are, by contrast to the foregoing, ways of opposing rather than of exercising power. In these modes it is not possible to articulate the exercise of power as being in the interest of the common good of society. Rather power is in all cases seen as oppression that has to be opposed. But it is only in the mode of sectarian egality that this opposition is made explicit. Whereas fatalistic isolation involves withdrawal, as I will demonstrate in the following, sectarian egality is explicit in its dissociation from present social order. The critique is formulated around an expected disaster in the surrounding world and the imminent need to try to avoid it: [The sect] is not confident that the disaster can be averted. There may be no time left. But it knows how the disaster has been caused: corrupt worldliness, that is, ambition for big organization has endangered mankind and new technology represents all that is most reprehensible – social distinctions, the division of labor, materialist values, unfeelingness for individual suffering. Its mode of articulating the collective is characterized by dichotomized 143 values: good and bad are severely contrasted, compromise is bad, purity is good. Paradoxically, given the alert detection of betrayers in their ranks, the sectarians supplement their mistrust in human organization with trust in the goodness of human individuals. (Douglas & Wildavsky 1983:127). The identification of sectarian egality is modelled on small voluntary groups organised around a common interest in the protection of public goods. Douglas claims that these groups are characterised by their efforts to solve the fundamental problem of keeping the group together, since the absence of formal hierarchy makes it difficult to sustain solidarity in the group. Membership in the group is voluntary, and with no system of incentives, members will tend to evade obligations. Furthermore, the lack of formal regulation with regard to reward and punishment (as available in the hierarchy) is leaving the group without adequate instruments for solving conflicts. Only the drastic sanction of withdrawing the privilege of membership or the dissolution of the group can be effectively applied. This will produce two tendencies. First, in order to strengthen group solidarity and avoid defection or dissolution, the boundary around the group will be strongly demarcated and the difference between the good of inside and the bad of outside will be emphasised. Second, without the ability to take recourse to coercion or overt leadership, due to the lack of formal regulation, there will be a strong tendency towards factions, and mutual allegations of treason or corruption will be common, as these are the only available sanctions in the organisation. The issue of risk is perfect for satisfying this need: The first difference between the border [sect and isolate] and center [hierarchy and market] views is about what the future will be like. The center takes it to be an extension of the present. Sectarians expect discontinuity. They expect a different future and they expect it will be bad. Established society is incorrigibly evil, being both coercive and hierarchical. It must not be imitated and it cannot continue. They have a vested interest in bad news that shows the society outside is polluted and also shows that the sect inside is pure. (Douglas & Wildavsky 1983:121-22) The expectation of future life to undergo radical changes for the worse is a means of keeping the group together. 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What can be associated to what in the mass mediation and when is it portrayed as controversial? In short this is a study of associations in the news production that serves as a way of establishing an empirical archive for my dissertation. It is based on a relational ontology inspired by French philosopher Bruno Latour, supplemented with the method of content analysis developed within sociology of mass media. The aim is to study the production of networks of articulation in mass media by looking at the outcome (the articles), which they produce. A comprehensive description of mass media analysis inspired by Latour (1999a; 1999b; 1996; 1987; 1986) is presented elsewhere in my dissertation. Here it suffices to say that any mass mediated article about biotechnology is the productive result of efforts to associate certain occurrences with other occurrences and phenomena in a certain way including reference to certain sources with the aim of creating a newsworthy story. Each article can therefore be seen as a set of associations and the object of this study is to describe these associations. I have found that the method of content analysis within media sociology provided a useful starting point for such an analysis (Gunter 2000; Pedersen et al. 2000; Lund 1997; McQuail 1994). The objective of content analysis is to study the content of an amount of mass mediated articles, in order to search for patterns according to some sort of coding scheme. I have, however, had to shape this methodology in particular ways so that it could function within the overall methodological framework of the relational ontology. A relational ontology implies that the phenomena associated in networks do not have any independently determined identity, but rather that they are the result of the particular construction of associations in particular way. In this context it 251 Appendix means that the content analysis has to be designed as an inductive analysis – exploring networks of articulation by inductively exploring what kinds of categories can be used to characterise content. Thus, the coding scheme and the construction of the different variables and categories are as much the outcome of the analysis as the quantitative figures describing their frequency. The interpretative work put into the construction of reliable variables and definitions of categories are equally important for the description of the topology of the articulation of genetics as the quantitative measure of frequencies. Constructing the archive The indeterminacy of phenomena does not just pertain to categories of content, but also to the overall object of study. How is it possible to identify a particular set of mass mediated article that can function as a credible and valid archive for the exploration of associations? In short this is a question of how to define the archive, and this poses rather many challenges in this connections. As a starting point I have chosen to follow the distinction between ‘red’ and ‘green’ biotechnology (Bauer 2002) and limit the object of study to ‘red’ biotechnology, that is, human genetics primarily applied within the health care services, but also forensic applications fall under this category. Agricultural (‘green’) biotechnology is left out because it is possible to detect a rather clear distinction between the two different applications and focusing on one of them makes it simpler to construct reliable categories for the coding scheme. But this still leaves the problem of unity or at least relations in a sample of articles. Is it possible to identify a related sample of articles, which allows the analyst to treat the stories as a coherent set of data. Articulation of health care related biotechnology occurs in a lot of different types of articles. As news from scientific frontiers or political debates on regulations, as human interest stories about patients with great hopes and fears, as contributions to ongoing controversies on how to employ the new technologies an so forth. They also come in different genres from news reports to interviews, editorials and letters to the editor. Sometimes the articulation of biotechnology is the main focus of an article and sometimes it is a frame of reference or a side story. This touches upon a second problem, that of delimiting the object of study. What are not articulations of biotechnology? When is the reference to biotechnology so peripheral, that it makes more sense to leave an article out of the archive? 