President's Power to Frame Stem Cell Views Limited

62 - Newspaper Research Journal • Vol. 31, No. 3 • Summer 2010 President’s Power to Frame Stem Cell Views Limited by Shahira Fahmy, Jeannine E. Relly and Wayne Wanta A top-down communication model failed in an examination of news coverage and public opinion about the use of human embryos for stem cell research. The study covered three years leading to Bush’s veto of a bill to remove research restrictions. I n July 2006, President George W. Bush vetoed a bill—the irst during his administration of ive years—that would have ended federal government restrictions placed on scientists with federal funding in the area of human embryonic stem cell research. In an administration policy statement, the president criticized the congressional bill as a “use of federal taxpayer dollars to support and encourage the destruction of human life.”1 This study uses this veto as a springboard to explore Entman’s cascading network activation model in a bio-political context. Entman’s model,2 which was speciically advanced in the context of foreign policy, explains how interpretive frames activate and spread from the top level (i.e. the White House) to elites, news organizations and the public and how these interpretations then provide feedback from lower to higher levels. To explore this model’s potential within the realm of a domestic and controversial issue—stem cell research—this study examines the relationships among policy-making, the media (citing elite and non-elite sources) and public opinion polls from 2004 to 2006. While numerous studies have examined who sets the media agenda,3 less attention has been paid to investigating the inluence of important news sources on scientiic research. One important source of news has always been, of course, the president of the Unites States.4 However, in issues where science __________________________________________ Fahmy is an associate professor and Relly is an assistant professor. Both are in the School of Journalism at the University of Arizona. Wanta is the Welch-Bridgewater Chair in Sports Journalism in the School of Journalism and Broadcasting at Oklahoma State University. Fahmy, Relly and Wanta: President’s Power to Frame - 63 and politics intersect, research examining the agenda of science issues appears to be related to technological and social development. Nisbet and Scheufele5 suggest scientists often use media frames to popularize scientiic and technological developments and to communicate the results of scientiic research to the public. In recent years with the increased development in biotechnology research, economic-prospect frames have been used in reporting scientiic progress. As applications related to embryonic cells became more widespread, though, media coverage of biotechnology has had a tendency to frame the issue in terms of political controversy and ethical/religious dilemmas.6 As a result, the way the media framed the issue may have inluenced the way the public understood, evaluated and supported the advance of stem cell research. In this context of scientiic controversy, this study explores Entman’s7 model to look at the relationships among administration policy, media coverage and public opinion regarding a bio-political issue. More speciically, this study examines the relationship among the use of tone and sourcing in stem cell stories in the elite press (The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal), Gallup public opinion polls and the White House to veto a 2006 bill that would end federal government restrictions placed on scientists in the area of human embryonic stem cell research. Dimensions of the Stem Cell Research Debate Embryonic stem cell research has been a point of contention among the political, scientiic and religious communities. Controversies over the topic emerged in public discourse in the late 1990s and early in the irst decade of the new millennium after embryonic cells were successfully isolated in 1998.8 This scientiic discovery allowed scientists to potentially create specialized cells in the human body, which could serve to maintain and regenerate organs and other tissues. Scientists strongly believed these isolated cells have the potential to replace cells that could improve the quality of life and treat numerous diseases, including AIDS, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and heart diseases. However, the main ethical/moral controversy surrounding this type of research comes from how these cells are obtained. To isolate these cells, embryos must be destroyed and anti-abortion advocates, including former President George W. Bush, are strong opponents of such a process. A counter argument in support of embryonic stem cell research, however, has been the potential of stem cell research and its ability to cure diseases. From this perspective, this research has the promise of prolonging life and therefore could even be considered “pro-life.” In August 2001, the