Framing the Genetic Testing Issue

Abstract

This study examined ways in which the congressional testimony of public policy factions used interpretive frames to lend advantage to their own views of genetic testing. The authors applied semantic network analysis to four sessions of congressional testimony. Using the cultural theory of risk, they divided testifiers into bureaucratic, entrepreneurial, and egalitarian cultures. The authors then cluster-analyzed testimony of each policy camp to expose word patterns that delineated each group's policy frame. Within a shared frame about privacy and fairness, the entrepreneurs emphasized rules for appropriate access; the egalitarians, personal concerns for family and self; and the bureaucrats, safety through government programs.