252 Appendix These difficulties in defining the object have been essential in the way I have designed the data collection. Instead of narrowing the object of study down to a central definition I have expanded the term biotechnology by creating a long list of keywords. In this way, the term ‘red’ biotechnology has come to signify a diverse and dispersed object of discourse artificially constructed on the basis of a list of approximately 30 keywords. The list was created by pilot studies, where I collected some 250 articles1 and then kept adding new keywords until I was sure to include all of these 250 articles. After this initial construction, the list functioned as a search mechanism, whereby I could search the media for articles that included one or more of these keywords. A preliminary archive could then be established as the total of mass mediated articles, which included these keywords2. In this way the definition of ‘articulation of biotechnology’ has been very inclusive, although this archive was later reduced to include only articles where biotechnology were given a substantial role in the article. Substantial was in this context defined as more than a single sentence, rather it had to be topic of articulation in a full paragraph or so. The problem of delimitation of the archive has therefore been dealt with as an integrated part of the analysis, not as a problem to be managed before the ‘real’ analysis. It should be noted that establishing the archive is of course contingent in that it could have been done in other ways. But it is not arbitrary – and the reason for describing the delimiting actions in detail is exactly to make this point clear. It should also be noted that the data unit in this archive is the article, which is not necessarily the same as the unit of story. For this study of associations it was found to be acceptable. First of all because it most often makes sense to say that an article covers one story, simply by being one article, although the same story in other relations can be seen to be composed of many stories. Secondly, it is the most valid way of counting frequencies in a content analysis. And thirdly, subsequent analyses in my dissertation will employ other ways of analysing stories (as inscriptions). In the following I will use the terms ‘stories’ and ‘articulations’ 1 This sample was created by reading two daily newspapers in a period of 1½ years between 1997-1999 and collecting all the articles, which were articulating health care related genetic knowledge and technology or knowledge production concerning human genetics. 2 Technical difficulties unfortunately has made it impossible to count the number of articles in this preliminary archive, but a guess is that it included almost twice as many articles as finally selected, that is, 2500-3000. 253 Appendix interchangeably and the term ‘article’ about the analytical unit of the study. It is also important to stress that both news (journalistically written articles) and views (opinion pieces, including both letters to the editor, longer analyses and editorials) have been included in the analysis. Although it is interesting to notice if there is any differences in the two types of articles they are basically both part of the mass mediated coverage of biotechnology. It should be clear that the objective of this analysis is not as much to analyse journalistic practices as to observe the outcome in the form of a mass mediated landscape of ‘red’ biotechnology. For practical reasons I have had to limit the number of media included in the search process, but it was important that the chosen media represent a fairly broad spectrum in order to give the analysis a reasonable amount of generality. Unfortunately, I had to leave electronic media out, since the search process within these media would have been too extensive. This is the case for TV and radio, where it is very time consuming to search systematically for coverage of particular issues in Denmark. A slightly different argument pertains to the Internet, where it is relatively easy to search, but where it is extremely difficult to know what archive one is actually searching in. On this background I have chosen to study the written media, and specifically national newspapers.3 Focusing on newspapers furthermore has another advantage, since in a Danish context it is the type of media, which most clearly has a distinct editorial style. This means that it is possible to make some informed choices on which media to choose, since I also had to limit the number of written media. The choice fell on four (initially five) national newspapers of different character. These are the two large broadsheets, the social-liberal Politiken and the conservative-liberal Jyllandsposten. The third large broadsheet in Denmark Berlingske Tidende has been left out because the editorial style of Berlingske Tidende, with regard to new technology, was thought to be relatively close to that of Jyllandsposten. In order to broaden the analysis two other newspapers have been included: The tabloid Ekstra Bladet, and the intellectual niche newspaper Information. Ekstra Bladet has a general reputation of being populist as well as the most radical tabloid in Denmark. On the contrary Information has a reputation 3 A study of the food chains in the Danish media supports this method, since it was shown, that electronic media to a very large degree replicate news stories from the printed media (Lund 2000). 254 Appendix of being elitist, left wing oriented and focused on environmental issues. A fifth newspaper, Aktuelt was included at the beginning, but it went in during the period under analysis (spring 2001) and has therefore been excluded from the set of data.4 Two other smaller national newspapers could have been included, but has been left out. This is the business paper Børsen and the Christian democratic paper Kristeligt Dagblad. With regard to the business angle it should be noted, that Jyllandsposten has quite an extensive business coverage and I will argue, that this make up for the exclusion of Børsen. It is perhaps more problematic that Kristeligt Dagblad is left out, because it does intend to have a distinct editorial style. On the other hand criticism of biotechnology inspired by Christian views also do appear in the other newspapers and is therefore not excluded from the analysis. The four newspapers were searched electronically for a period of 4½ years (august 1997 to December 2001), and all articles, which contained at least one of the keywords in the list, were collected. Since a lot of these articles only made very sporadic references to ‘red’ biotechnology they were subsequently screened according to the above-mentioned criteria, where genetic knowledge or technology should be health care related and also the focus of at least a separate paragraph. As mentioned previously, articulation of biotechnology did not have to be the main story, but it should be the object of more than one sentence for the article to be included in the data set. Articles, which were primarily concerned with ‘green’ biotechnology, were also screened out. The result was a set of 1575 articles, which function as the central set of data in the following analysis. Table 1 describes the contributions to this archive with respect to each newspaper. It appears that Politiken is the newspaper, which has articulated the subject of biotechnology in most articles. Jyllandsposten is quite similar to Politiken apart from the fact that the issue is covered less often and rarely in editorials. Information articulates the issue quite extensively, considering that this newspaper has fewer daily pages. Here the issue is often articulated in editorials and long news articles, and it also seems that Information has a higher amount of views compared to news than the other papers. It should be noted that a large 4 A preliminary analysis of the first three years of coverage, however, indicated that the coverage in Aktuelt were very close to the average of all papers in most variables observed. I have taken this to indicate that no particular editorial style is disregarded with the exclusion of Aktuelt. 