Politicized Public Values: Mapping Value Convergence between the
US Stem Cell Research and Abortion Popular Debates
Alecia Rae Radatz, M.A.
Research and Evaluation Specialist
Center for Applied Behavioral Health Policy
Arizona State University
(602) 496-1345
alecia.radatz@asu.edu
Erik Fisher, Ph.D.
Assistant Director of International Activities
Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes
School of Government, Politics and Global Studies and CSPO
Arizona State University
(480) 965-9744
efisher1@asu.edu
Politicized Public Values: Mapping Value Convergence between the US Stem Cell
Research and Abortion Popular Debates
Alecia Radatz and Erik Fisher Arizona State University
Introduction
The ability to accurately and comprehensively discern public values in a given science policy
arena is crucial not only for designing programs and evaluating their outcomes, but also for
assessing program capacities to achieve their stipulated non-economic public values (Bozeman
& Sarewitz 2011). Public Value Mapping (PVM) is a maturing research program that aims to
provide sure footing for each of these pragmatic yet potentially controversial objectives. The
PVM program has to date developed a theoretical framework (Bozeman 2002, 2007; Bozeman &
Sarewitz 2005), qualitative research methods, and a range of case studies that include several
areas of science policy (e.g., Feeney & Bozeman 2007, Maricle 2011, Meyer 2011). It has also
recently begun to supplement the case study approach with more quantitative methods for
eliciting and analyzing a broad range of values across numerous stakeholders and extended time
frames (Fisher et al. 2010).
This paper continues to develop this approach by investigating its applicability to public science
policy debates as they play out in mainstream news media, across diverse stakeholders and
multiple interrelated policy arenas. It uses electronic content analysis to investigate underlying
value structures in the stem cell research debate, and in the co-occurring abortion debate, as
expressed in popular US newspaper articles during the administrations of W.J. Clinton and G.W.
Bush. Accordingly, we examine over 3000 popular news media articles across well over a
decade of debates in the United States about abortion and stem cell research in order to discern
underlying value structures that are hypothesized to cut across both of these politicized and
interacting policy arenas. In testing the applicability of quantitative PVM approaches both within
and across wide-ranging and fluctuating popular discourses, we also test the scholarly claim that
the abortion and stem cell policy arenas were inter-related.
Quantitative PVM
PVM methods have recently begun to expand, supplementing the case study approach with
larger data sets and quantitative approaches. Fisher et al. (2010) analyzed over 1000 documents
drawn from eight years of US nanotechnology (NANO) policy research and development (R&D)
authorization, allocation and implementation efforts. They hypothesized that “the content of
these…documents will reveal diverse public values, ordered in ways across the three levels of
stakeholder subgroups that will be interpretable and theoretically meaningful” (ibid.). After
extracting 84 search terms from the source material, they performed content analysis and
principle component factor analysis of NANO-relevant congressional reports, National Science
Foundation research allocations, and the abstracts of NSF-funded laboratory research projects.
They found conceptually coherent and policy relevant “underlying value structures” that cut
across these various stakeholder groups from 2000 to 2008. Specifically, they found that “public
value articulations cluster into three major structures, each of which contain dual subclusters:
Society and Economy, Security and Defense, and Energy and Environment” (Fisher et al. 2010).
For instance, Security and Defense emerged as a factor structure that was comprised of the
significantly co-referenced value terms “defense,” “military,” “DOD,” “weapon,” “armed
forces,” and “soldier.” They conclude that the approach
yields interpretable and theoretically meaningful value structures that emerge from a
diverse set of documents produced across a multi-level network of research policy
subgroups. It thus offers a basis for credible and potentially robust public value mapping
of science and innovation policy. Three underlying factors reflect distinctive value
themes that are evident elsewhere in related science policy discourse and that are found
through alternative scholarly methods. This provides confirmatory evidence of the
centrality of the emergent value structures (Fisher et al. 2010).
This expanded analytic capacity allows the PVM research community to take into account a
greater variety of policy actors and stakeholders. This has practical applications for policy
makers and public administrators since underlying value structures can be used as credible
baselines for policy planning, implementation and evaluation. Thus, it is desirable to continue to
develop and refine the approach, in part to clarify the capacities and limitations of more
quantitative approaches to public value domains. This budding analytical capacity also raises
questions about how it is to approach a number of topics connected to the broad-based elicitation
of public values. These topics include the breadth of stakeholder diversity and data sources that
can be made sense of analytically. For instance, can popular debates—which are arguably less
reliable sources for public values (Bozeman & Sarewitz 2011)—nevertheless produce stable and
informative value discourses? Or is quantitative PVM only able to discover centrally important
value structures from official policy documents and discourses? And given that popular debates
may involve value conflicts, can PVM elicit clear and credible intelligence from sources rife with
conflicting values and value attributions?
Research Design
In an attempt to further probe and develop the scholarly and practical utility of mapping public
values over time across a range of stakeholders, we explore two general questions: (1) How well
does the general approach transfer into wider domains (stakeholders, data sources, policy issue
arenas), and (2) What can it reveal about the compositional nature of the underlying structures?
