How does the media shape the way we think about child sexual abuse? Combining in-depth analysis of media representations of the crimes, with focus group discussions and interviews with around 500 journalists, campaigners and a cross-section of 'the public', Jenny Kitzinger reveals the media's role in contemporary society.Which stories attract attention and why? Answering this and other questions, Kitzinger demonstrates how media reporting can impact on people's knowledge of the 'fa...

This book critically examines the potential of, and suggests ways forward in, harnessing a versatile and powerful method of research - focus groups. The book challenges some of the emerging orthodoxies and presents accessible, insightful and reflective discussions about the issues around focus group work.The contributors, an impressive group of experienced researchers from a range of disciplines and traditions, discuss different ways of designing, conducting and analyzing focus gro...

This book provides an intensive exploration of recent popular representations of human cloning, genetics and the concerns which they generate and mobilise. It is a timely contribution to current debates about the public communication of science and about the cultural and political stakes in those debates. Taking the UK as its main case study, with cross-cultural comparisons with the USA and South Korea, the book explores the proposition that genomics is ‘the publicly mediated science par e...

Science and technology force us to ask some of the most challenging and unprecedented ethical questions in the world today. These issues encompass what it means to be human, how we relate to others and our world, and how we find meaning in life. How we can find a shared ethics for an interdependent world? In her 2006 CBC Massey Lectures, ethicist and McGill University professor Margaret Somerville tackles some of the most contentious issues of our times, and proposes a brilliant new kind o...

How far is too far? 60 cases illustrating modern bioethical dilemmasBioethics for Beginners maps the giant dilemmas posed by new technologies and medical choices, using 60 cases taken from our headlines, and from the worlds of medicine and science. This eminently readable book takes it one case at a time, shedding light on the social, economic and legal side of 21st century medicine while giving the reader an informed basis on which to answer personal, pra...

Providing readers with the confidence needed to debate key issues in bioethics, this introductory text clearly explains bioethical theories and their philosophical foundations. Over 250 activities introduce topics for personal reflection, and discussion points encourage students to think for themselves and build their own arguments. Highlighting the potential pitfalls for those new to bioethics, each chapter features boxes providing factual information and outlining the philosophical backg...

An Anthropology of Biomedicine is an exciting new introduction to biomedicine and its global implications. Focusing on the ways in which the application of biomedical technologies bring about radical changes to societies at large, cultural anthropologist Margaret Lock and her co-author physician and medical anthropologist Vinh-Kim Nguyen develop and integrate the thesis that the human body in health and illness is the elusive product of nature and culture that refuses to be pinned...

Our fates lie in our genes and not in the stars, said James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA. But Watson could not have predicted the scale of the industry now dedicated to this new frontier. Since the launch of the multibillion-dollar Human Genome Project, the biosciences have promised miracle cures and radical new ways of understanding who we are. But where is the new world we were promised?In Genes, Cells, and Brains, feminist sociologist Hilary Rose and ne...

What implications are applications of new genetic technologies in biomedicine having on social identity in today’s society?New Genetics, New Identities, a wide-ranging multi-disciplinary volume in the CESAGen Genetics & Society Book series, presents not only theoretical reflection but also empirical case studies drawn from an international array of authors. Including the highly controversial areas of reproductive technologies and use of human embryos in biomedical...

Decisive biotechnological interventions in the lottery of human life--to enhance our bodies and brains and perhaps irreversibly change our genetic makeup--have been widely rejected as unethical and undesirable and have often met with extreme hostility. But in Enhancing Evolution leading bioethicist John Harris dismantles objections to genetic engineering stem-cell research designer babies and cloning to make a forthright sweeping and rigorous ethical case for using biotechnology to im...

The growing synergy of humans and technology--from dialysis to genetically altered foods to PET scans--is transforming how we view our minds and our bodies. But how has it changed the body politic? How can we forge a society that protects the rights of human and cyborg alike?The creator of the cult classic Cyborg Handbook, Chris Hables Gray, now offers the first guide to "posthuman" politics, framing the key issues that could threaten or brighten our technological...

Lupton′s newest edition of Medicine as Culture is more relevant than ever.Trudy Rudge, Professor of Nursing, University of SydneyA welcome update of a text that has become a mainstay of the medical sociologist′s library.Alan Radley, Emeritus Professor of Social Psychology, Loughborough UniversityMedicine as Culture introduces students to a broad range of cross-disciplinary theoretical perspectives, using examples that emphas...