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History of Human Genetics pp 285–315Cite as

Human Gene Mapping: The Mass Media Iconography of the Human Genome Project in the Most Popular Greek Newspapers

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Abstract

The media serve as intermediaries between science and the public, framing social reality for their readers and shaping the public consciousness of science-related events. In this context, mass media iconography, for instance, the “genetic map,” plays an important role in the public communications of science and technology. It facilitates the understanding of an often abstruse technoscientific discourse and a complex experimental methodology. Powerful and potent iconography can achieve the beautification of a technoscientific fact or can underscore widespread public concerns and open resistance to it more effectively than any words. As a part of a journalist’s routine, iconography is used for the purposes of popularizing, concretizing, and dramatizing issues, in brief for making issues both newsworthy and interesting for the public audiences. Generally, the iconography in the mass media through its rhetoric and ideological charge often contributes to shaping public opinion (positive or negative) on a scientific fact or a new technology.

The Human Genome Project (HGP) is one of the most important scientific events covered by the media, and the public attention which it has received has helped to change the relationship between science and society. The purpose of this paper is to present a review of the results of a case study that focuses on the media iconography relating to the HGP and human genome sequencing in the most popular Greek newspapers and how its use has affected science and technology communication. In particular, examined here are a series of selected photographs, digital depictions, infographics, illustrations, and cartoons that accompanied and framed the publications which have contributed to the development of a specific public image for HGP.

The research has showed that the HGP attracted intense coverage from the most popular Greek newspapers. The rhetoric and the framing of publications for HGP compared it to the greatest moments of social, artistic, and scientific developments, and the iconography was chosen by these newspapers to strengthen the “positive” media framing for HGP and shape a general “positive” public image for this. Furthermore, this paper suggests that the study of the mass media iconography for biosciences and biotechnology is a challenge for those interested in the effective communication of bioscientific developments. Researchers from disciplines like Science Communication (SciCom) and Science, Technology, and Society (STS) could contribute to the effectiveness of such efforts by turning a critical eye toward the functions, purposes, and effects of iconography in science communication.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Sweezy and Magdoff 1991, 1–15.; Giddens 1990, 55–56; Castells, 1989, 12–15, 17–19, 28–32.

  2. 2.

    Bijker 1995, 1.

  3. 3.

    Bijker 1995, 288.

  4. 4.

    Nelkin 1995.

  5. 5.

    Nelkin 2001, 205.

  6. 6.

    McCombs 1991, 12.

  7. 7.

    See Hansen 2006.

  8. 8.

    Kohring 2002, 143.

  9. 9.

    See van Dijck Jose 1998; Nelkin 1996, 2001; Turney 1998a, 1998b; Listerman 2006; Squier 2004; Conrad 2001. From the Greek bibliography, see National Hellenic Research Foundation, 1997, 1999.

  10. 10.

    See Kohring 2002; Nisbet 2002; Ten Eyck 2003; Listerman 2010.

  11. 11.

    For more about HGP, see https://www.genome.gov/10001772/all-about-the--human-genome-project-hgp/. Accessed 27 May 2016.

  12. 12.

    Henderson 2007, 80.

  13. 13.

    Henderson 2007, 79–80.

  14. 14.

    Henderson 2007, 78.

  15. 15.

    Henderson 2007, 67–68.

  16. 16.

    Henderson 2007, 70.

  17. 17.

    Costa 2003, 2.

  18. 18.

    O’Mahony 2005.

  19. 19.

    Gerhards 2009.

  20. 20.

    See Hellsten 2002, 2005, 2008; Doring, 2005; Rödder, 2009; Nerlich 2004; Calsamiglia 2004.

  21. 21.

    See Morfakis 2013.

  22. 22.

    Arapostathis 2010.

  23. 23.

    On the Greek media system and its coverage of general and special technoscience. See Mergoupi-Savaidou 2012, Tympas 2010.

  24. 24.

    Morfakis 2013.

  25. 25.

    See Entman 1993; Pan 1993; Scheufele 1999, 2000; Goffman, 1974; Gamson 1989; de Vreese, 2005; d’Angelo 2002.

  26. 26.

    Gitlin 1980, 7.