To address the question of transferability, we explore the scope of applicability of quantitative
PVM (qPVM) with respect to two dimensions: (1a) a wider diversity of stakeholder groups as
represented in the popular press; and (1b) a multiplicity of issue areas, specifically abortion
(ABORTION) and stem cell research (STEM). To address the question of composition, we
explore qPVM’s ability to identify (2a) expected conflicts among values, due to polarized
political debates; and (2b) expected fluctuations in value expressions over time, presumably in
relation to political events.
Transferability of the approach
Fisher et al. (2010) demonstrate the feasibility of identifying underlying value structures
common to multiple stakeholder groups in the policy process—Congress, the National Science
Foundation, and federally funded laboratories—within nanotechnology research (NANO).
Despite obvious organizational and cultural differences, these groups nevertheless share
relatively stable institutional boundaries and take part in regularized informational flows. Can
qPVM discern underlying value structures from sources that presumably cut across even more
institutionally and culturally diverse stakeholder groups—such as might eventually be drawn
from civil society, state and local government, or even the private sector?
To investigate this question, we choose an entirely different data source whose content is thought
to be more representative of diverse stakeholder discourses and more responsive to short term
events: mainstream news media outlets. We examine popular news media sources in order to
determine whether any emergent factor groups that are discernable also appear to correspond to
meaningful underlying value structures as they do in NANO. The two separate policy arenas of
ABORTION and STEM provide a means of testing the qPVM approach and our use of it for
consistency, since we expect it to produce similar results in distinct issue areas. Specifically, we
expect that, despite the differences in data sources, we will nevertheless find diverse factors or
“factor groups” to emerge from within the separate policy arenas of ABORTION and STEM
discussions. More importantly, we expect that the factor groups that do emerge are also
conceptually coherent and relevant enough so as to constitute “underlying value structures” that
credibly describe the policy discourse in question (see Hypothesis 1).1
Convergence and Composition of Value Structures
We are also interested in what quantitative approaches to PVM can reveal about the meaning,
reliability and composition of the underlying structures that we expect to find. What does qPVM
capture and how can we better understand it? What might it fail to capture? Specifically, does it
reveal anything about the complex, even conflicting relationships among public values that
might exist within public policy deliberations?
To investigate these questions, we determine whether discernable value structures can be
identified not only within, but also across, the two policy arenas ABORTION and STEM that the
scholarly literature claims to be interlinked. If they are interlinked because they involve or have
come to involve similar value conflicts and political polarizations (as we show in the next
section), we expect to find evidence of this in the form of convergence between ABORTION and
STEM factor groups (see Hypothesis 2).
We also investigate the potential convergence of ABORTION and STEM values over time, and
in the process we explore the general composition of value structures over time. Do the
components of the convergent value structures fluctuate over time in similar ways? Are the most
prominent value terms also consistently prominent over time? We generate longitudinal “value
maps” to look for convergence over time between ABORTION and STEM factor groups (see
Hypothesis 3).
Case Study
Stem cell research represents a science policy that can be said to have entered the public sphere,
in that it has been exposed to conflicting stakeholder values, and undergone policy cycle
1
We are aware that core public values are more durable than individual preferences and popular
opinions, which can shift with events. Still, we are interested in to what extent more popular
sources of discourse relate to public values, both in content and in structure.
changing events as a result. Indeed, Fischbach (2004) notes the importance of this dynamic
policy by claiming, “Few subjects in biomedical science have captured the imagination of both
the scientific community as has the use of stem cells for the repair of damaged tissues”
(Fischbach 2004, 1364). The purpose of this research is to identify and explore the public values
associated by the mass media with stem cell research and abortion to understand this interest.
Our hypotheses articulate potentially valuable areas for knowledge expansion within the stem
cell research policy arena and public value mapping methodology. Our literature review and
pilot study identified that the history of stem cell research is contentious and divisive, while
finding evidence for diverse, coherent values.
Background
The history of stem cell research reveals a consistently active policy arena since the 1970s when
embryos became available for experimentation in the United States. In 1975, an Ethics Advisory
Board (EAB) was needed for approval for human embryo research federal funding. The EAB
charter expired in 1980, but the law was never repealed that required EAB support for federal
funding approval for human embryo research. The Republican Party was pervasive in the 1980’s
political scene, and “by linking abortion with stem cell research, the anti-abortion lobby
successfully placed a twenty-year moratorium on the use of federal funds for stem cell research”
(Belew 2004, 506). By the 1990’s, political attention turned toward stem cell research and the
policy landscape went into in constant fluctuation.
