Critics have worried that recent mass media coverage of genetics encourages genetic determinism and discriminatory attitudes in the public. They have identified the “blueprint” metaphor as one major component of public discourse that encourages such undesirable public opinions. To assess public interpretations of popular discourse about genetics, this audience study exposed 137 college students to sample genetics news articles and asked for their interpretations of the “blueprint” metaphor and of genetics in general. A larger group, the plurality, offered non-deterministic interpretations and perspectives on genetics. A small minority offered discriminatory interpretations, whereas a plurality offered explicit antidiscriminatory interpretations and opinions. Non-deterministic views were based on interpretations of the blueprint metaphor that understood genes as operating in a partial and probabilistic fashion, and that interpreted genes as malleable through individual will or technological intervention.
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References
1.
D. Nelkin and S. Lindee, The DNA Mystique: The Gene as Cultural. Icon (New York: W.H. Freeman, 1995)
2.
P. Spallone , Generation Games: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Our Lives (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992).
3.
A. Lippman , “Prenatal Genetic Testing and Geneticization: Mother Matters for All,'' Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy8 (1993) supplement 1: 175-188.
4.
Hubbard and Wald; A. Asche, “Reproductive Technology and Disability,” in Reproductive Laws for the 1990s, ed. S. Cohen and N. Taub (Clifton, New Jersey: Humana Press, 1994).
5.
R. F. Weir , S. C. Lawrence and E. Fales (ed.), Genes and Human Self-Knowledge: Historical and Philosophical Reflections on Modern Genetics (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1994).
6.
M. A. Hasian, Jr. , The Rhetoric of Eugenics in Anglo-American Thought (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996).
7.
For a bibliography covering these issues, see M. S. Yesley, (compiler) ELSI Bibliography: Ethical Legal & Social Implications of the Human Genome Project. (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Research, 1993).
8.
Nelkin and Lindee, p. 2.
9.
Ibid., pp. 164-168.
10.
Nelkin and Lindee, and the other critics cited here, do not claim that the deterministic worldview is caused solely by the blueprint metaphor. They are not clear about the epistemological relationships among world-views and different discursive components. However, they and the other critics are relatively uniform in identifying the blueprint metaphor as a crucial term that both exemplifies and carries the meanings about which they are concerned.
11.
Nelkin and Lindee, p. 167.
12.
Ibid., p. 168.
13.
Hubbard and Wald, p. 64.
14.
Lippman in “Led Astray” p. 1470.
15.
Ibid., p. 1470. Lippman is not precise in her categorization of metaphors. She tends to conflate “mapping,”“textual,” and “blueprint” metaphors.
16.
Ibid., p. 1471.
17.
Hubbard and Wald, p. 135.
18.
and J. Van Dijck, Imagenation: Popular Images of Genetics (New York: New York University Press, 1998).
19.
Nelkin and Lindee, p. 168.
20.
C. M. Condit , The Meanings of the Gene: Determinism, Discrimination, and Perfectionism in 20th Century U.S. Public Discourse (forthcoming, University of Wisconsin Press).
21.
and J. Radway, Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1984).
22.
There were 119 White participants (87 per cent) and 18 African-American and Asian-American participants (13 per cent). All but 1 respondent indicated sex, age, and race. The average reported parental income was $106,438. Participants had a relatively high level of exposure to information about genetics, most having had at least one high school or college level biology course that treated the basics of genetics. The study was approved by the University Institutional Review Board (#H950294). For further details see C. Condit and M. Williams, “Audience Responses to the Discourse of Medical Genetics: Evidence Against the Critique of Medicalization,”Health Communication9 (1997): 219-235.
23.
The samples of discourse were based on findings by Condit (“Contributions”). They were constituted by an assemblage of direct quotations from magazine articles, with inserted transitions. The statements were selected to represent typical and key features of that discourse (described in Condit and Williams, “Audience Responses” and in Condit, Meanings). Both articles told the story of a family with a hereditary illness. The “Voluntary Hereditarian” discourse represented the period from 1970 to 1975. In addition to the “lottery” metaphor it included attribution of genetic illness partially to genetics, but without elaboration of other factors involved. It included strong adjectives describing the negative characteristics of the disease, and these adjectives carried moral judgments (e.g. “tainted”). The article also noted population impacts of personal reproductive choices, but asserted individual rights to choose. The “Medical Genetics” article represented the discourse from 1989 to 1992. In addition to use of the blueprint metaphor, it included a statement that genes and environment interacted to produce personal characteristics. It included statements preferring healthy children, but questioning perfectionistic standards for human traits. It also included characterizations of negative treatment of those with genetic diseases as discriminatory and a preference for treatment availability. It assigned control to parents. For further information and samples of the discourse that fit these descriptions, see Condit and Williams, “Audience.”
24.
See Condit and Williams, “Audience.”
25.
Hubbard and Wald, p. 29.
26.
Condit and Williams, “Audience,” p. 227.
27.
It seems to me that this tendency is also shared by van Dijk and by P. Conrad and D. Weinberg, “Has the Gene for Alcoholism Been Discovered Three Times Since 1980?: A News Media Analysis,”Perspectives on Social Problems8 (1996): 3-25.
28.
Nelkin and Lindee, p. 153.
29.
See Condit, “Contributions” and Meanings.
30.
For a strong articulation of this position, see T. B. Farrell and G. T. Goodnight, “Accidental Rhetoric: The Root Metaphors of Three Mile Island,'' Communication Monographs48 (1981): 271-300.
