Half-a-Year of Science Communication

My opinion of science communication has changed over the 6 months that I’ve been studying it. Before starting, I was one of those who insisted that the public understanding of science could be improved via mass splurging of scientific facts. I was also critical of the media’s representation of science. At best, I viewed it as inaccurate and at worst I viewed it as deliberately misleading in order to drive a journalist’s own personal prejudices.

There have been many studies into the proportion of science news stories within newspapers. One conducted in 1995 sampled 6000 articles from popular newspapers between 1945 and 1990 (a preliminary report can be found here). The authors reported an increase in the proportion of science stories since 1945 (however, there was a peak in the sixties and there has been a decline since).

“It’s all well and good to have a large number of science stories,” you might say. “But what about the accuracy of these stories?” A really good accuracy study was performed in 1970 by Philip Tichenor (unfortunately, my university doesn’t pay for a subscription to SAGE but here’s the article anyway). In this, Tichenor et al. surveyed scientists who had contributed to news stories. Of these scientists, 59% thought science news was generally accurate, while 95% thought that their own science story was accurate – a clear disparity between expectation and reality. 

More recently, Barbara Moore and Michael Singletary performed a similar study with scientists who had been sources for news stories. Half of these scientists thought that the news piece they were involved in was completely accurate. The most commonly reported errors within these news pieces were that there was inadequate air time to the story, that some important facts were omitted and that the story was too sensationalised.

These inaccuracies are due to the differing practices of the scientist and of the journalist. While scientists rely on cautiously making claims based upon reems of data – journalists must find a way of making science relevant for those reading it; they must give a scientific paper news value.

To do this, science stories are often framed in a way that gives the story cultural relevance. Society therefore has input in the way science is reported since journalists tailor their story to match the cultural ideals of their audience. Analysing the way stories about nuclear power have changed since 1945 offers a good method for seeing how cultural perceptions of science drive the way that that science is reported.

From 1945 until the early-sixties, there was a dualism in the way nuclear power was reported. On one hand, many people had actually witnessed a nuclear bomb being detonated in anger, while on the other nuclear power offered free energy for everyone. It was this latter category, one of progress, which dominated news reporting during the fifties. During this time there was even a partial meltdown at a Fermi reactor in Detroit which did little to dilute this message of progress.

In the late-sixties and early-seventies, the oil producing countries declared numerous oil embargoes. To ensure energy independence for the USA, President Nixon called for more nuclear power plants (watch this video from about 7 minutes). For every positive comment on nuclear power, there was an equal and opposite negative comment. These negative comments multiplied after the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979 which illustrated the dangers of nuclear power. However, people also understood that nuclear energy was an essential component of power production. During this time, many of the media reports about nuclear energy focussed on this ‘Faustian bargain’ – a deal which might harm us in the future but which was required at the time.

Eight years later, the Chernobyl nuclear accident further put nuclear power in a negative light. The news now focussed on stories of public accountability and the need to reduce the risk of this happening again. Now that nuclear power is a prominent part of our society, the focus is on making sure the companies in charge of power plants are accountable and have put processes in place to reduce the risk.

Stephen Hilgartner and Paulo Freire argue that for communication to be successful, a common ground must be found for those involved. When this is found, a dialogue can occur and true communication is achieved. This view of communication is a long way from my starting point, that scientists must dictate their facts to the public. Now I accept that communicators must frame science in order that an audience can engage with it – this is not the same thing as ‘toning down’ the science.