Abstract

We deal with the relationship between health researchers and the lay diffusion of their biotechnological findings. Our goal is to emphasize the importance of studying how health journalists and health professionals, focused in the idea of genetic risk, build up categories and channel information in such a way that eventually collaborate, inadvertently with misunderstandings, the enhancement of prejudice and, according to the case, the possibility of disproportionate alarm reactions. It is relevant to take into account the sociocultural context whereby occur relationships between the generation of genetic knowledge, the ways and processes of diffusion and the corresponding forms of appropriation by different social groups. Our analytical standpoint consists of dealing both with the apparatus of technoscientific production as well as mass media that broadcast health issues to the public as an important part of society and culture dynamics’; and, therefore, prone to conflicts of interests and socioeconomical constraints.