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Media, Culture and Genomics - Flagship Project

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CESAGen Theme: Genomics, Global Discourse and Cultural Capital

Cultural representations of the human genome have become ubiquitous in the fifteen years since the launch of the Human Genome Project. This project maps the circulation of such representations, the stakes in producing them, and the associated public understandings of genomics and its implications.

This project has taken full advantage of the dual-site interdisciplinary character of CESAGen by developing a multi-method, cross-genre approach to the circulation of genomic discourses. The Cardiff site has special responsibility for investigating UK press and broadcast news media whilst at Lancaster, the special focus, in the first instance, is on Hollywood film and fine art. The combined research team has a collective interest in science fiction as a distinctive discourse and the Internet as a site where the boundaries between factual and fictional discourses are blurred, as well as in the cross-genre travel of visual and textual tropes. In addition to this central Anglo-American core set of discourses, the project researchers have forged links that will enable them to undertake cross-cultural comparisons of genomic discourses in Korea, Germany, Canada and Scandinavia.

The team has compiled extensive documentation and databases on a range of media texts across a variety of genres and quantitative and qualitative analyses of these texts have already been undertaken. Interviews with key producers and sources of the media texts – including scientists and pressure groups – are being conducted to gain critical insight into their perceptions of the key issues in the representation of genomics. Interviews and focus groups with a range of publics will explore the influence media representations of genomics may have and to assess whether such representations figure in their understanding of risk and their hopes for the future.

This research will contribute to debates about cultural production, the sociology of scientific knowledge, science-media communication and 'scientific understandings of publics / public understanding of science'.

 

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Its life image by Paul  Harrison
Planned it image by Paul Harrison
Life but image by Paul Harrison
DNA Privacy image by Paul Harrison
Smile image by Paul Harrison
Success image by Paul Harrison

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Page updated: 8 December, 2005