Science Communication 1997 Abstracts
Science Communication Interest Group
An Elite Scientist at the Boundary: The Power of Evidence and the Evidence of Power in Media Coverage of Science • Linda Billings, Indiana University • The media are likely to dismiss a scientist who questions the standard scientific worldview. But how do the media respond when an elite scientist questions the reductionist paradigm? In describing his research into the alien-abduction phenomenon, Harvard Medical School psychiatrist John Mack has suggested that the conventional paradigm may be inadequate. Press accounts of Mack’s work with abductees reveal how journalists and scientists have attempted to protect the boundaries of the black box of science.
Leading and Following: Medical System Influence on Media Coverage of Breast Cancer, 1960-95 • Julia B. Corbett, Motomi Mori, University of Utah • This research investigated whether medical system influence on media coverage of breast cancer supported a guard dog perspective of mass media. There was support for the medical community both leading and following media attention to breast cancer. There were extremely high, significant correlations between medical journal articles and newspapers, magazines and TV coverage. Time-series analysis revealed a two-way, concurrent relationship between the amount of breast cancer funding and all media. Public events (primarily prominent women publicly acknowledging their breast cancer) and breast cancer incidence rates significantly affected print coverage; there was a two-way relationship between incidence and TV coverage.
Newspaper Economic Coverage of Motor Vehicle Emissions Standards • David C. Coulson, University of Nevada, Stephen Lacy, Michigan State University • This study analyzed six large newspaper’s economic coverage of federal regulations intended to reduce motor vehicle emissions under the Clean Air Act. Examination of this topic involved evaluating costs and benefits of government controls. All but one paper explicitly referred to formal cost-benefit analysis as a method to evaluate the standards. They all included specific economic costs and benefits associated with regulating motor vehicle emissions. However, the reporting on costs was far more extensive than on benefits in five of the papers.
Community Structure and Mass Media Accounts of Risk • Sharon Dunwoody, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Robert J. Griffin Marquette University • Studies of media coverage of risk typically rely on characteristics of individual reporters or on attributes of media organizations to predict story content and quality. While such emphases have historically been productive, they ignore the potentially profound influence of social structure on both journalists and their media organizations. In this paper, we review a literature that examines the impact of community structure on media coverage of local environmental risks. These studies conceptualize community structure as a surrogate for the distribution of power in communities, consonant with Tichenor, Donohue and Olien.
Getting an Advance Look: Controversies Over Embargoes in Science Journalism • Vincent Kiernan, University of Maryland • A key feature of modern science reporting is the embargo that controls the timing of reporting of findings from many journals and conferences. Using primary source material, this paper traces the evolution of science journalists’ views on this controversial practice from the 1920s to the present. Despite complaints by journalists that the embargo gives scientists a high degree of control over journalists, the embargo system developed at the active instigation of journalists and persists because of the continuing support of journalists.
How Distant the Forest? Proximity, Environmental Controversy and Source Status Conferral • Carol M. Liebler, Jacob Bendix, Syracuse University • This study examined newspaper coverage of the old-growth forest/spotted owl controversy over a five-year period, with an emphasis on news sources. Specific foci are whom the media conferred expert status upon, and the extent to which source usage and status varied with physical and cultural proximity. Findings show that physical and cultural proximity do not affect diversity of sources, but they do have implications for the manner in which sources are portrayed.
Does Media Framing Keep Population off the Public Agenda? • T. Michael Maher • Scientists are deeply concerned over human population growth, but the American public is not. This paper shows that media framing, which typically omits mention of population growth as a cause of environmental problems, may influence Americans’ indifference to population. Using doctored newspaper clippings, this experimental research shows that if media framing connected population growth to environmental problems, population would have greater salience among readers.
Local Attitudes Toward Local Newspaper Coverage of a LULU (Locally Unwanted Land Use) • Katherine A. McComas, Clifford W. Scherer, and Cynthia Heffelfinger, Cornell University • This study examines attitudes toward local newspaper coverage during a proposed landfill siting. Residents one mile from the proposed site received mailed questionnaires measuring attitudes about the landfill, perceptions of bias in newspaper coverage, and interpersonal communication. Responses (n=267) were analyzed and compared to a content analysis of local newspaper articles. The conclusions suggest perceptions of bias in newspaper coverage were insufficient motivation to alter media consumption behaviors.
Safe Farm: The Impact of a Risk Communication Campaign • Lulu Rodriguez, Jane Peterson, Laura Miller, Charles Schwab, Iowa State University • In 1991, Iowa State University launched an information campaign aimed at reducing the incidence of accidents in the rural areas due to the dangers associated with farming. Radio public service ads and weekly newspapers articles with farm safety messages were reinforced by educational resources within ISU’s extension network. This study evaluates the impact of this campaign on its target audience: the farm operators. The data set for this study consisted of the combined responses for two surveys of 460 Iowa farm operators conducted in 1991-92 and 1993. Results of pre- and post-test measures indicated significant improvements in safety attitudes and behaviors between 1991 and 1992 among farmers with more than 40 acres, but that these changes could not be attributed to the campaign.
Connecting Theory and Practice: Are Counterstereotypes Effective in Changing Girls’ Perceptions of Science and Scientists? • Jocelyn Steinke, Western Michigan University • Researchers, educators, and policy makers have emphasized the need for science intervention programs for girls and young women to change their perceptions of science and scientists. A common technique used by many of these programs, including many media programs, is the use of counterstereotypes of women scientists. Little research, however, examines why the use of roles models would be effective or which characteristics of role models are most persuasive in changing perceptions of science. This paper connects theory and practice by drawing on Bem’s gender schema theory (Bem 1981, l983) to develop a framework for examining the influence of women scientist role models on girls’ perceptions of science and scientists. The purpose of this paper is l) to describe the usefulness of Bem’s gender schema theory as a framework for future research, 2) to explore how the key variables identified in Bem’s gender schema theory relate to the cognitive processing that defines girls’ and young women’s perceptions of science and scientists, and 3) to identify some of the key criteria for effective role models for media intervention programs.
Humor as a Resource in Constructing Scientific Knowledge and Ignorance • S. Holly Stocking, Indiana University • One of the basic tenets of the sociology of scientific knowledge (or SSK) is that scientists engage in considerable labor to construct their research results as knowledge (cf., Pinch, 1990). Indeed, the construction of knowledge is believed to require many things, including material resources, allies, and the application of accepted and persuasive conventions of method and discourse. In a recent symmetrical move, scholars interested in developing in a sociology of scientific ignorance or SSI (cf, Smithson, 1989; Stocking and Holstein, 1993) have argued that it is not just scientific knowledge that scientists labor to construct; they also labor to construct scientific ignorance. This paper builds on the few existing sociological studies of humor in science, reinterpreting some of that evidence and adding some new evidence to argue that scientists sometimes use humor as a rhetorical resource to accomplish the constructions of both knowledge and ignorance. In addition, the paper argues that scientists sometimes use humor as a rhetorical resource to accomplish the constructions of both competence and incompetence in science.
Heuristic-Systematic Information Processing and Judgment of Environmental Risk • Craig Trumbo, Cornell University • This project investigates how individuals judge environmental health risks. Analysis of case study survey data indicates that mediated information, anxiety, and past hazard experience all influence the primary factors that subsequently predict how individuals process information. These primary factors—motivation to seek information, feeling that information needs are not being met, and perceived self-efficacy for making a judgment—together predict how strongly individuals utilize either systematic or heuristic information processing strategies for making a judgment.
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