controversy over stem cell research reached the top of the U.S. political agenda as President George W. Bush declared a policy that would bar federal funding for research on embryonic stem cells, except for existing stem cell lines that would not require destroying additional embryos. In his speech, the president mentioned the ethical debate over this kind of research, which, he explained, many believe destroys human lives.9 Not surprisingly this 64 - Newspaper Research Journal • Vol. 31, No. 3 • Summer 2010 speech led to much news media attention about the stem cell research issue, an issue that would represent a good example of the tension and the lack of separation between science and state in biotechnology. Overall, the issue remained in the public agenda as research interests contested the suitability of the allocated stem cell lines. In 2004, the news media reported two studies that cast doubt on the potential use of the embryonic stem cell lines approved for federally funded scientists under the policy instituted by President George W. Bush that barred federal funding for research on embryonic stem cells in 2001.10 Thus, while the issue was prominent in the media and public support for stem cell research increased,11 the Senate passed a bill to loosen restrictions on federal funding for stem cell research in July 2006. The president however vetoed the bill explaining that it “crossed a moral boundary.”12 At the macro level, this controversy over government funding for embryonic stem cell research represents the competing institutions of the White House, elites—government, religious and scientiic—and the news media, which inluence public opinion. Thus, according to the cascading network activation model, frames related to the issue were activated and spread from the top level (i.e. the White House) to elites, news organizations and to the public. Clearly there were two competing views. Elites and advocates linked to these views used interpretive media frames to advocate for their preferred policy outcome and to gain support from the public. According to Nisbet and colleagues,13 much of the media discourse on the issue was presented in a conlict frame that emphasized political and/or ethical dilemmas. For example, stem cell research could lead to medical breakthroughs but at the cost of destroying human lives. Indeed, religious supporters framed the stem cell issue as a moral and ethical issue, arguing that scientists are playing the role of God and emphasizing considerations that would likely promote opposition to embryonic stem cell research.14 Meanwhile the scientiic community believed science should be free from any direct regulation and policy controls.15 They presented oppositional frames in the media that explained adult stem cells were inferior to those cells obtained from human embryos.16 For example, they explained the use of these adult stem cells might stop or slow down the processes in curing serious diseases.17 In sum, the nature of interpretive media frames and media discourse of stem cell research become an integral subject for research in relation to what this study is trying to explore: the relationships among administration policy, media coverage and public opinion regarding a bio-political issue. Theoretical Relevance The term agenda building assumes a reciprocal relationship among elite oficials, the media and the public.18 In other words, agenda building suggests an interaction cycle of mutual reinforcement among all three entities. Salwen19 argues this approach suggests media content is not shaped within the newsroom as much as it is shaped by the sources that provide information to that newsroom. Fahmy, Relly and Wanta: President’s Power to Frame - 65 Thus, the president—considered an elite oficial—plays an important role in agenda setting. The messages from White House representatives could be an important determinant of the issues the news media cover and how those issues are covered. These issues in return would then receive more public attention. The U.S. president holds a unique position as the nation’s irst newsmaker who gets cited by the news media regularly.20 According to Broder,21 the president can say “this is how we see things.” From this perspective, President George W. Bush, along with elite government oficials, could have carefully chosen strategies to set the agenda for public discourse regarding the stem cells issue over time. This would have allowed the diffusion of preferred frames and policies to dominate the U.S. news content, mobilizing the public toward support for reduced funding for research on embryonic stem cells. The cascading network activation model indeed traces the diffusion of frames from the president and his administration through the network of elites, who often also serve as media sources, to the network of news organizations and inally to the public’s minds. In the area of foreign policy, the president and the administration have the greatest