255 Appendix proportion of the articulation of biotechnology in Information is health care related and also that the coverage sees to be much more sceptical than the coverage in the other papers. In contrast Ekstra Bladet has the almost opposite profile. It is more rarely articulated in general, and especially health care related biotechnology is not offered very much attention compared to other areas of application (primarily forensic uses). Generally it is seldom covered in the front page, in editorials and also comparatively more seldom in views. Table 1 Politiken Jyllandsposten Information Ekstra Bladet N 629 446 317 183 Front page articles 6% 5% 7% 1% News 74% 79% 68% 71% Large news articles* 29% 32% 43% 37% Views** 19% 18% 24% 12% Editorials 4% 1% 5% 2% Not health care related*** 23% 24% 15% 57% Negative towards biotechnology 24% 16% 37% 16% *Articles, which in computer print were longer than one A4 page **The reason news and views do not sum up to 100% is because there was a third category of reviews and announcements *** Articles, where human genetics were not linked to health care, but rather to forensic or other issues. Coding of content The objective is to identify patterns in the associations created in articles concerning biotechnology, and furthermore to see, which of these stories are described as controversial. This includes two analytical operations. First the construction of a general map of the associations created in the mediated articulation. In this connection the following research questions have been seen as relevant: • What type of biotechnology is discussed? • What stages in techno-scientific development is in focus? • What are the problems, which biotechnology is articulated as relieving? • What is the geographic origin of the occurrence(s) articulated as news? • Which human actors are presented in the article? 256 Appendix The second step is to explore the question of controversy. It is obvious that controversy is a highly fluctuating concept. How should controversy be evaluated? According to media sociology, it can be argued that controversy in itself is an important feature in the articulation of occurrences as newsworthy stories. Therefore a high amount of mass mediated attention towards certain issues is a mark of controversy. Controversy, however, is probably not the only reason for mass mediated articulation of ‘red’ biotechnology, and I have therefore chosen to define controversy more explicitly as disagreement between definitions of problems and solutions. When an issue is controversial there is no unanimous articulation of definitions of problems and solutions.5 By exploring how biotechnology is presented in terms of problems and solutions it is therefore possible to establish a kind of measurement for controversy. Since the default interpretation of a technology is most commonly to articulate it as a solution, the analysis of controversy can focus on how much a technology is described as a problem: The more a particular application of genetic knowledge or technology is problematised and articulated as a problem in itself, the higher the amount of controversy. The operational definition of this measure has been to ask: • Is the main articulation of biotechnology in each article positive or negative? From these research questions I constructed a code scheme with 6 variables. In order to improve reliability I have constructed each question with a fixed set of answer categories as shown in the code scheme in appendix A. The variables and answer categories were selected on the basis of a number of pilot studies on small sections on the material. Following the inductive ambition presented in the beginning, the code scheme is therefore not a generic analytical tool constructed without connection to the actual data material. On the contrary the construction of the scheme has been an integrated part of the analytical work. The questions it poses to the individual article should be seen as a generalisation of comparisons between the articles. This relational construction of the code scheme also means that the categories I have chosen for the different variables do not imply to be universal or completely congruent to a knowledge base (e.g. medical science) outside the material. When I classify problems to be solved by biotechnol5 For further explication see the Introduction to my dissertation. 257 Appendix ogy in different groups of diseases it is on a basis of what makes sense when looking at the articles – not what is correct when looking at the medical classification of disease. Thus, I have a category called ‘Traditionally known inheritable diseases’, which is not a proper medical classification, just as it cannot be unequivocally distinguished from other groups for instance the one called Obesity and metabolic disorders. These categories have grown out of an observation in the pilot study, that the articles themselves make these distinctions. Sometimes they articulate inheritable diseases as a particular group of diseases and sometimes they speak of metabolic disorders. It might to a certain extent be the same diseases they refer to, but this is not always the case. Here we touch upon a fundamental characteristic of the following investigation. The object of study is the mass mediated articulations in their positivity. This means that I do not see these articulations as representations that can be compared to other - more true or real – representations in other social domains. All the categories represented in the code scheme reflect real constructions in the media – but the categories do not necessarily imply any intrinsic quality of realness outside the mediated realms. On this basis the analysis is committed to validity claims of internal consistency, coherence and intersubjectivity, but not of measurement in relation to any ‘objective’ knowledge base. As far as the code scheme goes this means that the arguments for constructing the code scheme in the particular way should be transparent and convincing. It also means that given the particular construction of the code scheme any observer would classify articles in the same categories. I have chosen to deal with all these questions of validity in a process of constant communicative validation (Kvale 1994:239). Two students have helped me code the articles and we have had a constant dialogue on interpretations, kept a log on decisions and so on. The main reason for choosing this method of validation is precisely the fundamental assumption that the scheme itself is as much an outcome of the analysis as the figures of frequency. Introduction to analysis The analysis covers a total of 1575 articles. As it appears from table 1 not all of these articulated health care related biotechnology. Altogether 405 articles are primarily occupied with other uses of biotechnology, primarily genetic testing in the judicial system. I have chosen as a general rule to disregard these articles. Although they articulate the same types of technology – primarily the genetic 258 Appendix tests, since they seem to generate different kinds of articulations. As a starting point it is only every fifth of the articles, which covers both kinds of tests. Furthermore, they are presented differently, as I will try to show in the following. Of all the fields of application prenatal tests are the most likely to appear on the front page. At the same time articles about prenatal tests are relatively evenly distributed and they are also relatively often the single issue in an article. On this background it seems that although there are no spectacular case stories about prenatal tests it is a type of application, which create stories in its own right. This is interesting because prenatal tests have been a standard