Healthy Skepticism Library item: 1400

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Hargreaves I.
Towards a better map: Science, the public and the media
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), 2003
http://web.archive.org/web/20040804071704/http://www.esrc.ac.uk/esrccontent/downloaddocs/Mapdocfinal.pdf

Full text:

“….The increased attention paid to science by all forms of media is welcome, but raises the question of whether more coverage means more public awareness and understanding of science. Thinking about how the public understands science has moved on from the ‘deficit model’ which focussed on a putative failure of ‘the public’ to know enough science. Instead we now recognise more types of public and more ways in which they engage with scientific knowledge. This means that new and better tools are needed to understand the way in which the media affect public knowledge of science. This is an analysis of science reporting and the impact it has on its audiences of readers, listeners and viewers. This report provides an in-depth contemporary assessment of the media’s role in the public understanding of science. It is based on: * an extensive analysis of the way science and science related issues were reported on television news, radio news and in the press during a seven and half month period in 2002 (involving a total of 2,214 stories) * two nationwide surveys (both with representative samples of over 1,000), conducted in April and October 2002, tracking the public’s knowledge, opinion and understanding of science-related issues reported in the media.
While there is now a body of research both on the public understanding of science, and, to a lesser extent, on the media coverage of science, there have been few empirical attempts to relate the two.
This study addresses this gap, and looks at what and how people learn about science from the media.
While the study looks at some general aspects of science, we focus our attention on three contemporary issues: climate change, the MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella Vaccine) controversy and cloning/genetic medical research. All three issues have received regular attention in the media, and all have serious implications for public policy. They are, in short, the kind of issues that people in a deliberative democracy should know something about… ….Looking at the relationship between media content and public knowledge, the authors, provide a better map of the way people learn about science from the media. Central to this approach is the understanding that what matters is not just media content, but how people engage with that content. So, for example, there is little point in the news media covering science in great detail and depth if it does not also generate much public interest. Some science stories may stick in the public mind, others may be either misunderstood or ignored. By tracking both media content and public understanding, we can explore not only what people know, but why they know it……….”