power to initiate these associations, but Entman22 also suggests that each succeeding level in the hierarchy of this model has some potential impact and perhaps some important feedback exists. It also takes into account the potential for variation in degree of White House control that depends on speciic presidents and issues. Considering the example of the scientiic controversy over stem cell research, could it be possible that not all players described in Entman’s model participate hierarchically in spreading activation and acceptance of a particular frame, leading to an opposing public interpretation? Entman23 himself suggests that domestic media frames could be contested by opposing interpretations based on the concept of a free press. Could it be then that freedom of the press and democracy in the United States play a role regarding how U.S. media might shape and frame a domestic controversy, creating a cultural congruency that might be dissonant with the White House? Recognizing the importance of media frames in inluencing policy outcomes, various elites and sources linked to competing views of the stem cell debate—as mentioned earlier—have used the media to frame the coverage in ways that would create support for their cause. For example within the processes of frame building24 and agenda building,25 competing sources have operated as news sources, providing strategic news items and information to the media. The literature on framing deines it as the process of selecting, emphasizing and interpreting a situation to promote a particular interpretation.26 This interpretation comes through a narrative that encompasses an interrelated deinition of the problem, analysis of its causes, moral evaluation of those involved and remedy.27 Media frames thus comprise the principle arena within which scientiic controversies come to the attention of policy makers and the public. The media “powerfully shape how policy issues related to science and technology controversy are deined, symbolized and ultimately resolved.”28 66 - Newspaper Research Journal • Vol. 31, No. 3 • Summer 2010 Method To explore Entman’s29 model by looking at the relationships among administration policy, media coverage and public opinion regarding a domestic biopolitical issue, news articles on stem cells in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. were irst examined. The unit of analysis was the news article.30 Using the search term “stem cell,” the full text from The New York Times and The Washington Post were searched through Lexis-Nexis; and The Wall Street Journal was searched through ProQuest. Three elite U.S. national newspapers were analyzed because the public largely uses newspapers as a main source of information about scientiic research.31 And as the literature indicates, national coverage of news tends to follow the elite media.32 As newspapers of record, The New York Times and The Washington Post have knowledgeable reporters and editors covering science and politics, and they tend to set the news agenda for regional news groups.33 Further, The Wall Street Journal is also considered a leading newspaper with wide readership and elite reporters.34 It also has been used to examine dominant news sources,35 which is one of the key objectives of this study. A census of news articles on stem cells from the period of Oct. 29, 2004, to July 18, 2006 were examined. The start date was chosen because it was the day that the news media reported that two studies cast doubt on the potential beneit of the use of human embryonic stem cell lines that were earlier approved to be federally funded by President George W. Bush. One of these studies indicated that there was a trait discovered in these stem cells that could result in immune system rejection that would dampen the promise for medical treatments using them. The second study found that the government-approved cell lines were dificult to use in research because they were such a challenge to keep alive.36 The end date was July 18, 2006. On that day, the U.S. Senate voted for a bill that had passed in the House of Representatives to end the federal government restrictions placed on scientists with federal funding in the area of human embryonic stem cell research.37 The following day, President George W. Bush vetoed the bill.38 Overall, a total of 218 news articles related to stem cells were identiied during that period. The New York Times published 80 news articles (36.7 percent), The Washington Post had 80 articles (36.7 percent) and The Wall Street Journal published 58 articles (26.6 percent). To code the dominant frame of each article, the lead was used. To ensure that the scope of the topic focus was discernible, the expanded deinition of a news lead that includes up to three paragraphs was used.39 A modiied version of the framing typology for dominant themes that was developed by Nisbet, Brossard and Kroepsch was used.40 Coding was based on the following seven categories: • Scientiic