service in the Danish health care sector for more than 20 years. This observation therefore means, that familiarity with a technology does not necessarily mean decreasing mass mediated articulation. A quick look at the headlines from articles about prenatal tests, show that stories focus on both the concrete service and the more abstract societal consequences of this practise. Some articles focus on technical aspects of the service: “Blood test can reveal risk of handicap”, “Scanning: Differences in service to pregnant women” and “Foetus counselling should be improved”11. Other focus on future possibilities: “Choose yourself: Boy or a girl” and “Free trade in foetus control”12. There are however, also a large group which discuss the basic logic behind prenatal tests: “”No to a selective society”, “On the road to eugenics”, “Should I have been an abortion” and “Help to children with Down’s syndrome instead of testing pregnant women”13. If we combine the impression from these headlines with the observation from table B that prenatal tests most often is associated with other reproductive technologies a pattern emerges. It seems, that prenatal tests is often discussed as an application that allows for selecting (or designing) babies. Similarly it appears to be closely connected to the issue of abortion, whereas treatment or preventive measures are not so often thematised. Postnatal tests on the other hand, seems to be represented very differently. They are rarely articulated as the only issue in an article, and most common is that it is 11 Jyllandsposten 13 February 1998, Politiken 17 April 2001 and Information 26 August 1998. 12 Jyllandsposten 6 July 2001 and Information 28 March 1998. 13 Jyllandsposten 14 July 2001, Information 22 August 1997, Ekstra Bladet 13 May 2001 and Politiken 20 August 1999. 265 Appendix associated with genome mapping (42%, table B). Articles about this issue are evenly distributed with no spectacular cases, but contrary to representations of prenatal tests, the focus in these stories seem to be on future possibilities of testing humans for diagnostic, preventive or even therapeutic reasons. Some of the stories focus on single genes or disorders like “Cancer risk can be revealed by spit test”, “Can I see your crime genes” and “Bad hearing is seen in blood”14. Other articles focus on genetic knowledge about an individual in general: “”DNA chips depict your constitution”, “The crystal ball of the future”, “Get your own personal DNA profile” and “Know yourself – know your genes”15. As also discussed in connection to the stories about human genome mapping the most striking feature is the essentialism ascribed to genes. It seems that in the genes, we can find determinate answers about the future, so the tests is presented as the crucial point of no return. Get the test and your destiny will be disclosed. Many of these representations also seem to imply that this new knowledge can be troublesome: “Gene test and future anxiety”, “Straining knowledge about genes” and “Genome: Oracle or Nemesis”16 and some go so far as to issue warnings against tests: “The ethical council warns against mail order tests” and “Warning against cancer gene test”17 Contrary to the case of prenatal tests, however, these warnings seem to be related to the individual herself. It is the troubling situation of knowing about ones own future that is at stake here, not so much the consequences for society in general. If compared to prenatal tests it seems that postnatal tests are primarily presented as newsworthy because of their prospects as an application designed for individual consumption. Warnings are primarily issued as consumer guidance, where warnings against prenatal tests more often take the shape of general resistance (against eugenics and abortion). It seems relevant in this connection to make some brief comparisons with the large amount of newspaper articles that does not treat human genetics in connection to health care related issues. This is relevant, because the large majority of 14 Politiken 20 March 2000, Information 5 March 2001 and Politiken 8 March 1999. 15 Politiken 4 November 1999, Information 21 December 1998, Jyllandsposten 8 May 2000 and Jyllandsposten 11 April 2000. 16 Politiken 31 March 2001, Jyllandsposten 29 September 2000 and Information 19 March 2001. 17 Politiken 27 July 1998 and Jyllandsposten 3 March 2001. 266 Appendix these articles focus on the forensic use of genetic tests.18 Especially two issues have been treated as controversial: widening the access to DNA-testing of fatherhood and the construction of a national register of DNA profiles from criminal suspects. It is interesting that these forensic uses apparently give rise to issues of a more general and collective nature, than health care related genetic tests that primarily focus on issues concerning individual consumer problems. In contrast, proponents of the forensic use of genetic tests stress the benefits for society as such, but also the opponents often refer to general social developments: “Grotesque snooping” “Give us back a state of justice” and “Lawyer calls DNA test pure Gestapo”19. In short these differences between the articulation of different uses of genetic tests seem to indicate that prenatal tests are primarily controversial because of their linkage to eugenics and selection, postnatal tests in the health care system are primarily covered as a technology for individual consumption and postnatal tests outside the health care system are primarily controversial with regards to the protection of privacy in a constitutional state. The category of Other reproductive technologies refers to the fact that human cloning and prenatal tests are treated as two special cases. Articles, which fall in this category, therefore mention other applications of biotechnology in connection with fertility and pregnancy: IVF, micro-insemination, sperm donation, and pre-implantation diagnostics. In this category I have also included general descriptions of designing or engineering babies. It is possible, that this status as a residual category has consequences for the outcome. In any case it is not very distinct compared to the other fields of application with regard to any of the quantitative measures. It is relatively seldom articulated as single issue. Not surprisingly it often appears in association with prenatal tests and human cloning, but also gene therapy is often mentioned together with reproductive technologies. Some of these articles focus on new possibilities in fertility treatment, but looking at the headlines, it seems that the idea of artificially creating babies generally is a hot issue: “Designer babies: genes for sale”, “The man made man” and “Short-cut [genvej, MH] to the perfect human being.”20 It is interesting, that there also seems to be a certain freak appeal in the articulations: “Baby with 18 When human genetics is discussed without reference to health care problems it is almost exclusively in connection to forensic uses of genetic tests. 19 Jyllandsposten 28 January 2000, Ekstra Bladet 3 November 1999 and Information 9 June 1998. 20 Politiken 5 December 1999, Information 26 November 1999 and Jyllandsposten 27 September 1998. 