Framing the genetic testing issue - Discourse and cultural clashes among policy communities

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