advancement—articles that reported on conferences and research breakthroughs Fahmy, Relly and Wanta: President’s Power to Frame - 67 • Ethics—articles with foci on religion and/or moral values • Politics and policy—news reports about laws, regulations, rules, political speeches, public funding, political factions and policy debates • Economic or inancial issues—patent or property rights, private funding and competition • The public view—public opinion polls, activities or statements that show public support and/ or public concern • A humanistic perspective—focusing on an individNotably, President George W. Bush ual’s narrative or a group that will appears to have had little inluence beneit from stem cell on the media and public regarding research the bio-political issue under study. • Other—anything that does not it Although the president criticized into one of the above stem cell research repeatedly, categories Next, a modiied especially in 2005 and 2006 leading version of several up to his veto, news articles were scholars’ source categories was used.41 consistently positive toward the Each source category issue. was tabulated every time it was cited. For each article, the dominant source category was calculated for the source category that was cited the most. Source categories included the following: • private industry scientists • government oficials, who included chairs of governmental committees or leaders in cabinet posts • government and academic scientists • politicians and political igures • President George W. Bush • government bureaucrats 68 - Newspaper Research Journal • Vol. 31, No. 3 • Summer 2010 • company oficials and industry lobbyists • representatives of nonproit organizations, including religious igures and advocacy group representatives • international sources, including politicians or scientists outside of the United States • other, including citizen(s) and anonymous sources The dominant source categories were then combined for each article into “elite:” • private industry scientists • government oficials who included chairs of government committees, secretary of state and district attorneys • government and academic scientists • politicians and political igures • President George W. Bush The other ive categories were coded as “non-elite.” The elite sources included scientists because research shows that journalists often consider them as authoritative and trustworthy igures who have knowledge, prestige and expertise.42 The valence of the news reports was determined by using a modiied version of Yoon’s work,43 which examined stem cell news coverage. Each paragraph was coded “positive,” “negative” or “neutral.” The paragraph was coded positive, when, for example, the majority of information in the paragraph noted contributions that stem cell research would make or how the debate could work in favor of furthering the agenda for stem cell research. Paragraphs were coded negative when the majority of the material had a disapproving tone about stem cell research or highlighted aspects of the stem cell debate that may curb use in research or in the marketplace. Items were coded neutral when the majority of sentences were neither negative nor positive. Finally, the tone of the entire article was based on the dominant number of paragraphs that were “positive,” “negative” or “neutral.” Inter-coder reliability estimates were calculated for 10 percent of the articles (22 articles), using Holsti’s formula. Reliability was 91.0 percent for dominant source coding and 100 percent for story type and tone. Overall reliability for the three categories was 97.0 percent.44 Next frequencies and percentages for dominant frame, source category and valence were run. The use of sources and tone were then compared against public opinion data from Gallup from 2004 to 2006.45 The public opinion polls showed the percentage of the public who stated whether it was morally acceptable or morally wrong to conduct medical research using stem cells obtained from human embryos. In addition, the data across the period of the study from October 2004 to July 2006 were examined. Possible differences in this period may further highlight whether the cascade model worked for the stem cell issue. Fahmy, Relly and Wanta: President’s Power to Frame - 69 Table 1 Comparisons of Percentages of Combined Elite and Non-elite Sources with Tone of Stem-cell Research News Stories in The New York Times, The Washington Post The Wall Street Journal (N = 213) Source Category Positive Tone (N=166) Negative Tone (N = 47) Elite combined (82.5%) 118 (17.5%) 25 Non-Elite combined (68.6%) 48 (31.4%) 22 Note: Five cases were neutral in tone and coded as missing cases in this analysis. Findings Of the 218 news articles analyzed, the majority of news reports related to stem cells had dominant news frames that were political or policy related (64.2 percent), followed by scientiic advancement (28.0 percent). The remaining articles—representing less than 10 