267 Appendix three parents”, “Experiment with babies”, “Parents demand super seed” and “Eggs can be fertilized without sperm”21 Thus it seems like the articulation of reproductive technologies primarily are preoccupied with the possibility of designing babies, but these creations are presented with a mixture of fascination and horror. Finally the term pharmaceutical uses of biotechnology designates both the production and the utilization of pharmaceuticals. As figure 2 indicates this is not a very prominent field of application in the mediated articulations. It rarely figures on the front page and the coverage does not seem to be dominated by any particular case stories, as it is evenly distributed between months. Only every tenth article covering pharmaceutical uses is it the single issue, and this implies that it does not have a high news value in itself. In stead it is often associated with either animal experiments or genome mapping. Business angles are relatively frequent in the articulation of this technology, and the framing seems to be rather positive within the time-span of the present analysis: “Fusion generates money for research”, “Biochip can become gold” and “Gene break-through turn technology shares to gold.”22 Summarising it seems that revolutionary or far-reaching uses of biotechnology receive most attention, but familiarity with a field of application does not necessarily lead to decreasing interest. Some of the applications, like cloning and gene therapy, are articulated in spectacular case stories, leading to a very uneven distribution of the attention between months. The articulation of these two types of application are analysed in depth in Chapters 3 and 4 in my dissertation. In contrast, other types of application, such as genome mapping and genetic tests, seem to receive attention on a much more stable basis. For instance, genome mapping is articulated in a continuous stream in the mass media. It never receives extremely high amounts of attention but the issue is articulated in many different contexts and in association to most of the other fields of application. Also genetic tests are frequently articulated, and it appeared sensible to distinguish between the articulation of prenatal, postnatal and forensic tests. Whereas prenatal tests were primarily articulated as controversial because of their linkage 21 Politiken 2 August 2001, Information 9 April 1999, Jyllandsposten 9 April 2001 and Politiken 12 July 2001. 22 Jyllandsposten 1 February 2000, Jyllandsposten 13 November 2001 and Jyllandsposten 28 June 2000. 268 Appendix to eugenics and selection, forensic tests were controversial with regards to the protection of privacy in a constitutional state. In contrast to this, postnatal tests were primarily articulated as a technology for individual consumption. Stages in the techno-scientific development of a technology The term technoscience has been adopted to avoid an a priori distinction between technology and science. Nevertheless, it is possible to question whether the media articulate stages in research and development of technology and whether there are differences between these articulations. On the basis of the pilot studies it seemed relevant to operate with a threefold division between basic research, applied research, and routine use.23 On top of this, two other categories where needed as one kind of articles dealt explicitly with regulatory aspects and another group articulated general background information often incorporating all of the above-mentioned stages. It should again be noticed, that the categories in no way claims to be a description of research and technology as it takes place in laboratories and research institutions, where the distinction between for instance basic and applied research can be quite difficult to uphold. In the context of media analysis, however, it turned out to be a reasonable way of categorising the mediated articulations. The categories have been described so that basic research is used about presentations of new knowledge and discoveries within biotechnology, which is not directly linked to the solution of a concrete problem. Altogether 25 % of the articles have this primary focus. Of these two thirds focus on specific new discoveries of genes, mutations or technologies, whereas the last third are general descriptions of advances in basic genetic research. Applied research on the other hand is used about the articulation of biotechnology, which explicitly is addressed to solving a concrete problem, e.g. new therapy, diagnostic tool, or new reproductive technology. Approximately 23 % of all articles present this type of applied research. Whereas the stories of basic and applied research all have some sort of novel knowledge, technology or technological use as its core focus, another 27% primarily articulate routine use of biotechnology. An example could be an article 23 The coding was designed, however, to make it possible to distinguish between 2 kinds of reporting basic research. The first is the articulation of new discoveries of genes or techniques, and the second is articulation of basic genetic research in general. 269 Appendix about the fact that the use of amniocentesis is declining, accompanied by discussions of possible reasons behind this decline. Furthermore, 20% of the total sum of articles focuses on issues of public regulation, and this is both in connection to discussions about the use of specific technologies – gene therapy, foetal diagnostics – but also in relation to regulation of specific forms of praxis in the research community – research on embryos, patenting genes and so on. Finally the focus in the remaining 5 % has been termed background, as these articles can be seen as general updates on the techno-scientific development. From this, it is obvious that seen as a whole, all four of these distinct techno-scientific ‘stages’ receive attention. Figure 4: Fields of application and technoscientific stages 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Cloning Human Genome Mapping Animal Experiments Gene therapy Prenatal Tests Postnatal Test Reproductive Technologies Pharmaceutical use Total Background Public regulation Routine use Applied research Basic research Figure 4. Techno-scientific focus of articles which only cover one field of application, N=668. It should be noted, that the lowest N is found in Pharmaceutical use (n = 12) and Postnatal test (n=37) When we look at the fields of application separately, however, large differences become obvious. In figure 4, I have excluded all articles, which cover more than one technology so as to present the differences between the coverage of the individual technologies more clearly. From figure 4 it appears that applications like Human genome mapping, Animal experiments, Gene therapy and Pharmaceutical use are very often associated to a prime focus on research aspects. Of these, gene therapy is primarily articulated as an object of applied research, e.g. as research conducted with a specific aim 270 Appendix of treating a particular problem. The other three are most often articulated as objects of basic research. Thus judging from the mediated coverage it would seem, that gene therapy is further advanced in the direction of concrete applications, than for instance pharmaceutical uses. Furthermore figure 4 reveals that genetic tests (both prenatal and postnatal) and reproductive technologies are rarely articulated with the primary focus on research. Instead they are more often associated to routine use and/or public regulation. Finally the issue of cloning stands out as the field of application most often covered with the prime focus on public regulation. It might be viewed as strange that a prime focus on routine use is also found in some articles concerned with human cloning and gene therapy, although these technologies are not yet implemented in any routine use. This can be explained by the fact that newspaper articles (especially more polemical viewpoints) sometimes use the rhetorical technique of describing the anticipated development, as was it already real. Sometimes it is obvious from the way the argument is put, that it is a future vision, but at other times it is quite hard to decide on the basis of the newspaper article, whether human gene therapy for instance is presently a working therapy. Following the general analytical strategy of mapping the mass mediated stories as they present themselves, human cloning has been coded as routine use if it is presented like this – no matter that no laboratory has yet officially presented it as such. Newsworthy problems Health care related biotechnology is primarily described as solutions to health care related problems such as different kinds of diseases as shown in figure 5. Again it should be noticed that although they bear some resemblance to official categories of diseases, the taxonomy does not claim to be correct, as a medical classification. The category of traditionally known inheritable diseases covers the long list of different kinds of diseases which have been known to be inheritable or congenital and therefore traditionally an object of medical genetics.24 Furthermore the groups of diseases have been supplemented with the category of normality as it turned out, that many of the articles are concerned with genetic 24 As example chromosome deviations like Down’s syndrome, monogenetic dominant diseases like Huntingdon’s Chorea, monogenetic recessive diseases like cystic fibrosis, as well as deformities typically discovered by ultrasound scanning of foetuses. Practically the category has been defined by a list constructed on the basis of a medical compendium. 