  27. 27.

    Gamson 1987, 143.

  28. 28.

    Entman 1993, 52.

  29. 29.

    See Durant 1998; Nisbet 2002; Ten Eyck 2003; Listerman, 2010; Kohring 2002.

  30. 30.

    See Krippendorff 2008; Wimmer 2005.

  31. 31.

    Barthes, 1977, 15–31, 32–51.

  32. 32.

    Kress 1996; van Leeuwen 2001; Gross 1994, 1996.

  33. 33.

    Jacobi 1989.

  34. 34.

    Giarelli 2006, 61.

  35. 35.

    See Trumbo 1999.

  36. 36.

    Jacobi 1989, 750–751.

  37. 37.

    Jacobi Schiele, 1989, p.751.

  38. 38.

    For more about archetypes images of the scientist, see Jacobi 1989, 739–750.

  39. 39.

    For more information about Craig J. Venter, see http://jcvi.org/cms/about/bios/jcventer/. Accessed 22 May 2016.

  40. 40.

    Jacobi 1989, 739.

  41. 41.

    More information about the American microbiologist and Nobel Laureate Hamilton O. Smith http://jcvi.org/cms/about/bios/hsmith/. Accessed 22 May 2016.

  42. 42.

    Jacobi 1989, 748.

  43. 43.

    Jacobi 1989, 739.

  44. 44.

    Jacobi 1989, 749.

  45. 45.

    See Rifkin 1998, 175–196.

  46. 46.

    Olson 2002, 932.

  47. 47.

    Soufleri Ioanna, “Stin Kriti apokodikopiisame to chromosoma 10” (“In Crete chromosome 10 has been decoded”, Τo Vima, December 12, 1999, 58–59.

  48. 48.

    For the linguistic metaphor of the “code”, see Gogorosi 2005, 302–305; Calsamiglia 2004, 376–379; Nerlich 2004, 257–258.

  49. 49.

    For the history of classical eugenics and the emergence of new eugenics and how this is linked to the utilization of genome sequencing, see Rifkin, 1998, 116–147 (Chap. 4, A Eugenic Civilization) and 148–174 (Chap. 5, The Sociology of the Gene). Also, about eugenics, see Lewontin 2001, 3–40; 315–340; Moranz 1998, 163–168; Jordan, 2002, 145–157; and Kitcher, 1996, 179–204.

  50. 50.

    Bates 1995, 49.

  51. 51.

    Mauron 2002, 958.

  52. 52.

    Lewontin 2001, 164–165.

  53. 53.

    Winner 1980, 134. For a critique to Winner, see Joerges, 1999, 411–431.

  54. 54.

    For more information about Francis S. Collins, see https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/biographical-sketch-francis-s-collins-md-phd. Accessed 28 May 2016.

  55. 55.

    Nerlich 2004, 256.

  56. 56.

    Nelkin 1996.

  57. 57.

    Henderson 2007, 67.

  58. 58.

    Giarelli 2006, 64.

  59. 59.

    See Morange 2000; Jacob 1998, 47–64.

  60. 60.

    Genesis 28: 12–13.

  61. 61.

    Quoted in Jaroff 1989.

  62. 62.

    Giarelli 2006, 64.

  63. 63.

    Mol 2011, 47.

  64. 64.

    Mol 2011, 46.

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Funding

Constantinos Morfakis was supported by the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, Program of Scholarships for Hellenes [G ZE 038/2008–2009] for his research about the public image of HGP in Greek press.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy and History of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Constantinos Morfakis Ph.D.

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  1. Constantinos Morfakis Ph.D.
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Correspondence to Constantinos Morfakis Ph.D. .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Ethik, Geschichte und Theorie der Medizin, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Münster, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Heike I. Petermann

  2. Institute of Medical Genetics, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom

    Peter S. Harper

  3. Institut für Geschichte der Medizin und Ethik in der Medizin, Charité-Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Susanne Doetz

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Morfakis, C. (2017). Human Gene Mapping: The Mass Media Iconography of the Human Genome Project in the Most Popular Greek Newspapers. In: Petermann, H., Harper, P., Doetz, S. (eds) History of Human Genetics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51783-4_18

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