Anatomy of a media event: how arguments clashed in the 2001 human cloning debate

This paper studies the distinctive role that staged media events play in the public understanding of genetics: they can focus the attention of the media, scientists and the public on the risks and benefits of genetic advances, in our case, cloning; they can accelerate policy changes by exposing scientific, legal and ethical uncertainties; the use of images, metaphors, cliches, and cultural narratives by scientists and the media engaged in this event can reinforce stereotypical representations of cloning, but can also expose fundamental clashes in arguments about cloning. The media event staged by two fertility experts in 2001 is here analysed as a case study.