271 Appendix dispositions for intelligence, hair colour, weight, psychological characteristics and so forth. As figure 5 shows, Inheritable diseases is still widely articulated as a problem to be solved by biotechnology, but almost as much attention is devoted to issues of normality and reproduction. Whether the amount of interest devoted to issues concerning normality is high or low (around 16%) depends on the perspective, but it is fair to say that issues of normality are receiving more attention than most of the disease groups. On the other hand, taken as a whole the problems articulated to be solved by biotechnology is primarily diseases of various kinds as altogether 67% of the total number of articles associate to at least one of these disease groups. Figure 5: Problems to be solved by genetic techno-science 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% Cancer Inheritable diseases Normality Reproduction Neurology and dementia Heartdisease Psyciatry Diabetes Infections Rheumatism etc. Astma/allergies Obesity etc multiple problems single issues Cancer seems to be the dominating problem, as every fourth of the articles is associated to cancer. The spectacular case about gene therapy to liver cancer patients has some part in this high figure, but it must still be considered as remark272 Appendix able. Especially when compared to the other major disease groups like heart diseases, diabetes, rheumatism, and allergies it is obvious that cancer has a special status. Considering these other groups of diseases, it is interesting that neurology and dementia receives relatively much attention – and it can be added that in particular this attention is given to Alzheimer’s disease. On the other hand Astma/allergies as well as Obesity are not problems that seem to take up much mediated space in connection to biotechnology. It can be observed that all the disease groups, which are not articulated very often, are also seldom the single issue in an article. It seems that none of these disease groups are able to generate newsworthy stories in themselves, but as a general field of problems to be solved by biotechnology they do receive attention. Cancer on the other hand, is apparently a story in it self, as more than half of the stories on cancer only focus on this problem. Seen in relation to specific fields of applications, some interesting patterns can be observed in table C (appendix B), as some fields of application is primarily associated to particular disease groups. For instance Traditionally known inheritable diseases are often linked to prenatal tests (57% of articles covering inheritable diseases), whereas cancer is linked to gene therapy (52%). From mass mediated coverage then, it seems that whereas the perceived chance of fighting cancer should be found in gene therapy (as in the case from Århus), inheritable diseases should instead be fought by prenatal testing. Reproduction is primarily connected to human cloning (61%) which is perhaps not strange since cloning can be seen as reproduction. But also neurological diseases are primarily linked to cloning (55%) and this is probably due to the increasing interest in therapeutic cloning, which is often linked to a cure of Alzheimer. Finally issues of normality (51%) as well as psychiatry (77%) are linked to genome mapping. A strong interpretation of these figures could be, that in these areas solutions are not presented as developed equally far as with the other groups, since genome mapping is primarily concentrated on finding genes for particular traits and diseases. Summarising the mediated articulation of problems, cancer is a dominating theme, and associated to a cure by gene therapy. Inheritable diseases are also still a major issue and should be avoided by prenatal testing. Human cloning, on the other hand, is associated to reproductive problems and neurological diseases, both of which are also of relative importance. The other groups of diseases are 273 Appendix rarely articulated as single issues and there is not a single field of application that seems to be the answer to the problems they pose. Psychiatry, though, is special, since it seems that there are no solutions to psychiatric problems although we might discover the genetic causes. Finally, issues of normality do get relatively much attention and is primarily portrayed as a question of identifying single genes connected to particular traits and characteristics. Geographical origin of stories As biotechnological research and applications have global implications, mass mediated news on these topics possibly originate all over the world. The pilot study, however, demonstrated that it would make sense to divide the world in four parts: Denmark, Europe, USA and the rest of the world.25 The most noticeable thing is that almost all news articles focus on occurrences in the ‘western world’. From figure D (Appendix B) it appears that almost two thirds of the articles cover stories that originate in Denmark (60%), whereas the rest is divided between USA (19%) and Europe (16%) and only 4% from the rest of the world. Figure 6: Geography and tecno-scientific stages 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Denmark Europe USA world Background Public regulation Routine use Applied research Basic research From figure 6 it is evident that stories from Denmark is relatively less concerned with basic research as with applied research and routine use of technologies. This tendency can be further clarified in table E (appendix B), where it emerges that the Danish stories particularly deal with gene therapy and the routine uses 25 It is the geographical origin of the occurrence that is coded. A story about new research in USA is coded as USA even though it might contain reactions from Danish researchers. Another article that deals solely with Danish reactions is coded as Denmark. 274 Appendix question in a positive, negative or neutral way. The overall picture reveals that 43% of the articles must be said to be positive, that is, presenting biotechnology as a solution to problems, 27 % are negative, that is, presenting biotechnology as posing more problems than solutions and finally 30% must be said to be neutral. It should be observed that in the following figures the category of neutral includes all the articles that did not have a clear positive or negative interpretation. Therefore it is not necessarily a measure of less controversy, but can be taken to imply either that the article is neutral or diffuse, or that several interpretations are presented in the same article. Figure 9: Interpretation and editorial type 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% News, short News, medium News, long Views, short Views, medium Views, long Editorials other Negative Neutral Positive Since controversy, as mentioned, could be regarded as a news value in itself I will start by examining a few editorial variables in terms of their presentation of biotechnology. Figure 9 shows that news is more positive towards biotechnology than views (opinion pieces and editorials). This is not very strange as it is probably one of the strong criteria for writing and publishing an opinion piece that something is being problematised. But it should be noticed that more than half of the opinion pieces are explicitly interpreting biotechnology as a problem rather than as a solution. It can also be noticed from figure 9 that longer news articles are less positive than shorter. Furthermore, it appears from figure K in appendix B that front page news are more positive than articles placed elsewhere in papers, although the difference is not huge. To expand on this, it appears from figure L that the more fields of applications an article associate, the less positive it is and the more neutral (and possibly also diffuse) it becomes. A strong interpretation of this is that complexity increases controversy. 