Abstract

Comparing City Characteristics and Nationwide Newspaper Coverage of Human Cloning:
A Community Structure Approach

"Human cloning may be the most difficult moral dilemma posed by science since the splitting of the atom" (Powers, 1998, p. 58). In February of 1997, two figures were added to daily life: Dolly, a cloned sheep, and her maker, Scottish scientist Ian Wilmut. Their story could be found in newspapers, on television, across the Internet, and in conversations. Since the ability to clone humans has become a reality, there has been a media frenzy sparking many a debate among a variety of publics: scientists, lawyers, ethicists, religious leaders, government representatives and others.

This study tracks news coverage from different regions of the United States sampled systematically in twenty-two newspapers throughout the nation during the period of January 1997 through December 1998. This time frame included both coverage on Dolly, the first sheep cloned, and Richard Seed, the person who announced he had the ability to begin cloning humans. Previous studies suggest that variations in community or city characteristics (using aggregate data and demographics) have a great deal to do with variations in reporting on critical issues. This community structure perspective may help account for newspaper variation on this subject (Tichenor, Donohue & Olien, 1968, 1980, 1985; Pollock & Robinson, 1977; Pollock, Robinson, & Murray, 1978; Pollock, Awrachow, & Kuntz, 1994; Pollock 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999).

The DIALOG Classroom Information Program national newspaper database was used to collect 380 articles over one paragraph in length. Each of the articles was read and coded for two kinds of information: a "display" or "attention" score (ranging from 3 to 16 points based on article placement, headline size, article length, and presence of photographs, captioned or not) and a directional score (legitimizing/favorable, delegitimizing/unfavorable, and balanced/neutral). These in turn were used to calculate the Janis-Fadner Coefficient of Imbalance for each newspaper.

The newspaper coverage of human cloning varied as predicted; the Coefficients of Imbalance ranged from +.0872 to -.2672 revealing diverging opinions among city newspapers. The most significant correlations and regression findings revealed strong nationwide links between three hypotheses cluster groups, Buffer (% professionals), Vulnerability (% below poverty level and % unemployed) and Media Access (number of FM and AM radio stations). Together, these three cluster groups account for 59.9 percent of the variance -- and more favorable (or less unfavorable) news coverage of human cloning. Each of the these findings confirms previous research suggesting a broad relation between proportion of relatively privileged or "buffered" groups within a city, the proportion of un-buffered or "vulnerable" groups in a city and media access (FM and AM radio stations), and newspaper reporting. Also supported here is the relationship between buffered groups and greater media access with positive coverage of social change issues, while a higher proportion of vulnerable groups is associated with negative reporting.