Direct-to-consumer genetics: Media messages and public perceptions

Information about genetics and the promise of genomic medicine is commonplace in the mass media. How the mass media themselves contribute -- or not -- to the persistence of this issue and its perception by the public is the topic of the present dissertation.;The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the structural and individual perspectives on the issue of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetics, and assess the degree of correspondence across these perspectives. I conducted a media analysis to determine how the issue of DTC genetics has been framed in mass media stories and the salient topics related to the issue. I conducted focus groups to determine individual knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about the issue of DTC genetics.;A final sample of 398 mass media stories of DTC genetics from Lexis-Nexis Academic archives between September 1, 2007 and September 30, 2009 was coded for salience and frames. Fourteen focus groups were conducted between October, 2009 and March, 2010 with Kaiser Permanente Colorado members and medical staff. Focus group transcripts were coded for salience and framing of the issue and compared with the media analysis results.;Study results found that the issue of DTC genetics was not very important to focus group participants except as it related to the topic of breast cancer. Mass media message topics and frames showed differences over time. Focus group participants were generally negative towards the issue while the mass media was mostly positive towards DTC genetics. Focus group participants used some of the many frames to understand the issue that were utilized by the mass media to package the issue, but participants mainly framed the issue in terms of prevention and a pandora's box, while the mass media presented the issue more in terms of progressive and discrimination frames.;The mass media appears to function as a field of power for the issue of DTC genetics with the consumers in the middle of the contests. A higher-level concept of an "informed consumer" emerged from the focus groups that appears to provide consumers a degree of power in this battlefield.