Sammendrag
No single scientific concept is more fundamental to the understanding of life science than "the gene". As we shall no doubt see during the course of this conference, scientists and philosophers define "a gene" in many different ways, reflecting different perspectives. Likewise, journalists and the public also refer to genes in different ways, often without being aware of the type of meaning they are conveying. This huge variety of meaning can be bewildering, especially when trying to communicate important information connected to genetics. In my talk I shall attempt to make the whole complexity of gene-communication a little clearer; I will draw on the theoretical perspective of framing from sociology and science communication, and show five distinct ways of framing the gene in public discourse: materialistic, deterministic, relativistic, evolutionary and symbolic. These results are from a recently published study of how British and Norwegian newspapers frame the gene concept. Increased awareness of these five "gene frames" among scientists, philopsophers, journalists and the public may make communication about genetics easier, and may thus improve public understanding of life science. I shall discuss some examples of the implications this can have for health communication.
Vis fullstendig beskrivelse