Mammography Wars
276 pages, 6 x 9
10 bw, 6 tables
Paperback
Release Date:16 Jun 2023
ISBN:9781978830639
Hardcover
Release Date:16 Jun 2023
ISBN:9781978830646
Mammography Wars
Analyzing Attention in Cultural and Medical Disputes
Rutgers University Press
Winner of the 2024 Outstanding Book Award, Social Problems Theory Division, Society for the Study of Social Problems
Mammography is a routine health screening performed forty million times each year in the United States, yet it remains one of the most deeply contested topics in medicine, with national health care organizations supporting conflicting guidelines. In Mammography Wars, sociologist Asia Friedman examines cultural and medical disagreements over mammography. At issue is whether to screen women under age fifty, which is rooted in deeper questions about early detection and the assumed linear and progressive development of breast cancer. Based on interviews with doctors and scientists, interviews with women ages 40 to 50, and newspaper coverage of mammography, Friedman uses the sociology of attention to map the cognitive structure of the “mammography wars,” offering insights into the entrenched nature of debates over mammography that often get missed when applying a medical lens. Friedman’s analysis also suggests the sociology of attention’s unique potential for analyzing cultural conflicts beyond mammography, and even beyond medicine.
Mammography is a routine health screening performed forty million times each year in the United States, yet it remains one of the most deeply contested topics in medicine, with national health care organizations supporting conflicting guidelines. In Mammography Wars, sociologist Asia Friedman examines cultural and medical disagreements over mammography. At issue is whether to screen women under age fifty, which is rooted in deeper questions about early detection and the assumed linear and progressive development of breast cancer. Based on interviews with doctors and scientists, interviews with women ages 40 to 50, and newspaper coverage of mammography, Friedman uses the sociology of attention to map the cognitive structure of the “mammography wars,” offering insights into the entrenched nature of debates over mammography that often get missed when applying a medical lens. Friedman’s analysis also suggests the sociology of attention’s unique potential for analyzing cultural conflicts beyond mammography, and even beyond medicine.
Friedman is a thorough researcher with a clear, engaging style. Her focus on patterns of attention as the organizing analytical framework is fresh and unusual: a fascinating read.
Mammography Wars is an insightful intervention into deeply entrenched conflict surrounding mammography screening standards in the United States. Friedman deftly blends together empirical analysis of the narratives driving disagreements among professionals and patients alike with a clear and accessible take on the power of the sociology of attention, breaking through seemingly intractable ideological battles to resolve conflict.
Mammography Wars is transparent about its aims, theoretical underpinnings, and methodology. Further informing literature on the political, economic, cultural, and other social contours of breast cancer and the mammography debate, the book introduces a sociology of attention as an analytic tool to show how disagreements can become hostilities with seemingly no common ground, but also how crosscurrents (productive dissonances) can emerge across usual divisions to foster mental flexibility, understanding, and the potential for reconciliation. The book is detailed in its presentation of findings and serves as a model for how to apply an attentional lens to intractable social problems of all kinds.
ASIA FRIEDMAN is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Delaware. Her first book, Blind to Sameness: Sexpectations and the Social Construction of Male and Female Bodies (University of Chicago, 2013), won the 2016 Distinguished Book Award from the Sex and Gender section of the American Sociological Association.
Introduction: The Mammography Wars
Chapter 1: Skepticism and Interventionism as Attentional Types
Chapter 2: Attentional Diversity—The Cognitive Structure of Patients’ Narratives of Mammography
Chapter 3: Attentional Battles over Mammography
Chapter 4: Attentional Weight—Relevance, Risk, and Expertise in Mammography
Chapter 5: Mammography and Time
Conclusion: Attentional Flexibility
Appendix
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index
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