percent of the total—had dominant news frames that were about ethical, economic or inancial issues. Interestingly, the public view category, which included public opinion polls, was not represented as a dominant news category. Regarding valance, the overall tone of the articles was largely positive.46 Almost three-fourths of the stories put greater emphasis on advocating stem cell research than opposing it. This supports previous indings that suggest that on the whole, media coverage of the issue has been weighted toward the positive.47 The following explores the use of source categories in the news stories. As mentioned in the method section, the dominant source categories were combined for each article into “elite” and “non-elite.” The elite sources included politicians and political igures, government oficials, who included chairs of government committees; secretary of state; and district attorneys, government and academic scientists and private industry scientists. Results showed that more than two-thirds of the source types cited were elites (67 percent), building on previous research that elites often are used because of their inluence and prestige.48 Further, when the frequencies and percentages of elite and non-elite sources were examined with tone of news story, Table 1 shows the elite source categories were more positive in tone (82.5 percent) versus the non-elite source categories (68.6 percent).49 Furthermore, it is interesting to note that none of the articles examined used President George W. Bush as a dominant source type. This is interesting because the president had made the stem cells issue a highproile policy area for his ofice and other researchers have suggested that the U.S. president is the top newsmaker in the country.50 70 - Newspaper Research Journal • Vol. 31, No. 3 • Summer 2010 In analyzing the dominant source types by year, along with valence and public opinion polls regarding whether it was morally acceptable or morally wrong to conduct medical research using stem cells obtained from human embryos, positive tones in coverage dominated from 2004 to 2006. Public support during that time period also was supportive for stem cell research using human embryos. This was not idiosyncratic for public opinion in each of the three years studied. For example, the majority (54 percent) of Gallup Poll respondents indicated support for the use of human embryos in stem cell research in 2003—the year before the study began and there was even higher support (64 percent) in 2007—the year after President George W. Bush vetoed the bill.51 Discussion This study examined the cascading network activation model, which posits that the news media, elite sources and the public are all interrelated. Speciically, the model argues that frames of issues begin with high-level sources, such as the president and low to elite sources, the news media and inally the public. Overall, the indings demonstrate little support for this model. Notably, President George W. Bush appears to have had little inluence on the media and public regarding the bio-political issue under study. Although the president criticized stem cell research repeatedly, especially in 2005 and 2006 leading up to his veto, news articles were consistently positive toward the issue. Further, public support for stem cell research actually increased in 2005 and continued to increase in the following year. The lack of impact of President George W. Bush could be attributed to the nature of the issue. Because President George W. Bush was vehemently opposed to stem cell research, proponents used the president’s stance as an opportunity to debate the merits with the news media. Since the news media try to give both, if not multiple, sides of an issue, the more President George W. Bush spoke out against stem cell research, the more sources were quoted in support of the issue. Thus, the more coverage of the issue, the more informed individuals became on the issue. The more information individuals had on the issue, the more they supported stem cell research. This pattern of coverage essentially then created a two-sided argument. As Hovland and colleagues52 demonstrated decades ago, a two-sided argument often is successful in changing attitudes of highly educated individuals, which could have been the case here. Another indication of the lack of impact President George W. Bush had can be seen in the frames used by the three elite newspapers in the study. President George W. Bush criticized stem cell research mainly on ethical grounds. Ethical frames comprised just 5.5 percent of the media frames, far fewer than politics and policy (64.2 percent) and scientiic advancement (28.0 percent). Thus, President George W. Bush did not appear to inluence either the tone or the framing of media coverage. Fahmy, Relly and Wanta: President’s Power to Frame - 71 Similarly, elite sources appear to have had little inluence on the public. Stories with a positive tone decreased from 