Presenting science news: Issues of content, communication modality, and balance
Abstract
This dissertation focuses on various aspects of the issue of public understanding of science, especially as it relates to the question of presenting science through the mass media. Specifically it consists of two separate studies, both of which focus on different facets of journalistic coverage of science. The first study is a longitudinal content analysis of science news reporting in three major daily newspapers, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune , and The Washington Post, during the last three decades. It was found that although science articles represent only a small percentage of the total number of articles printed, this percentage steadily increased with each time period. The results also show that, at least in the newspapers analyzed, science coverage did not differ substantially in terms of the range of topics covered or in information that had been both included and omitted from science news accounts. Although there were some differences between articles appearing in the different time frames, in general science news reporting had not changed significantly in terms of the comprehensiveness of accounts. An especially significant finding is that articles frequently omitted methodological and contextual information, features most often mentioned as critical for a complete journalistic account of science. The second study described is an experimental investigation that examines the impact of communication modality, as well as the effect of including balancing testimony, in a science news story. Furthermore, it examines the impact of these features in a journalistic account of pseudoscience or more specifically, a news story focusing on the likelihood of UFOs and alien abductions. The results show that there was no significant effect of either communication modality or the presence of balancing testimony on individuals' beliefs. That is, participants who read or viewed news stories that were either unbalanced or that contained balancing testimony that disconfirmed the existence of alien abductions showed little change from their preexisting beliefs regarding these phenomena. The framework of belief perseverance and the biased assimilation effect is discussed as a way of understanding these null findings.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Sparks, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Mass media|Journalism
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