Since opening their doors in late 2006, personal genomics (PG) companies have faced skepticism and criticism from influential academic and government circles. While this has posed a clear problem of communication for these companies — one of effective promotion — I argue that the communication problem these companies face runs much deeper. It is a problem that lies at the heart of any genomics: the very understanding of communication and information around which genomics is built. While the value of genomic information for persons has been widely questioned, questions about the very notion of
Easy, cheap, efficient as online service often are. Direct to Consumer Genetic Testing (DCGT) represents a big evolution towards personalised medicine. If the phenomenon seems to be unstoppable, the first aim of its present and future developments should be the customers’ benefits. A certified quality of the services provided, a clear communication and a well-structured support to customers should be the critical conditions that could transform those online services in something really important: for the individual’s health and the society as a whole.
Since the early 2000s, anybody can buy genetic tests, directly sold on the Internet. These tests provide information about susceptibilities to some diseases and/or about ancestry. Thus, this article deals with a new e-market, whose scientific basis (validity of the tests) and status (as medical devices or consumer goods) are currently controversial. On one hand, we describe the tests and the advertisement and marketing strategies used by the companies (we made an inventory of about 40); on the other hand, we discuss several aspects on the basis of interviews conducted with users: first, the
Personal Genomics Companies are an emerging form of biotechnology startup that bring rapidly advancing whole genome technologies to a variety of commercial venues. With a combination of direct-to-consumer marketing, social media, and Web 2.0 applications these companies seek to create novel uses, including entertainment, for what is described as predictive medicine – that is the use of genetic marketers to create health forecasts that would allow individual’s healthcare to be tailored to their individual genomic data. In this brief piece, the authors use a critical cultural approach to
Genetic testing promises to put the ability to decide about our life choices in our hands, as well as help solve crucial health problems by preventing the insurgence of diseases. But what happens when these exams are managed by private companies in a free market? Public communication and marketing have proven to be crucial battlefields on which companies companies need to engage in order to emerge. This issue of JCOM tries to shed some light on the communication and marketing practices used by private companies that sell direct-to-consumer genetic testing, from single genetic mutations to
Man, by his very nature, puts things between himself and the environment, turning the latter into a place, a space. He arranges the environment around him on multiple levels, by projecting parts of himself and shaping the frontiers and the horizons that surround, define and represent him. This was learnt a long time ago, but a trace and a memory remain in the way man acts: when mapping reality (both physical reality and the reality explored through digital means), we observe it and find a way through it by adopting behaviours that have always been similar. What has changed in this mapping is
Although the debates on the Internet (sceptical, enthusiastic and finally more mature ones) in our country started in the mid 90s, it is only over the past few years that the Internet, especially thanks to social networks, has become a daily practice for millions of Italians. Television still is the main medium to spread information, but as it becomes increasingly cross-bred with the Internet (and other media too), the information-spreading process deeply changes. This creates, also in our country, the preconditions for the development of a web public (an active and connected one), founded on
The Internet has become a worldwide phenomenon. It is undeniable that the Net has forcefully entered everyday life, ceasing to be a useful tool only for a small circle of researchers and academics, to become a new and versatile means of mass communication. And measuring Internet access and calculating the number of Internet users is not easy. By using the domain names registered in the “.it” as an endogenous metric, the Institute of Informatics and Telematics of the Italian National Research Council (IIT-CNR) carried out a research on Internet diffusion in Italy taking into account some major
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Domenico LaforenzaMaurizio MartinelliDavide Gualerzi
What role and citizenship has the scientific thought on the web, or rather on the social side of the web? Does it benefit from the debate between peers and with the general public, or else does it only risk to become a monologue? How to deal with the number of instruments the Internet is able to provide in making, discussing and disseminating research? These are some of the questions tackled by the reflections from scholars and experts which were the basis for our debate.
While some public works are monumental civil engineering structures like the Eiffel Tower or the Sydney Harbour Bridge, most are commonplace, even invisible, and they are taken for granted. The reason for existence of public works is to provide basic services, but both large and small infrastructure facilities also present opportunities to engage the public in understanding fundamental concepts of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). We review here lessons learned in the National Science Foundation-funded Golden Gate Bridge Outdoor Exhibition project. Using the title of
Public communication on health issues on the Internet is not only a matter of popularization of medical information. It deeply deals with narration, conversation and dialogue, which are typical values in the Web 2.0. This interview will emphasize that blogs, forums, wiki are new ways in which population has been reconstructing and integrating medical knowledge. These ways are re-defining medical knowledge by means of unhinging the standard medical communication practices, based on a linear diffusion of knowledge form experts to laypeople.
Climate change is a multi-faceted issue. It relies on deep scientific bases, but merges with politics, economics, ethics and culture in a complex and strongly nonlinear social debate. This interview focuses on the relationships between public communication on climate change (with emphasis on the so-called ‘new media’) and the decision making processes. It argues that more productive and sustainable forms of communication on climate change are needed due to problems related with validation of information in the Web.