2004 to 2005 (from 100 percent to 77.4 percent). Yet as shown in Figure 2, public opinion became more positive toward stem cell research, increasing from 54 percent to 60 percent in support. This again could possibly be due to news media coverage showing two or more sides of the issue. Media coverage, meanwhile, was overwhelmingly positive throughout the three years of the study. Only in 2005 did the positive tone of coverage dip below 90 percent. This consistent positive tone may have led to the public’s support of stem cell research, thus supporting an agenda-setting function of the media. These indings also are supported by Entman53 who explains a “dominant frame produces extraordinarily one-sided survey results.” Overall, the indings in this study run counter to the suggestions by Broder54 and Wanta and Foote55 that a president often dominates the frame because of journalistic news values. However, the salience of the topic of stem cell research policy, which President George W. Bush made an agenda item, certainly became a key area of media coverage as the top news category (politics and policy). As Entman notes:56 Elites heavily inluence media, which in turn signiicantly shapes public opinion—that is why the public occupies the bottom level of the cascade. In the case here, public opinion may have been inluenced by the elites who dominated media coverage that largely was positive in tone. However, the elite at the top of the cascading network activation model—President George W. Bush—did not appear to dominate media coverage or inluence public opinion in the period examined. Similarly, the media and public opinion did not inluence the president’s position on stem cell research. The cascading network activation model offers one explanation of how sources, the media and the public interact. In the case here, it appears that journalists exercised some independent power, arising from their ability to frame news stories differently than the president’s position on the stem cell research issue. Unlike coverage of foreign policy issues, presidential control over domestic media frames could be subject to contest. While the U.S. president, as the nation’s number one newsmaker, has had great success in inluencing the media and public, as previous studies suggest, the results here indicate limited presidential inluence. It appears to be that presidential power over elites and the media vary among different administrations, depending on the popularity of the president.57 Because of the contradictory indings, further research is needed to examine other domestic issues/controversies—such as the debate on climate change/ global warming—during the administrations of other presidents. Thus, factors inluencing the cascading network activation model provide excellent opportunities for future research. 72 - Newspaper Research Journal • Vol. 31, No. 3 • Summer 2010 Notes 1. George W. Bush, “Statement of administration policy: H.R. 810 – Stem cell research enhancement act,” The American Presidency Project, July 17, 2006, <http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ ws/index.php?pid =24916> (September 13, 2009). 2. Robert M. Entman, “Cascading activation: Contesting the White House’s frame after 9/11,” Political Communication 20, no. 4 (October 2003): 415-432. 3. Oscar H. Gandy Jr., Beyond agenda-setting: Information Subsidies and Public Policy. (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1982); Wayne Wanta, Mary Ann Stephenson, Judy V. Turk, and Maxwell E. McCombs, “How president’s state of the union talk inluenced news media agendas,” Journalism Quarterly 66 (autumn 1989): 537-541. 4. Wayne Wanta and Joe Foote, “The President-news media relationship: A time series analysis of agenda-setting,” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 38 (fall 1994): 437-448. 5. Matthew C. Nisbet and Dietram A. Scheufele, “The Future of public engagement,” The Scientist 21, no.10 (October 2007): 39-44. 6. Matthew C. Nisbet and Bruce V. Lewenstein, “Biotechnology and the American Media: The policy process and the elite press, 1970 to 1999.” Science Communication 23, no. 4 (June 2002): 359-391. 7. Entman, “Cascading activation: Contesting the White House’s frame after 9/11.” 8. Craig O. Stewart, Daniel L. Dickerson and Rose Hotchkiss, “Beliefs about science and news frames in audience evaluations of embryonic and adult stem cell research,” Science Communication 30, no. 4 (June 2009): 427-452. 9. John Lynch, “Making room for stem cells: Dissociation and establishing new research objects,” Argumentation & Advocacy 42, no. 3 (January 2006): 143–156. 10. Chris Mooney, The Republican War On Science. (New York: Basic Books, 2005). 11. See Gallup, “Gallup’s pulse of democracy: Stem cell research,” Gallup.com, <http://www. gallup.com/poll/21676/Stem-Cell-Research.aspx> (March 12, 2009). 