Searching for a Frame

How are the news media framing nanoscale science and technology? Primary concerns in the literature have been how news media weigh risks and benefits and how they classify nano with respect to news categories such as business, culture, discovery, or medicine. The authors contribute a new perspective by focusing on issue frames involving how stories imply responsibility for societal outcomes from technology. The authors develop four issue frames for stories about nanoscale science and technology: progress, regulation, conflict, and generic risk. These cut across the frame classifications and story tone assessments employed previously in the literature. Using data from the 10 largest U.S. newspapers for 1999-2008, the frequency of each frame over time is assessed. This study found that progress and generic risk frames, which deemphasize actors and responsibilities, dominated early coverage of nano but that frames involving regulation and the interplay of market incentives and regulatory responsibility mainly supplanted progress frames by 2007.