281 Appendix Figure 10 demonstrates the association between interpretation of biotechnology and the different fields of applications mentioned in the article. Since many articles cover more than one field of application, I have supplemented figure 10 with figure M in appendix B, which only includes articles that covers only one field of application. Figure 10: Interpretation and different applications 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Cloning Human genome mappin g Animal experiment s Gene therapy Prenatal tests Postnatal tests Reproductive technologie s Pharmaceutical uses Negative Neutral Positive The most noticeable observation from figure 10 and figure N is that all fields of application can be interpreted as posing problems instead of solutions, and therefore we must conclude that all fields of application is to a certain extent presented as controversial. It also appears that applications associated with human reproduction, such as Cloning, Reproductive technologies and Prenatal tests are interpreted most negatively. Similarly it can be seen from figure N in appendix B that these three fields of application are the ones that are discussed rather more frequently in opinion pieces than in news articles. On this background it is probably fair to say, that when biotechnology is discussed as a means to control or change human reproduction it is most controversial. 282 Appendix Furthermore it appears from figure M that when articulated as a single issue, the application of postnatal tests is also viewed relatively more negative than when covered in connection to other technologies (as in figure 10). This is probably because it is often associated together with human genome mapping where the interpretation of biotechnology is relatively more positive. Exactly the opposite is true of gene therapy and animal experiments, which seems to be interpreted more positively when they are the only issues in an article than when they are associated to other issues. In the case of animal experiments this is probably due to the fact that this field of application is very often articulated together with cloning where the interpretation is much more negative. Pharmaceutical uses can be seen to be the field of application, which is most often interpreted in a positive fashion as a solution to problems. This is even more evident from figure M (but it should be taken into account that in figure M the total number of articles that articulate pharmaceutical use as single issue is rather low, n=12). And finally, the articulation of human genome mapping can also be seen to be a bit more positive than the average, with no difference whether it is covered as single issue or as one among several fields of application. Figure 11: Interpretation and techno-scientific stages 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Basic research - new discoveries Basic research - general Applied research Public regulation Routine use Background Negative Neutral Positive 283 Appendix The understanding of controversial issues is further expanded by figure 11, which displays how biotechnology is interpreted either positively or nega-tively when the focus is on different techno-scientific stages. The category of basic research has been divided in two because it appeared that articles presenting particular new discoveries are rather more positive than articles presenting basic research in general. And whereas applied science is less often articulated positively, the articulation could also be seen to be more ambiguous (higher frequency of neutral) than in the case of basic research, where articles less often present biotechnology ambiguously. It also appears from figure 11 that it is when biotechnology is associated to issues of public regulation that it is interpreted as most problematic. This is not strange, since the category itself implies that regulation might be necessary. More interesting is, however, that routine use is interpreted more negatively than all the different stages of research. From this it can be concluded that biotechnology does not become less controversial when it becomes an established practice. Rather than breeding less controversy, it seems that familiarity and routine use makes biotechnology more contested. In this connection it should be observed from figure O in appendix B that it is also relatively more frequent for views to focus on routine use and public regulation than the other technoscientific stages. Figure 12: Health problems and interpretations 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Cancer Inheritable diseases Normality Reproduction Neurology and dementia Heartdisease Psyciatry Diabetes Infections Rheumatism etc. Not specified Negative Neutral Positive 284 Appendix Figure 12 shows that all identified health problems can be associated to negative interpretations of biotechnology, although it is not very common with Neurological diseases, Heart diseases, Diabetes, Infections and rheumatism. Cancer is close to average, but Psychiatric diseases seems to pose a particular case, where biotechnology is considered more problematic than with the other groups of diseases. Traditionally known inheritable diseases are also articulated in association to rather more negative interpretations, but changes to normality as well as solutions to reproductive problems are the most controversial issues. In the case of reproductive problems the number of negative articles outweigh the number of positive. Furthermore it should also be noticed that articles, where no diseases are specified, also appears to interpret biotechnology rather negatively. It is therefore evident that articulating a somatic health problem is far more often associated to positive articulation than no specification of problems or association to normality or reproductive problems. Figure 13: Actors and interpretations - single-actor articles 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Danish scientists Danish social scientists International researchers Health care professionals Professionals Celebrities Citizens Business & organisations Politicians Advisory Boards Patients Administration Negative Neutral Positive Figure 13 reveals the associations between different actor groups and the interpretation of biotechnology. This association is not straight forward, as most articles presents several actors and one of them can therefore easily be presenting divergent interpretations than the rest. I have therefore chosen only to include articles articulating a single actor in figure 13. As it can be observed from figure Q, however, single-actor articles are more polarised and less often neutral in in285 Appendix terpretation. Thus, the selection of single-actor articles displays a more polarised picture than the whole collection of articles. In appendix B, therefore, I have included table P, where it is possible to view the interpretative frequencies for all articles. Especially with regard to the three groups of Politicians, Advisory boards and Patients & relatives, figure 13 differs rather much from table P. When these three groups are associated with other actors they are much more