Denotation and connotations of biotechnology in Korean public opinion: a semantic network approach

This thesis tests how the frames and social representations of human embryonic stem cell research in South Korea could be visualized and measured by semantic network analysis. The contents of published articles take an eclectic approach to integrate sociological, social psychological, and semiological concepts and perspectives. By combining ethnographical and sociological approaches with applied semantic network analysis, concepts usually inferred and narrated by the researcher gain more vivid and intuitive visual representation along with mathematical substantiation. The methodology especially proposes indices to measure the most salient concepts that represent denotation and connotation out of the text corpus, and the ways to categorize themes more efficiently. The study concludes that the failure to establish a sustainable public relation and deliberative atmosphere regarding human embryonic stem cell research in South Korea is mainly due to polarized framings of opinion leading newspapers, progressive side’s incompetence to present an alternative agenda to economic development and suppressed discourses of lay people who strive for more transparent and just (scientific) governance. The semantic network represents the diverging core concepts of newspapers and people’s concealed motives in supporting the disgraced Korean scientist Woo-Suk Hwang and urges readers to deliberate on the scientific issue from a different perspective.