President Clinton’s terms of office saw a variety of political decisions. In 1993, Congress passed
the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act under President Clinton’s stewardship. This
act abolished the Ethical Advisory Board approval requirement for human embryo research,
ending the twenty-year moratorium on federal funding for stem cell research. In 1995, President
Clinton signed into law the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, which prohibited the Department of
Health and Human Services from using federal funds to support certain kinds of embryonic
research. This amendment to the National Institute of Health stated, "...none of the funds
appropriated shall be used to support any activity involving: 1) the creation of a human embryo
or embryos for research purposes; or 2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are
destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed
for research on fetuses in utero under 45 C.F.R 46.208(a)(2) and section 498(b) of the Public
Health Service Act (42 USC 289g(b)" (Korobkin 2006, 3). President Clinton created the
National Bioethics Advisory Committee (NBAC) in 1996. NBAC examined topics involving
human subjects and human stem cell research. In 1999, NBAC recommended that research
involving the derivation and use of residual cells from human embryos from infertility treatment
should be eligible for federal funding. With President Clinton’s support, NIH accepted proposals
for research involving human embryonic stem cells, as long as the federal funding did not
involve the actual derivation of embryos into stem cell lines. Existing stem cell lines could be
used and the federal funding could go to the research involving these lines (Belew 2004; Dolgin
2004; Korobkin 2006; Snead 2005).
By the early 2000’s, the debate on stem cell research shifted to discussion on the use of existing
stem cell lines and the destruction of human embryos. In 2001, President Bush brought stem cell
research to the forefront of the nation’s policy agenda and media agenda (Brossard, Kroepsch, &
Nisbet 2003). In 2001, President Bush allowed federal funds to be used for research on existing
human embryonic stem cells, as long as the stem cell lines met the conditions of being derived
before August 9th, 2001 and that they were created for reproduction, but were no longer viable.
Both pro-life supporters and pro-stem cell research supporters met this with criticism. The
decision restricted federal funding for stem cell research through limiting resources, but also
condoned embryonic stem cell research by allowing the research. President Bush also signed the
Fetus Farming Prohibition Act, outlawing the trafficking of human fetuses with the intention of
aborting them for their parts, and vetoed a bill that would allow federal funding for the
destruction of human embryos. President Bush proposed a bill that would give additional funding
for stem cell research, with the condition that the stem cells not be embryonic. Shortly into
President Obama’s term of office, the restriction on existing stem cell federal funding was
removed to include newer stem cell lines already created; however, with the Dickey-Wicker
Amendment still in place, new stem cell lines could not be created with federal funds (Belew
2004; Snead 2005).
The history of stem cell research reveals its association with a variety of values besides
traditional science and research values. A 2001 Pew Research Center Poll indicated that 32% of
the public felt that preserving the potential life of embryos should take priority in stem cell
research policy decisions and another 56% of the respondents were in favor of stem cell research
to help with health-related cures (Okie 2006). In that same year, President George W. Bush
invoked a similar assortment of values when remarking on why he vetoed his first bill, “This bill
would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for
others” (Okie 2006). Science policy, as it seems to do in the case of stem cell research, can
situate itself in a host of moral, fiscal, medical, and other personal values.
Stem cell research transformed amongst other political discussions. What makes the topic of
stem cell research so intriguing is that there is an entire body of knowledge that is interested in
the relationship between stem cell research and abortion, as evidence by Hinkley (2011), Belew
(2004), Davis (2002), and Janosky (2002). Some articles have more defined stances.
After examining 30 years of US history, Wertz (2002) claims, “Stem cell research in the United
States is inevitably connected with the politics of abortion” (Wertz 2002, 674). In 1973, Roe v.
Wade’s Supreme Court decision ruled that abortion is a private matter. Wertz (2002) recounts
the anti-abortion backlash, which spread to oppose embryonic research. With this anti-abortion
outcry, a temporary moratorium was placed on stem cell research. The moratorium was
continued because the Department of Health and Human Services ruled in favor of the three (out
of eighteen members) on the Human Fetal Tissue Transplantation Research Panel that claimed
embryonic research would increase abortions (Wertz 2002). Other notable abortion policies do
not directly relate to stem cell research. In 1992, the Supreme Court ruled that states are allowed
to enact laws about pre-abortion counseling, waiting periods, and other pre-abortion
requirements, as long as such laws do not place an undue burden on women. President Bush
signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Act of 2003, and stated that partial-birth abortion “is widely
regarded within the medical profession as unnecessary, not only cruel to the child, but harmful to
the mother, and a violation of medical ethics” (Blomquist). Although not all abortion policy is
directly related to stem cell research, similar stakeholders may invoke similar values across
policy arenas.
Stem cell research and abortion historically activated similar political interests (Wertz
2002; Nisbet, Brossard, Kroepsch 2003; Nisbet 2005). These two policy arenas also seemed to
invoke, “common themes from previous political controversies over abortion and fetal
transplantation, with many of the same political interests again doing battle across a political
minefield” (Brossard, Kroepsch, & Nisbet 2003, 45). Dolgin (2004) and Janosky (2002) cite
common political themes across abortion and stem cell research, and Belew (2003), Nisbet
(2003) and Sneed (2005) note that a variety of stem cell themes, such as morality, become
apparent in President George W. Bush’s terms of office.