frequently articulated in articles where the overall interpretation is neutral or diffuse. When they are single actors in an article, however, the interpretations put forward are much more polarised. Furthermore, it should be observed in figure 13 that the two largest groups of actors (Researchers & health care professionals and Professionals & Citizens) have been split into the original categories. This division is due to the fact that there were rather large internal differences between the categories in these groups and furthermore these two groups were large enough to be split. From figure 13 it appears that members of advisory boards (primarily the Council of Ethics) appears to be the most critical. Also Danish social scientist, Citizens and Patients are primarily appearing in articles that interpret biotechnology rather negatively. Politicians and Professionals seem to be equally divided between generally positive and negative accounts. For both actor groups it appears from table P that when they appear in multi-actor articles, these are more often neutral or diffuse. Celebrities and health care professionals appear in articles that are slightly more often positive than negative. But most positive is the articles where Danish medical and natural scientists, international scientists and business & organisations appear. An overall comparison between figure 13 and table P gives the impression that most actors are articulated in articles that present both positive and negative interpretations of biotechnology, although some actors are primarily associated to positive interpretations (scientists and business) and other to negative interpretations (Advisory Boards, Danish social scientists, citizens and patients). 286 Appendix Conclusion Biotechnology has been covered as an issue of controversy throughout the period between August 1997 and January 2002. From the present analysis it is evident that all the different applications of biotechnology identified in this chapter can be articulated as controversial, although it is more frequent with some of them. Two thirds of the articles articulate a concrete problem to be solved by biotechnology. In this context it is far more frequent that somatic health problems are associated to a positive interpretation of biotechnology, than changes in normality and reproductive problems. Also articles mentioning no specific problems appear to be more critical. On a general level, natural and medical scientists are by far the most frequently articulated kind of actors in the articles. Together with business and organisations they tend to be articulated in articles with an overall positive interpretation of biotechnology, whereas advisory boards, social scientists, citizens and patients tend to be associated to negative interpretations. Revolutionary or far-reaching uses of biotechnology receive most attention and human cloning is the field of application, which has been articulated in most articles throughout the period. Together with the applications of prenatal tests and other reproductive technologies it forms an area of biotechnology which is often articulated with a focus on routine use of these technologies at the same time as it is interpreted as highly controversial. Actors associated to this articulation are often Advisory boards, Politicians and Professionals and citizens. In comparison it is relatively rarely researchers and health care professionals. Similar to cloning, the articulation of gene therapy is concentrated in spectacular case stories that receive a large amount of articulation in few months. In contrast to cloning, this application is articulated rather positively and even more so, when it is the single issue in an article than when it is associated to other applications. Finally, it is very often associated to cancer. Gene therapy can therefore be seen as a prime example on a field of application associated to applied medical science, with the aim of creating solutions to problems of serious disease. In contrast to cloning and gene therapy, other types of application, such as genome mapping and genetic tests, seem to receive attention on a much more stable basis. For instance, genome mapping is articulated in a continuous stream in the mass media. It never receives extremely high amounts of attention but the 287 Appendix issue is articulated in many different contexts and in association to most of the other fields of application. Also genetic tests are frequently articulated, and it appeared sensible to distinguish between the articulation of prenatal, postnatal and forensic tests. Whereas prenatal tests were primarily articulated as controversial because of their linkage to eugenics and selection, forensic tests were controversial with regards to the protection of privacy in a constitutional state. In contrast to this, postnatal tests were primarily articulated as a technology for individual consumption. Altogether t seems that the mapping and exploration of the human genome as well as the application of this knowledge in post-natal genetic tests and gene therapy is not as controversial as the use of biotechnology in matters of reproduction. 288 Appendix Appendix A: Code scheme A. Løbenr. A1. Rubrik B. Dato: U. Tid: måned/år C. Medie: 1. Politiken 2. Ekstra Bladet 3. Aktuelt 4. Jyllandsposten 5. Information D. Placering: 1. Forsiden 2. Første sektion 3. Andre sektioner E. Genre: 1. Redak. art. kort 2. Redak. art. mellem 3. Redak. art. lang 4. Debat kort 5. Debat mellem 6. Debat lang 7. Leder 8. Anmeldelser 9. Andet F. Geografi: 1. Danmark 2. Europa 3. USA 4. Resten af verden G. Gen-teknologisk område (ikke udeluk) 1. Dyreforsøg og dyrs genom 2. Identifikation af hum. gener og mutationer 3. Medicinfremstilling eller –anvendelse 4. Genetiske test på humane fostre og æg 5. Genetiske tests på fødte mennesker 6. Genetisk screening 7. Andre reproduktions-teknologier 8. Human kloning 9. Human genterapi (og gensplejsning) 10. Andet H. Sygdomme (Ikke udeluk) 1. Traditionelt kendte medfødte sygdomme 2. Kræft 3. Hjerte/kar 4. Sukkersyge 5. Astma/Allergier 6. Gigt/bevægeapparat 7. Fedme/stofskiftesygd. 8. Demens/neurologiske 9. Psykiatri 10. Infektionssygdomme 11. Reproduktion 12. Normalegenskaber 13. Andre sygdomme 14. Ikke specificeret 15. Ikke syg/sund.relat I. Fokus 1. Grundforskning 2. Anvendt forskning 3. Off. regulering 4. Rutinemæs. anv. 5. Baggrund I2: hvis grundforskning 1. Ny opdagelse af gener/mutation/tekn 2. Kortlægning og patentering af gener K. Hovedindtryk: 1. Positiv 2. Negativ 3. Neutral/diffus L. Antal aktører: 1. En 2. To 3. Tre 4. Fire 5. Fem 6. Seks 7. Seks+ 8. Ingen N. Aktør-roller 1. Genetiske forskere og. selskaber/foren. 2. Andre læger og medicinske selskaber 3. Andre naturvid. forskere 4. Hum/Sam forskere 5. Udenlandske forskere 6. Sundhedsprof. 7. Det Etiske Råd 8. Teknologirådet 9. Videnskabsetiske komiteer 10. Sundhedsminister og –ministerium 10a. Forskningsminister mv. 11. Sundhedsstyrelsen 12. Andre embedsmænd 13. Regeringsmedlemmer 14. Folketingets sundhedsudvalg 14a. Folketingets forskningsudvalg 15. Øvr. danske politikere 16. EU-aktører 17. Udland. politikere 18. Sygdomsog patientforeninger 19. Patienter 20. Pårørende 289 Appendix 21. Arbejdsmarkedsorg. 22. Virksomheder (DK) 23. Virksomheder (udl.) 24. Andre organisationer 25. Professionelle (ikke sundheds.) 26. Kendte og kulturpers. 27. Konkrete borgere 28. Statistiske befolk-ningsundersøgelser 29. Sundhedsvid.fagblade og -tidsskrifter 30. Udl. videnskabelige. tidsskrifter 31. Andre medier 32. Andre roller 33. Ingen roller 290 Appendix Figure D: Figure D: Geographic origin of stories Denmark Europe USA world Figure E Figure E: Geographic origin and fields of application 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% Animal Experiments Humane Genome Mappin g Prenatal Tests Postnatal Tes t Reproductive Technologie s Pharmaceutical use Humane Clonin g Humane Gene Therap y Denmark Europe USA World 297 [Document text truncated for crawler view.]