Abstract

This study presents the results of analyzing 480 articles focused on the bioethics of stem cell research that were collected from the web archives of two prestigious daily papers in Spain situated at the two extremes of the ideological spectrum: “El País” (257 articles) and “ABC” (223). The sample was retrieved by searching for the keywords “células madre” and “célula troncal” in articles from 1996 to 2006, after coding for the presence of the “ethics frame” in the total sample, which consisted of 2,481 articles employing a greater variety of “frames.” The method is content analysis, with a coding sheet previously used in The New York Times and The Washington Post. The variables studied are format, main topic, mention of the sources of stem cells, political arena, actors, and the combination of the ethics frame with other frames used by journalists. Stem cell research had been a controversial issue in the Spanish press since the beginning of this decade, until a new law, the “Law of Biomedical Research,” was introduced in 2006, allowing therapeutic cloning and research on frozen embryos and embryonic stem cells. This issue is treated differently by mass media located in Spanish, European and North American contexts. The results of this study show how stem cell research has been framed by the media as a subject of bioethics in combination with politics.