Stem cell research appears to represent one way in which science policy can be politicized and
reinterpreted through the course of its policy cycle. Brossard, Kroepsch, and Nisbet (2003) find
that the “the timing of the stem cell controversy coincided with President Bush’s first six months
of office, setting the stage for familiar themes revolving around the implementation of campaign
promises to influential supporters, anticipation of the president’s first big political test in office,
and the president grappling with moral dilemmas that accompany the burden of power”
(Brossard, Kroepsch, & Nisbet 2003, 43). Based on our literature review, abortion and stem cell
research were hypothesized to have converging values, both internally and longitudinally.
Pilot Study
We conducted a pilot factor analysis study using 598 newspaper articles, across two policy
arenas and two time periods. One hundred and fifty articles were sampled on STEM and
ABORTION for President W.J. Clinton and President G.W. Bush’s terms of office from major
US publications. Two readers examined more than one hundred articles, and 52 value terms were
extracted during this process. The entire sample was coded for these values and an exploratory
factor analysis was conducted for factor groups. Separate factor groups were identified for
ABORTION and for STEM representing the terms of office of President Bill Clinton and
President George W. Bush. Results indicated similar value structures across all four divisions
(Clinton/STEM, Clinton/ABORTION, Bush/STEM, Bush/ABORTION). For STEM, articles
within President Clinton’s term had factors that describe life/morality and society/economy;
articles within President G. W. Bush’s term had factors that described science, society/economy,
medical advancement, safety, and life. For ABORTION, articles within President Clinton’s term
had factors, which included society/safety, ethics/morality, society/institutions, business, funding,
and research. Articles from the Bush timeframe generated abortion factor groups that described
the economy, medical advancement, society, life/morality, and laws. Results revealed value
structures with internal sub-structures. We surmised that these terms could represent a combined,
relatively coherent narrative made up of conflicting values. The pilot study confirmed intuitions
that ABORTION and STEM have similar value structures, but also demanded more rigorous
methods to generate and interpret the statistical outputs. The methodology was significantly
expanded—leading to the creation of a dataset consisting of over 3000 documents—both to
better understand these initial statistical outputs and to explore the capacity of quantitative public
value mapping.
Methodology
We collected a total of 3520 popular news articles spanning a 16-year period of analysis. Sources
were extracted from LexisNexis Academic newspaper database, using the newspaper category
“US Publications.” Articles in this category represented newspapers, newsletters, and magazine
articles that reported on stories that originated in the US 60% of the time. A search query was
conducted for each year between 01/20/1993 and 01/19/2009. To construct a longitudinal
dataset, sixteen different search queries (one for each year) were conducted to find articles with
the term ‘stem cell’ in body of the article. An additional sixteen search queries were conducted
with the search term ‘abortion.’ Articles were not included if they were not specific to US policy,
were not written in the US, or appeared to be a duplicate file. For each search query, the 110
‘most relevant2’ articles were saved for analysis. Ten random articles from each year and
category were removed from the sample and used to identify value terms. When broken down,
the search process generated 320 articles for value term identification, and 3200 articles for a
statistical value analysis.
Over three hundred articles were used to identify value terms. Each of the randomly selected
articles was visually inspected by a coder for value-laden statements. Value terms were extracted
from each statement. A word qualified as a value term if it met two criteria: it was conceptually
relevant to at least one of the ABORTION and STEM discussions, and it was discussed by the
source in a way that indicated that it was a term that was assigned worth rather than being merely
a descriptive term. One hundred and five (105) value terms were identified and used for
statistical analysis (Appendix A, Table 1).
The remaining 3200 articles were analyzed using NVivo coding software. Each value term was
uploaded into the system, and initial search queries were run to identify the number of times each
value term was mentioned in each article. Search queries were set to identify both the original
term and stem words derived from each term3. After each value term query, articles were
checked for proper value identification and consistency. Any improper value identifications were
removed from the dataset. The dataset was then simplified to make the article the unit of
analysis, with each article coded for each value term as either a “0” for no occurrence of the
value term or a “1” for occurrence of the value term.
After constructing the dataset, the data were analyzed in three waves through SPSS statistical
software. The data were first explored by tracking the aggregate number of articles of each value
term across the entire the dataset. For each value term, ABORTION and STEM aggregate values
were plotted against one another to identify any value statement convergence.
A factor analysis was conducted to identify any emergent value structures within the
ABORTION and the STEM discussions, respectively, across each article. Inspired by Fisher et
al. (2010), the factor analysis was used to engage in data reduction, understand latent or
underlying themes, and quantitatively examine the prevalence and composition of public value
discourse.
2
“Most Relevant” is a LexisNexis search function selected to ensure that the articles saved were
focused on stem cell research or abortion.
