Helena Machado

The disappearance of Madeleine McCann: Public drama and trial by media in the Portuguese press

The extraordinary media coverage regarding the disappearance of the British 3-year-old Madeleine McCann emerges as an illustrative example of a ‘public drama’ and ‘trial by media’. This article presents a comparative analysis of the perspectives and narrative devices employed by two Portuguese newspapers in establishing a dialogue with their respective audiences. High-profile mediatized criminal cases have the potential to linger in the public memory and become cultural references which may affect long-term public representations of crime and justice. Our analysis is limited to a sample of representative Portuguese newspapers. We found a basic distinction between ‘quality’ and ‘popular’ press which may be related to inherent differences of their market and implicit audiences. A distanced, neutral and reflexive style of the quality press contrasts with the construction of a sensationalistic narrative by the popular press. The latter provided the audience with a daily dose of vicarious participation in a criminal drama which developed into a trial by media, sustained by a rhetoric that encourages the audience to ‘take sides’. Sensationalist media narratives can potentially undermine the principles of fair trial and the presumption of innocence. But they can also elicit relevant collective energies directed at starting processes of change.

Popular press and forensic genetics in Portugal: Expectations and disappointments regarding two cases of missing children

Two cases of missing children in Portugal (Joana and Maddie) have recently highlighted the dilemmas and contingencies associated with the technology of “genetic fingerprinting” for forensic purposes in the context of criminal investigations. The purpose of this article is to analyze the popular press’s discourses and representations around forensic genetics in the context of those two highly mediatized criminal investigation cases. The symbolical construction and representation of forensic genetics by the media presents a form of public exposure to beliefs on forensic genetics’ characteristics and potential. These are blended with popular cultural contexts that are constructed with reference to images of a super-science which may carry consequences in the public understanding of forensic science. The media coverage of both cases and their actual disclosure resembles the patterns of a CSI effect, insofar as real science’s capabilities and limitations are placed against fictionalized representations of forensic science.

Forensic DNA databases in European countries: is size linked to performance?

The political and financial investments in the implementation of forensic DNA databases and the ethical issues related to their use and expansion justify inquiries into their performance and general utility. The main function of a forensic DNA database is to produce matches between individuals and crime scene stains, which requires a constant input of individual profiles and crime scene stains. This is conditioned, among other factors, by the legislation, namely the criteria for inclusion of profiles and the periods of time and conditions for their retention and/or deletion. This article aims to provide an overview of the different legislative models for DNA databasing in Europe and ponder if wider inclusion criteria – and, consequently, database size – translates into more matches between profiles of crime scene stains and included individuals (performance ratio). The legislation governing forensic DNA databases in 22 countries in the European Union was analysed in order to propose a typology of two major groups of legislative criteria for inclusion/retention of profiles that can be classified as having either expansive effects or restrictive effects. We argue that expansive criteria for inclusion and retention of profiles do not necessarily translate into significant gains in output performance.

Uncertainty, risks and ethics in unsuccessful in vitro fertilisation treatment cycles

In this article we explore the results of interviewing Portuguese couples involved in unsuccessful in vitro fertilisation (IVF) programmes. We argue that the references to uncertainties and risks of IVF procedures and their implications in the mobilisation and in the actions of different social and/or professional groups should be central topics in the debates of biomedicine and bioethics in a broader sense and in local ethics of clinical research and doctor–patient relationships. These debates should incorporated the experiences of women and men who try to have a biological child by using these techniques and produce reflection about the social, cultural, technical and medical changes that will be necessary so that these technologies are increasingly successful. The medical recognition of uncertainties, risks and complications can be an important element underlying a patient-friendly medicine, because it could minimise the feeling that many patients might have, especially women, that they are to blame.

Mothering From Prison and Ideologies of Intensive Parenting Enacting Vulnerable Resistance

“Intensive parenting” ideologies have been increasingly disseminated in popular culture, expert discourses, and social policy. These have impacted particularly mothers owing to their actual or presumed central role in child rearing. One of the main features of these ideologies is an increasing apportioning of rights and responsibilities to families without taking into account the resources needed to sustain the work of caring according to dominant social expectations. Drawing on 20 interviews in a Portuguese female prison, this article explores how mothering is enacted by underprivileged and criminalized women. Data show a complex web of tensions between the norms implicit in “intensive parenting” ideologies and the actual practices, which imprisoned mothers can accomplish. In their mothering from prison, women enact vulnerable resistance to the penal policies that undermine their primary role in child rearing. That is, prisoners creatively negotiate a space within which they can define themselves as “good mothers.”

