Influence of Popular Science Journalism on the Audience’s Attitude to Scientific Research

Abstract

The vast majority of people learn about scientific developments and research from the media. At the same time, the funding of scientists ‘ projects depends on the approval of the society, since the impor-tance and ethics are crucial in making decisions of the scientific community. Therefore, the position of the media that publish information about a particular scientific research depends on whether the society supports the scientist or opposes it. The purpose of this research is to study the formation of public opinion in relation to scientific works, as well as to identify the relationship between the submission of information and the opinion of society. The main idea of the research is to prove the importance of the development of popular science journalism in Kazakhstan together with the norms of ethics. In the course of the research, the authors applied the methodology of studying literature in the field of ethics of scientific journalism in Kazakhstan and foreign countries, as well as behavioral psychology, conducted a survey using the SurveyMonkey service. The literature was divided into encyclopedic, describing various experiences, lectures by leading journalists in the field of scientific journalistic ethics, as well as research in the field of ethics of journal-ism. The main results of the survey revealed that depending on the presentation of information, people’s opinions about the ethics of scientific research change. If the article primarily concerns the interests of society (for example, people’s health), then the opinion about the ethics of scientific research is relegated to the background. If the emphasis is on the fact that there were victims in the course of scientific re-search, then society reacts negatively. Thus, if you publish information about scientific works thoughtlessly, you can cause a negative response from the reader. Based on the results of our small research, we can identify the preferences of society and how to submit information about a particular scientific discovery. The value of this research is proof of the need to develop scientific periodicals in Kazakhstan. The findings published in the study will help popular science journalists determine the strategy for studying and publishing certain experiences, depending on the social response they plan to receive. Key words: popular science journalism, public opinion, ethics, media coverage of science, global-ization.