3 For instance, both “fair” and “fairness” would be included in the search. An exploratory factor analysis highlighted a number of factor groups for consideration. Several
checks were done to identify factorability of the dataset, which included analyzing the anti-image
correlation matrix diagonals and measures of sampling adequacy (Kaiser-Myer-Olkin and
Bartlett’s test of sphericity). Any terms that did not meet the factorability checks and did not
have a communality extraction above 0.4 were removed from the sample. The exploratory factor
analysis was conducted again with the removed terms. A varimax rotation with a Kaiser
normalization was also applied to the analysis to maximize the sum of variance for the squared
loadings to create economical factor structures that could explain possible latent concepts (Fisher
et al. 2010; Bentler and Leeuw 2011; Schneeweiss and Mathes 1995).
The results of an exploratory factor analysis should identify any value terms that have a tendency
to coexist in each article, generating a “factor group.” A factor group was excluded for
consideration if it did not meet two criteria: it must have more than one term loading at 0.4 or
higher, and it must have an eigenvalue greater than 1.0. All groups that met these two criteria
were included in this analysis to identify the amount of variance explained and to investigate the
internal composition of each factor group, especially where a factor group seemed to lack an
intuitively obvious conceptual basis that might be indicative of value conflict.
Value maps were generated to further explore the meaning and reliability of the factor analyses.
For our methodology, we use 16-year longitudinal value maps to explain and make sense of
value structures. For these maps, all the value terms that had been retained in a factor group were
graphically and longitudinally analyzed. Each graph contained the value terms extracted for the
value structure and displayed aggregate data on the amount of articles referencing the key term
each year. These value terms were longitudinally graphed for the 16-year time frame. When
plotting the individual value terms of the factor groups internally against one another, we
identified possible trends or areas of potential political interest.
Results
Our research sought out examine three hypotheses: Value structures will emerge within each of
the separate abortion and stem cell research policy arenas; value structures will converge
between the abortion and stem cell research policy arenas; and converging value structure
components will fluctuate over time in similar ways. Confirmation of the hypotheses varied, but
demonstrated a need for qPVM. The methodology provided findings that supported the ability to
identify coherent value structures, identification of convergent values across policy arenas, and
the ability to map values longitudinally.
Value Structures
The exploratory factor analyses identified a relatively large number of factors or “factor groups”
for ABORTION (19) and for STEM (15). Most importantly, most (if not all) of these are found
to be both conceptually coherent and relevant to the policy arena in question. Thus, we
determined them to be indicative of underlying value structures within the separate ABORTION
and STEM popular discourses, supporting H1. The nineteen (19) ABORTION factor groups
explain 47.5% of the variance of value terms in ABORTION documents; and the fifteen (15)
STEM factor groups identified account for 32.3% of variance in STEM documents (Table 1).
Sixty-two (62) unique value terms were identified in the value structures, with over thirty (30)
value terms registering on value structures in both policy arenas.
Table 1
ABORTION and STEM Factor Groups
ABORTION
1.
STEM
1.
Business, Product, Market, Security, Investment
2.
Competence, Economy, Trust, Investment,
Product, Leadership
Roe v. Wade, Decisiveness, Justice
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
Training, Education
Partnership, Flexibility, Contribution
Fund, Support, Restriction
Challenge, Judge
Moral, Ethics, Respect
Baby, Mother
Doctor, Fetus
Safety, Regulation
Change, Traditionalism, Exploration
Government, Control
Perfection, Accomplishment
Understanding, Spirituality
Health, Professionalism
Market, Independence
Science, Responsibility
Father, Family, Accountability
Usefulness, Determination.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
Fund, Ethics, Moral, Support, Government,
Restriction
Mother, Father, Baby, Family, Doctor
Professionalism, Education
Safety, Effectiveness
Knowledge, Understanding
Economy, Reputation, Justice
Control, Change, Acceptance
Judge, Decisiveness
Rationality, Accountability, Independence
Success, Uniqueness
Accomplishment, Reliability
Training, Faith
Spirituality, Fairness
Dignity, Flexibility
Factor groups were determined to have conceptual coherence if all terms in the group contributed
to an articulable theme; they were determined to have relevance if this theme in turn invoked
identifiable themes from the policy arena discourse in question. While we found most if not all
of the groups fit these two criteria, we here only focus on a subset of ten (10) that did so, for
reasons that will be clear in the next section when we claim that this same subset confirms our
second hypothesis. The ten factor groups that fulfilled the two criteria (conceptual coherence and
policy relevance) were determined to constitute “underlying value structures.” Six (6) were
found in ABORTION and four (4) in STEM. For example, ABORTION Factor 1, which we
termed Investment, contains terms that all conceptually relate to the professional, commercial, or
parental viability and utility of abortion service and product providers; separate searches in
“Google News” confirmed that these three forms of investment are present and often linked
together in mainstream news stories about abortion. STEM Factor 2, which we termed
Governance + Ethics, includes the value terms “fund,” “ethics,” “moral,” “support,”
“restriction,” and “government” (Table 1). Each of these terms conceptually relates to the
governance of stem cell research, whether it is to fund or restrict that research, or they relate to
the moral and ethical basis for such governance. Clearly this conceptual theme relates closely to
that of “Ethical Governance of Stem Cell Research,” which is central to the discussions in the
stem cell policy arena.
