Abstract
Efforts to cultivate scientific literacy in the public are often aimed at enabling people to make more informed decisions — both in their own lives (e.g., personal health, sustainable practices, &c.) and in the public sphere. Implicit in such efforts is the cultivation of some measure of trust of science. To what extent does science reporting in mainstream newspapers contribute to these goals? Is what is reported likely to improve the public's understanding of science as a process for generating reliable knowledge? What are its likely effects on public trust of science? In this paper, we describe a content analysis of 163 instances of science reporting in three prominent newspapers from three years in the last decade. The dominant focus, we found, was on particular outcomes of cutting-edge science; it was comparatively rare for articles to attend to the methodology or the social–institutional processes by which particular results come about. At best, we argue that this represents a missed opportunity.
Highlights
It is widely acknowledged that many Americans do not consistently see science as an authoritative source of information about matters of social importance (Funk and Goo, 2015)
The main result is the dominance, as expected, of the outcome only code, followed by methodology and science and society connection. This suggests that the most common view of science conveyed to the public by these newspapers in the last decade has been only minimally informative regarding the actual workings of the scientific enterprise
Regarding RQ2, we noted that of the sixteen articles coded as process, thirteen (81%) were coded for scientific conflict whereas only half were coded as involving self-correction, revealing that the usual way for the public to be exposed to information about the scientific process is in reference to some kind of disagreement among scientists — either at a given time (e.g., “while team A says X; team B says Y”) or over time (e.g., “while previous studies have indicated that X, team A says Y”)
Summary
It is widely acknowledged that many Americans do not consistently see science as an authoritative source of information about matters of social importance (Funk and Goo, 2015). Despite the robust scientific consensus on the dangers of anthropogenic climate change or the safety of childhood vaccines or GMOs, significant public dissent remains (stifling action and leading to health crises in the former two cases). Perhaps scientists are not making their messages compelling enough to capture public attention (Olson, 2015) or otherwise failing to earn their trust or respect (Fiske and Dupree, 2014). Science communication researchers have been hard at work attempting to understand the dynamics of successful messaging strategies from scientists (or dedicated science communicators) to the public.. Little attention has been paid to the role that science journalists play in addressing the consensus gaps or improving the public’s understanding of science more generally Science communication researchers have been hard at work attempting to understand the dynamics of successful messaging strategies from scientists (or dedicated science communicators) to the public. Relatively little attention has been paid to the role that science journalists play in addressing the consensus gaps or improving the public’s understanding of science more generally
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