Prisoners' views of CSI's portrayal of forensic identification technologies: a grounded assessment

Drawing on interviews with prison inmates in Portugal, the aim of this paper is to contribute towards a more practical approach and greater sensitivity to the situatedness of the so-called CSI effect by examining the heterogeneous elements involved in the construction of meanings for forensic science and technology. It discusses the ways in which this particular groups representations of forensic genetics reveal forms of exposure to, but also distancing from, the cultural images circulated by the media. The results indicate that, given that they are in an advantageous position for acquiring knowledge of these issues, this group is relatively skeptical of fictionalized portrayals of DNA technology as infallible and as the most powerful tool that can be used to solve crime. Prison inmates construct a grounded assessment of forensic technologies that derives from the position they occupy in the real world of crime and criminal investigation.

Informed consent in forensic DNA databases: volunteering, constructions of risk and identity categorization

In this article we aim to expand the traditional ethical issues related to the use and storage of genetic information in forensic DNA databases by exploring the Portuguese practices of informed consent in the context of DNA sample collection for forensic processing. This article focuses on three interrelated domains: the practice of volunteering to contribute to the Portuguese forensic DNA database; the portfolio of risks presented to DNA donors; and the ethical implications of requesting donors’ ethnic group among their personal data. We argue that the Portuguese forensic DNA database is an interesting case study to re-focus the ethical debate on the implications of collecting genetic information, elucidating how this activity reconfigures interpersonal relations and social hierarchy, the power of legal medicine and criminal justice, and the social construction of personal autonomy, privacy and individual rights. The practices of informed consent need to incorporate answers to risks and uncertainties posed by collecting DNA samples and DNA profiling in forensic genetic databases.

Feedback of Individual Genetic Results to Research Participants: Is It Feasible in Europe?

Background: There is growing consensus that individual genetic research results that are scientifically robust, analytically valid, and clinically actionable should be offered to research participants. However, the general practice in European research projects is that results are usually not provided to research participants for many reasons. This article reports on the views of European experts and scholars who are members of the European COST Action CHIP ME IS1303 (Citizens Health through public-private Initiatives: Public health, Market and Ethical perspectives) regarding challenges to the feedback of individual genetic results to research participants in Europe and potential strategies to address these challenges. Materials and Methods: A consultation of the COST Action members was conducted through an email survey and a workshop. The results from the consultation were analyzed following a conventional content analysis approach. Results: Legal frameworks, professional guidelines, and financial, organizational, and human resources to support the feedback of results are largely missing in Europe. Necessary steps to facilitate the feedback process include clarifying legal requirements to the feedback of results, developing harmonized European best practices, promoting interdisciplinary and cross-institutional collaboration, designing educational programs and cost-efficient IT-based platforms, involving research ethics committees, and documenting the health benefits and risks of the feedback process. Conclusions: Coordinated efforts at pan-European level are needed to enable equitable, scientifically sound, and socially robust feedback of results to research participants.

Public participation in genetic databases: crossing the boundaries between biobanks and forensic DNA databases through the principle of solidarity

The ethical aspects of biobanks and forensic DNA databases are often treated as separate issues. As a reflection of this, public participation, or the involvement of citizens in genetic databases, has been approached differently in the fields of forensics and medicine. This paper aims to cross the boundaries between medicine and forensics by exploring the flows between the ethical issues presented in the two domains and the subsequent conceptualisation of public trust and legitimisation. We propose to introduce the concept of ‘solidarity’, traditionally applied only to medical and research biobanks, into a consideration of public engagement in medicine and forensics. Inclusion of a solidarity-based framework, in both medical biobanks and forensic DNA databases, raises new questions that should be included in the ethical debate, in relation to both health services/medical research and activities associated with the criminal justice system.

Voluntary Participation in Forensic DNA Databases Altruism, Resistance, and Stigma

The public’s understanding of forensic DNA databases remains undertheorized and few empirical studies have been produced. This article aims to address this omission by exploring the answers to an open-ended question taken from an online questionnaire regarding the reasons for individuals’ voluntarily accepting or refusing to allow their DNA profile to be included in the Portuguese forensic DNA database. The analysis is undertaken from the perspective of biological citizenship and the simultaneous empowering and disempowering effects of surveillance. The results indicate a pragmatic ethical framework that is linked to the cultural and emotional elements of altruism, resistance, stigma, and social representations of what is beneficial or harmful to the individual and to society. These subjectivities are anchored in commonplace images and metaphors for genetics, DNA, and forensic science that circulate in the messages transmitted by the media which pervade everyday life; hierarchies of trust in science and the justice system; and moral categories associated with the individual self-judgment in relation to crime, surveillance, and social order.