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Abstract
The article introduces the preliminary results of an ongoing research project aiming to explore how the promises of NBIC to improve and cure the human mind and body are portrayed and what themes and actors the coverage makes salient in the public discourse. Focusing on the Italian daily press in the period 2002–2006, news stories about the two application areas of converging technologies related to brain enhancement and human–machine interfaces are examined here. Preliminary findings show an overwhelmingly positive coverage and a hegemonic position of natural and life scientists and medical doctors in the media discourse on converging technologies.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Gabriela Häbich, Lecturer in Mass Communication at the Faculty of Communication of the University of Rome La Sapienza, Andrea Lorenzet, researcher at the Interdepartmental Centre for Environmental Law Decisions and Corporate Ethical Certification of the University of Padua, and an anonymous reviewer for their comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this article. Furthermore, the author wishes to gratefully acknowledge the supportive and valuable remarks by the participants to the workshop “Converging Science and Technologies: Research Trajectories and Institutional Settings” (Vienna, 14–15 May 2007).