Value Structure Convergence
While no underlying value structures were absolutely identical in the abortion and stem cell
research media discourses, the six ABORTION value structures are noticeably similar to the four
STEM value structures, both because of their general conceptual integrity and because they share
2-3 identical value terms. Additionally, we find four factor “subclusters” in STEM that also
exhibit the “underlying value structure” criteria.4 Counting each subcluster separately, we
identify a total of six (6) coherent and relevant underlying value structures that are common to
both ABORTION and STEM policy arenas, supporting H2. The six structures are termed
Investment, Justice, Governance, Ethics, Maternity and Paternity. In ABORTION, each of these
six structures appears as its own factor group. In STEM, two are combined into slightly more
complex factor groups (Governance + Ethics; Maternity +Paternity)(Table 2).
Table 2
Identified Value Structures Across ABORTION and STEM Documents
VALUE STRUCTURES
ABORTION
STEM
Investment
Competence, Economy, Trust, Investment,
Product, Leadership
Business, Product, Market,
Security, Investment
Justice
Roe v. Wade, Decisiveness, Justice
Judge, Decisiveness
Governance & Ethics
Fund, Ethics, Moral, Support,
Government, Restriction
Governance
Fund, Support, Restriction
Ethics
Moral, Respect, Ethics
Maternity & Paternity
Mother, Father, Baby, Family,
Doctor
Maternity
Baby, Mother
Paternity
Father, Family, Accountability
Value Structure Convergence over Time
By plotting the aggregate number of sources for each year and for each value term within the six
convergent underlying value structures, a visual “value map” is created that demonstrates how
the value discussion pertaining to a given factor group changes over time. Of the six convergent
value structures between ABORTION and STEM arenas, we found minimal concrete visual
evidence that their value term components fluctuated in similar ways. This finding does not
support H3, since we find inconsistent fluctuations across policy arenas.
4
The four are: Governance and Ethics (subclusters of Governance + Ethics), and Maternity and
Paternity (subclusters of Maternity+Paternity). Note that Fisher et al. (2010) found subclusters
within all of their factors.
Discussion
Using a quantitative PVM similar approach to that pioneered by Fisher et al. (2010), we sought
to determine whether we could identify value structures within popular discourses in the
ABORTION and STEM policy arenas. Next, we sought to determine whether we could identify
value structure convergence between popular discourses in the ABORTION and STEM policy
arenas. Finally, plotting the results over time, we sought to determine whether we could identify
convergence over time between the popular discourses in ABORTION and STEM arenas.
Value Structures
We found coherent and relevant factor groups, determined to qualify as underlying value
structures, within each of the ABORTION and STEM value discourses, as we had expected.
However, compared to Fisher et al. (2010), which identified three factors or factor groups for
NANO, we found considerably more factor groups. This could be attributed to the informal
source type of newspaper documents, our methodological process, or the nature of the policy
arena STEM and ABORTION. The NANO factor groups also generally contained more value
terms than the factor groups we found in ABORTION and STEM; indeed, thirteen of the factor
groups in ABORTION and nine factor groups in STEM had fewer than three value terms in the
factor group.
Source type may influence values terms and factor groups. These documents were taken from a
random sample of all US newspaper, newsletter, and magazine publications and are likely to
represent coherent and refined, albeit diverging stakeholder goals. This media analysis utilizes a
variety of sources across time that may be influenced by transitory events or overall national
mood shifts. Understanding that reporting events is at least a portion of media’s role, having 19
value structures over 16 years that explain less than 50% of the variance is plausible. The
ABORTION and STEM policy arenas may also appeal to a variety of values and employ diverse
narratives from a variety of stakeholders and political interests, regardless of source type.
We investigate Hypothesis 2 in order to confirm the scholarly claim that ABORTION and STEM
politics were interrelated, and our results confirm this claim. The emergent value structures,
while conceptually coherent, were nevertheless found to contain internally conflicting values
(Appendix B). This can be explained in differing ways. For instance, STEM value structure
Governance + Ethics (Factor 2 in Table 1) contains both the terms “support” and “restriction.”
While these two terms are both in the overall conceptual domain of research policy and
governance, they suggest opposing governance objectives. This is, as we would expect, from a
polarized political debate about how and whether or not to fund embryonic stem cell research.
We believe that these conflicting values within coherent value structures are indicative of the
way in which media sources are composed: they describe events and attempt to discuss
conflicting viewpoints (Shah, Lee, & McLeod 2008).
