Abstract
This paper is concerned with representations of the human genome and medical applications of modern biotechnology in Finnish television news. The main focus is on the way that news stories are framed by various linguistic and visual means and on how scientists appearing in the news are positioned. The qualitative analysis shows that in the national frame, biotechnology was treated as a field with great future promise, weighing the prospects of Finnish scientists to succeed in international competition. In the disease frame, the focus was on the achievements of genetic research in the treatment of serious diseases. In the breakthrough frame, it was predicted that genetics will revolutionise the treatment of diseases in ‘the near future’. Finally, news stories presented in the threat frame were mainly concerned to predict and avert problems arising from the potential abuse of genetic research. The analysis suggests that these frames implied certain speaking positions to the scientists appearing in the news stories.
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