12. George W. Bush, “Fact sheet: President Bush’s stem cell research policy,” The White House, July 19, 2006, <http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov /news/releases/2001/08/20010809-2. html> (Sept. 13, 2009) 13. Matthew C. Nisbet, Dominique Brossard and Adrianne Kroepsch, “Framing science: The stem cell controversy in an age of press/politics,” The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 8, no. 2 (April 2003): 36-70. 14. Nisbet, Brossard and Kroepsch, “Framing science: The stem cell controversy in an age of press/politics.” 15. Bruce Bimber and David H. Guston, “Politics by the same means: Government and science in the United States,” in The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, eds. Sheila Jasonoff, Gerald E. Markle, James C. Peterson and Trevor J. Pinch (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1995): 554-571. 16. Lynch, “Making room for stem cells: Dissociation and establishing New research objects.” 17. It is noteworthy that public opinion polls have consistently shown the public indicates greater support for adult rather than embryonic stem cell research. In terms of media exposure, previous studies have shown a positive correlation between support for embryonic stem cell research and increased exposure to the media, but that this relationship was attenuated by predispositions related to religious and ideological beliefs. Research also found that support for this kind of research was inluenced by beliefs related to concerns about the inluence of science in society and beliefs about when human life begins. See Matthew C. Nisbet, “The Polls – Trends: Public opinion about stem cell research; Matthew C. Nisbet, “The Competition for Worldviews: Values, information and public support for stem cell research,” International Journal of Public Opinion Research 17, no. 1 (spring 2005): 90-112 and Human Cloning,” Public Opinion Quarterly 68 (spring 2004): 131-154); Matthew C. Nisbet and Robert K. Goidel, “Understanding citizen perceptions of science controversy: Bridging the ethnographic-survey research divide,” Public Understanding of Science 164, no. 4 (October 2007): 421-440. Fahmy, Relly and Wanta: President’s Power to Frame - 73 18. Gladys E. Lang and Kurt Lang, The Battle for Public Opinion: The President, the Press and the Polls During Watergate. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983). 19. Michael B. Salwen, “Effect of accumulation of coverage on issues salience in agenda setting,” Journalism Quarterly 65, no. 3 (spring 1988): 100-106, 130. 20. Wanta and Foote, “The President-news media relationship: A time Series Analysis of Agenda-setting.” 21. David S. Broder, Behind the Front Page: A Candid Look at How the News is Made. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 4. 22. Robert M. Entman, “Theorizing mediated public diplomacy: The U.S. case,” International Journal of Press/Politics 13, no. 2 (April 2008): 87-102. 23. Entman, “Theorizing mediated public diplomacy: The U.S. case.” 24. Dietram A. Scheufele, “Framing as a theory of media effects,” Journal of Communication 49, no. 1 (March 1999): 103–122. 25. Dan Berkowitz, “Who sets the media agenda? The ability of policymakers to determine news decisions” in Public Opinion, the Press, and Public Policy, ed. J. David Kennamer (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992): 81-102. 26. Robert M. Entman, “Framing: Toward clariication of a fractured paradigm,” Journal of Communication 43, no. 4 (autumn 1993): 51–58. 27. Robert M. Entman, Projections of power: Framing news, public opinion, and U.S. foreign policy. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). 28. Nisbet and Lewenstein, “Biotechnology and the American media: The policy process and the elite press, 1970 to 1999,” 38. 29. Entman, “Cascading activation: Contesting the White House’s frame after 9/11.” 30. The researchers decided to discard editorials from this analysis. 31. See Kimberly R. Taylor, “Promise or peril: How newspapers frame stem cell research,” (paper presented at the in AEJMC conference in Kansas City, Missouri, August 2003). 32. W. Lance Bennett, “Toward a theory of press-state relations in the United States,” Journal of Communication 40, no. 2 (spring 1990): 103-125; Nisbet and Lewenstein, “Biotechnology and the American media: The policy process and the elite press, 1970 to 1999.” 33. Nisbet, Brossard, and Kroepsch, “Framing science: The stem cell controversy in an age of press/politics.” 34. Shirley Ramsey, “A benchmark study of elaboration and sourcing in science stories for eight American newspapers,” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 76, no. 1 (spring 1999): 87-98; Carol H. Weiss, “What America’s leaders read,” Public Opinion Quarterly 38, no. 1 (spring 1974): 1-22. 35. Dominic L. Lasorsa and Stephen D. Reese, “News source use in the crash of 1987: A study of four national media, Journalism Quarterly 67, no. 1 (spring 1990): 60-71. 36. Rick Weiss, “Approved stem cells’ potential questioned,” The Washington Post, Oct. 29, 2004, sect. A, p. 3. 