In polarized political debates, we expect to find evidence of conflicting values; yet in qPVM, we
also expect to find value coherent structures. How should we think about the tension between
conflict and convergence? We tentatively conceptualize news media structurally coherent
handling of value conflicts in terms of “value frames.” A frame is “a particular logic or
organizing principle with which a given policy conflict is described in media reports, suggesting
particular themes, interpretations, and terms by which such conflict should be understood”
(Shah, Lee, and McLeod 2008, 696). In that we find evidence for both coherence and conflict,
we suggest that media stories speak to multiple and polarized groups, and that the stories attempt
to construct coherent narratives that nonetheless contain differing viewpoints and hence,
oftentimes, conflicting terms.
Value Structure Convergence
As we expected based on the STEM literature and our pilot study, we found that some of the
conceptually consistent and relevant value structures that were identified using factor analysis
also converge. This is not surprising in that that the two policy arenas were perceived as
interconnected. Specifically, we found evidence of this interconnectness in the convergence of
six underlying value structures: Investment, Justice, Governance, Ethics, Maternity, and
Paternity. These converging structures are unevenly distributed across the formal factor groups.
Fisher et al. (2010) found subclusters within factor groups. We find this in two ABORTION
cases of Governance and Ethics and Maternity and Paternity, but we also found that these
STEM counterparts to these two value substructures each comprise its own individual factor.
These convergences may suggest that similar stakeholders or interests may be involved in these
policy arenas. These values may also suggest that general public values are consistently
referenced in popular news media. To understand these value structures, a longitudinal value
map must be created to understand if these values respond in similar and consistent ways over
time.
Value Structure Convergence over Time
We did not find clear patterns in the frequency distribution of the components of those structures
to. In other words, although ABORTION and STEM may organize their value structures in
similar ways, they may not be invoked or responded to similarly.
Although longitudinal value map findings do not support H3, since we find inconsistent
fluctuations across policy arenas, several observations are potentially of interest. These
“longitudinal value maps” demonstrate substantial variation over time in the frequency of
grouped value terms for each policy arena (Appendix C). These value structure plots demonstrate
interesting temporal findings, especially in the STEM media discourse. In the STEM Investment
factor, there is a steady decline in the factor group until its value terms reached a low in 2001.
There was a steady rise again in 2001, with a particular increase in 2008. In the complex value
structure Governance and Ethics of STEM, the value terms generally increased since 2001. In
the STEM complex value structure Maternity and Paternity, there was a general decrease in the
value structure key terms after 1999. Furthermore, there is a sudden substantial increase in 2001
in the ABORTION Justice value structure. By historically attempting to understand these shifts,
we can explore the meaning of these factor groups.
Other observations from the longitudinal value maps include noting that “science” is more
consistently employed as a value term in STEM discussions than in ABORTION, with the
smallest difference being approximately a 400% discrepancy. In our sample, no more than 5% of
the ABORTION articles each year referenced the value term “ethics,” whereas “ethics” was
employed in over 50% of the articles in one year (2007) for STEM. After 2000, “ethics” was
referenced in less than 20% of the STEM articles. Value terms such as “respect” and
“practicality” were referenced in similar ways throughout the two policy media arenas. These
results suggest that longitudinal plots may help identify value term discrepancies over time
between policy arenas. As expected, several of the temporal fluctuations in the value maps do
appear to correspond to salient events in US electoral politics.
Furthermore, the STEM longitudinal value maps revealed some potential value trends and
interesting historical time points. Brossard, Kroepsch, and Nisbet (2003), Cohen (2004),
Korobkin (2006) identify a historical shift in the stem cell research debate, where policy
advocates were discussing government restricting funding for unethical research. Although
policy was in place for restriction of embryo research, President Bush pushed the matter to the
top of the media agenda in 2001, and steadily continued his focus on STEM through supporting
and vetoing bills, while also issuing presidential statements on his position.
Broad Quantitative PVM Findings
By mapping the value terms that registered in factor structures longitudinally, our results suggest
several important findings. Our results indicate that value structures are not necessarily
comprised of the most prevalently used value terms. Although the ABORTION value structure
Investment accounts for the most amount of variance in the dataset, the highest number of
articles referencing an Investment value term in a year is 7. The STEM Investment value
structure, however, hovers at its lowest years around 15, with its highest number of references at
70 in 1993. Also, value structures do not necessarily posses value terms that respond similarly
over time or are referenced at equal levels. Even though value terms register in a factor group,
one value term may be referenced less than another. For instance, in the ABORTION value
structure Governance, key terms “fund” and “restriction” are referenced almost half as much as
the term “support.” This may imply that not all value terms were captured, or that some terms
may be a component a larger value discussion. Finally, we suggest that longitudinal analysis is
potentially informative of quantitative public value mapping. Regardless of source type, it is
important to analyze whether the values elicited are a product of temporal influences, such as
events or political stewardship. Quantitative PVM can help situate policy reception and feedback
effects historically. From a political science perspective, we suggest that quantitative PVM can
be applied and used as a systematic tool to understand public values in policy programs, values
in wedge issues, and campaign values. We suggest it can be used to identify how discourse
changes within a policy arena, and to help anticipate how discourse could change in the future.
