This study compares newspaper articles concerning three major human embryo cloning cases initiated by the Kyung Hee University Medical Center in December 1998, the Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) in November 2001, and Hwang Woo Suk research team in February 2004. To use a semantic network analysis, 93 articles in total were collected during the first two days in each case.
The analysis shows that ‘cloning’ occupies the central position in the case of the Kyung Hee University Medical Center, while strongly networking with positive words such as ‘organ’, ‘treatment’, and ‘success’, as well as negative words such as ‘ethics’ and ‘civic organization’, which implies that civic organizations raise their voice against cloning. In the case of ACT, too, ‘cloning’ is the central word in a network diagram. Unlike the case of the Kyung Hee University Medical Center, however, the analysis of ACT case clearly indicates a sharp conflict between positive response represented by ‘treatment’ and ‘success’ and negative reports using words like ‘objection’ and ‘prohibition’. By contrast, in the Hwang Woo Suk research team case, ‘stem cell’ is the word at the center, strongly networking with positive words including ‘international’, ‘success’, and ‘treatment’, while weakly networking with negative words such as ‘objection’, ‘prohibition’, ‘civic organization’, which represents a positive image of ‘stem cell’. These results address that Korean newspapers have contributed to building a more positive frame regarding human embryo cloning for five years of reporting three major human embryo cloning cases.