37. Charles Babington, “Senate passes stem cell bill; Bush vows veto,” The Washington Post, July 19, 2006, sect. A, p. 1. 38. Babington, “Stem cell bill gets Bush’s irst veto,” The Washington Post, July, 20 2006, sect. A, p. 4. 39. See Elliott Hillback, Anthony Dudo, Rosalyna Wijaya, Dominique Brossard and Sharon Dunwoody, “News leads and news frames in stories about stem cell research,” (paper presented at the AEJMC conference in Chicago, August 2008). 40. This coding instrument had been previously tested for face validity and was constructed by examining a body of content analyses studies that had examined the frames that were used in news media reports about science and politics. See Nisbet, Brossard and Kroepsch, “Framing Science: The Stem Cell Controversy in an Age of Press/Politics.” 41. For example see Nisbet, Brossard, and Kroepsch, “Framing science: The stem cell controversy in an age of press/politics;” Youngmin Yoon, “Examining journalists’ perceptions and news 74 - Newspaper Research Journal • Vol. 31, No. 3 • Summer 2010 coverage of stem cell and cloning organizations,” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 82, no. 2 (summer 2005): 281-300. 42. For example see Susanna Hornig, “Television’s nova and the construction of scientiic truth,” Critical Studies in Mass Communications 7, no. 1 (March 1990): 11-23; Dorothy Nelkin, “Selling science,” Physics Today 43, no. 11 (November 1990): 41-46. 43. Yoon, “Examining journalists’ perceptions and news coverage of stem cell and cloning organizations.” 44. A graduate student and two faculty members were involved in the coding process. A codebook was created after consulting with past research and several pilot studies were conducted to resolve differences in coding and achieve high intercoder reliability. 45. Gallup, “Gallup’s pulse of democracy: Stem cell research.” 46. Because our sample included two liberal newspapers (The New York Times and The Washington Post) and one conservative paper, The Wall Street Journal, with possible pro-Bush leanings, we further examined the tone in each newspaper separately and found the majority of the articles in each of the three papers examined were positive in terms of supporting stem cell research. 47. For example see Nicole S. Dahmen, “Newspapers focus on conlict in stem cell coverage,” Newspaper Research Journal 29, no. 3 (summer 2008): 50-64; Nisbet and Lewenstein, “Biotechnology and the American media: The policy process and the elite press, 1970 to 1999.” 48. For example Hornig, “Television’s Nova and the Construction of Scientiic Truth;” Nelkin, “Selling Science;” Nisbet and Lewenstein, “Biotechnology and the American media: The policy process and the elite press, 1970 to 1999.” 49. More than half of the articles that were negative in tone had international actors as a dominant source. We attribute this to the large amount of attention in the international and domestic news media given to the stem cell research and cloning case of South Korean scientist Woo Suk Hwang, who in 2005 published a later-retracted article about human embryonic stem cell cloning research that was later determined to be fraudulent. See Erika Check and David Cyranoski, “Korean scandal will have global fallout,” Nature 438, no. 7071 (December 2005): 1056-1057; Woo S. Hwang, Sung I. Roh, Byeong C. Lee, Sung K. Kang, Dae K. Kwon, Sue Kim, Sun J. Kim, Sun W. Park, Hee S. Kwon, Chang K. Lee, Jung B. Lee, Jin M. Kim, Curie Ahn, Sun H. Paek, Sang S. Chang, Jung J. Koo, Hyun S. Yoon, Jung H. Hwang, Youn Y. Hwang, Ye S. Park, Sun K. Oh, Hee S. Kim, Jong H. Park, Shin Y. Moon, Gerald Schatten, “Patient-speciic embryonic stem cells derived from human SCNT blastocysts,” Science 308, no. 5729 (June 2005): 1777-1783. The negative tone of this coverage was exempliied in a report in The Washington Post, “The unwelcome indisputable revelation that some of the most exciting biomedical claims of the past few years were the product of scientiic fraud settled like a cloud over the American scientiic community Friday.” See Rick Weiss, “Stem cell fraud worries U.S. scientists,” The Washington Post, December 24, 2005, sect. A, p.2. 50. For example Broder, Behind the front page: A candid look at how the news is made; Wanta and Foote, “The President-news media relationship: A time series analysis of agenda-setting.” 51. Gallup, “Gallup’s pulse of democracy: Stem cell research.” 52. Carl I. Hovland, Arthur A. Lumsdaine and Fred D Shefield, Experiments on mass communication: Studies in social psychology in World War II: Volume III. (Princeton: University Press, 1949). 53. Entman, “Cascading activation: Contesting the White House’s frame after 9/11,” p. 418). 54. Broder, Behind the Front Page: A Candid Look at How the News is Made. 55. Wanta and Foote, “The President-news media relationship: A time series analysis of agenda-setting.” 56. Entman, “Cascading Activation: Contesting the White House’s frame after 9/11,” p. 42. 57. See Entman, “Cascading Activation: Contesting the White House’s frame after 9/11.”