Conclusion
Based on our literature review, abortion and stem cell research were hypothesized to have similar
or converging values. Using quantitative PVM methods similar approach to those pioneered by
Fisher et al. (2010), and based on an earlier pilot study, we sought to determine whether we
could identify value structures within as well as across popular news media articles from the
abortion and stem cell research policy arenas. We analyze over 3000 documents and confirm two
of our three hypotheses. The results confirm that quantitative PVM may be used to elucidate
coherent value structures both within and across diverse public policy arenas as they play out in
popular debates. They also indicate that such value structures are potentially ambiguous and may
“contain multitudes.” This in turn suggests that coherent value structures may nevertheless
contain conflicting values and therefore may be indicative of broader value frames that contain
competing value narratives. These findings provide further evidence of the ability of this
expanded analytical capacity to provide credible intelligence to decision makers that can inform
the design, implementation and evaluation of public programs. They also provide evidence of
quantitative PVM’s ability to discern coherent value structures even in the midst of wideranging, shifting and contentious popular debates.
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APPENDIX A: Key Value Term Extraction
Appendix A, Table 1
Extracted Value Terms Used in the Coding Process
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
Acceptance
Accessibility
Accomplishment
Accountability
Accuracy
Achievement
Adaptability
Advancement
Approval
Availability
Awareness
Baby
Business
Capability
Carefulness
Certainty
Challenge
Change
Commitment
Community
Compassion
Competence
Consistency
Contribution
Control
Cooperation
Courage
Creativity
Credibility
Decisiveness
Determination
Dignity
Discovery
Discretion
Doctor
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
Economy
Education
Effectiveness
Ethics
Experience
Exploration
Fairness
Faith
Family
Father
Fetus
Fidelity
Flexibility
Freedom
Fund
Government
Growth
Health
Honesty
Independence
Integrity
Intellect
Investment
Judge
Justice
Knowledge
Leadership
Legal
Logic
Market
Moral
Mother
Partnership
Perfection
Persistence
71. Persuasive
72. Pluripotent
73. Practicality
74. Privacy
75. Product
76. Professionalism
77. Rationality
78. Regulation
79. Reliability
80. Reputation
81. Resolution
82. Resourcefulness
83. Respect
84. Responsibility
85. Restriction
86. Roe v. Wade
87. Safety
88. Science
89. Scientist
90. Security
91. Solidarity
92. Spirituality
93. Success
94. Support
95. Synergy
96. Teamwork
97. Testing
98. Traditionalism
99. Training
100. Trust
101. Understanding
102. Uniqueness
103. Usefulness
104. Virtue
105. Wealth
Appendix B: Factor Loadings for the Exploratory Factor Analysis
Appendix B, Table 1
Abortion Factor Group Loadings
Factor Group Component Number
1
Competence
0.66
Economy
0.63
Trust
0.56
Investment
0.53
Product
0.47
Leadership
0.43
2
Roe v. Wade
0.80
Decisiveness
0.74
Justice
0.45
3
Training
0.64
Education
0.54
4
Partnership
0.66
Flexibility
0.63
Contribution
0.42
5
Fund
0.66
Support
0.57
Restriction
0.44
6
Challenge
0.74
Judge
0.54
7
Moral
0.65
Ethics
0.65
Respect
0.43
8
Baby
0.68
Mother
0.68
9
10
11
12
14
16
17
19
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
Doctor
0.70
Fetus
0.55
Safety
0.75
Regulation
0.67
Change
0.59
Traditionalism
0.44
Exploration
0.43
Government
0.59
Control
0.59
Perfection
0.66
Accomplishment
0.64
Understanding
0.69
Spirituality
0.50
Health
0.63
Professionalism
0.54
Market
0.73
Independence
0.42
Science
0.70
Responsibility
0.48
Father
0.52
Family
0.46
Accountability
0.43
Usefulness
0.79
Determination
0.41
Appendix B, Table 2
STEM Factor Group Loadings
Factor Group Component Number
1
Business
0.657
Product
0.637
Market
0.618
Security
0.61
Investment
2
3
0.631
Ethics
0.599
Moral
0.54
Support
0.489
Government
0.431
Restriction
0.424
Mother
0.697
Father
0.619
Baby
0.595
Family
0.56
Doctor
0.467
Education
5
6
7
0.509
Fund
Professionalism
4
0.627
0.58
Safety
0.703
Effectiveness
0.438
Knowledge
0.636
Understanding
0.512
Economy
0.652
Reputation
0.562
8
9
10
12
14
15
24
30
31
Justice
0.459
Control
0.592
Change
0.475
Acceptance
0.431
Judge
0.671
Decisiveness
0.558
Rationality
0.694
Accountability
0.498
Independence
0.415
Success
0.644
Uniqueness
0.569
Accomplishment
0.679
Reliability
0.546
Training
0.661
Faith
0.404
Spirituality
0.738
Fairness
0.467
Dignity
0.719
Flexibility
0.495
APPENDIX C: Longitudinal Value Mapping Plots