From the London School of Economics and Political Science: The growth of the science PR industry has resulted in an overly exaggerated presentation of research findings.
Science journalism is not immune to the budget crisis facing newsrooms more widely. With smaller staffs and tighter budgets, more science reporting is being done through press releases, many of which tend to exaggerate original research. Alasdair Taylor highlights some current research on the communication of research findings. Even in the BBC up to 75% of science stories were sourced directly from press releases. But blogging also opens up the potential for the democratisation of science through online debates. Can scientists themselves offer the needed reflection on their research that an investigative journalist might do?
In a famous piece of media analysis, the average length of a soundbite in a US presidential election was found to have collapsed from 43 seconds in 1968 to just nine by 1988. Although the discovery led to plenty of head-scratching and fears about the “dumbing down” of political discourse, in the end it changed very little. After the first day of the Circling the Square conference, it would be easy to conclude that the communication of science by the media is heading in the same direction.
Anyone who has read Nick Davies’ Flat Earth News will be aware that mainstream journalism is in a crisis. Newsroom cuts have seen journalists forced to produce more copy in shorter time with less resources. “Churnalism”, the phenomenon of reporting press releases or wire copy ad verbatim as news stories, has grown over recent years. Science journalism is not immune to these woes, as illustrated by keynote speaker Dr. Andrew Williams, a lecturer in Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies. Williams, who investigates the news coverage of science, quoted one anonymous science journalist who complained they were now only able to dedicate an hour for a story, whereas once it would have been an afternoon or more.
As the field of science journalism has contracted, the science PR industry has grown to fill the vacuum. Consequently, churnalism is now common in science reporting too. Its not just the private, profit-driven media that’s effected. Another speaker, Dr. Felicity Mellor of Imperial College, reported that even in the BBC up to 75% of science stories were sourced directly from press releases. But as long as good science is getting featured in major media outlets, is this a bad thing?
The issue, as Williams’ research suggests, comes with how science is translated into news stories via university or journal press releases. In a study into the reporting of medical research, Williams showed that a sizeable proportion of university press releases (30-40%) exaggerated or hyped the research findings or made them more determinist. They also added causal reasons for correlations, made extrapolations from animal research into humans and added other inferences not present in the original publication.
The exaggerations and hype of the press release were then repeated in the subsequent news stories. Despite this, Williams’ study also suggested that having a University press office hype research or remove any caveats seemed to make little difference in the rate of uptake of the story by the media. So why is science being communicated through press releases that exaggerate the original research and who is to blame?
All the speakers and panellists in the discussion panel were quick to absolve overworked and under-resourced journalists. Professor David Colquhoun (UCL) pointed the finger at scientists who sign off on a university press release knowing it misinterprets their research. Rather than ensure accuracy, researchers are instead chasing impact by hoping work gets picked up by the national media. Colquhoun was also concerned that research itself was being framed to ensure greater numbers of publications in “glamour” journals and more media attention. (My understanding is that STS researchers refer to this behaviour as the “medialisation” of science).
Scientists often bemoan how their research is represented in the media, but the discussions at Circling the Square suggest they need to shoulder some of the blame. Unfortunately, there appears to be some blissful ignorance of their contribution to the problem. Williams observed that few scientists identified their media activities as either public relations or campaigning, even when they clearly were.
It seems rather than highlighting the complexities, messiness and uncertainties in science to the media, the science PR machine has resulted in a sanitised, overly positive presentation of research findings. Mellor suggested that less than a third of BBC science reports gave opposing views, undermining the suggestion that the BBC too often provides “false balance” in such stories. Even more worrying were indications that science PR campaigns stifled internal debate as scientists become worried about presenting findings that might undermine the overall argument.
All the panellists agreed the internet and blogging had revolutionised science communication. Now media outlets, such as the Guardian Science Blogs, can present the science direct (and without paying for it) from the experts themselves. Blogging also opens up the potential for the democratisation of science through online debates, and challenges established hierarchies through open access and public peer review. At the same time, can scientists themselves offer the needed reflection on their research that an investigative journalist might do?
As a scientist, I am passionate that science will continue to offer transformative technologies and discoveries that will benefit society in the future. This doesn’t mean I yearn for a technocratic idyll or agree with the more evangelical futurologists. Science must continue to be exposed to robust criticism through the media and by the public. Whether this can be achieved by publicising science through press releases reported directly in the media is questionable.
This post covers some of the discussions from the first day of the Circling the Square conference, hosted by the University of Nottingham’s Science and Technology Studies research group. Follow on twitter through #circlesq.
This piece originally appeared on Alasdair Taylor’s personal blog and is reposted with the author’s permission.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License unless otherwise stated.
Note: This article gives the views of the authors, and not the position of the Impact of Social Science blog, nor of the London School of Economics. Source:
About the Author
Alasdair Taylor currently works at the University of Nottingham, creating academic-industrial links around research into sustainable technologies.
h/t to Matti H. Virtanen
I call the subject “Press Release Science”, in opposition to actual science. It is similar too, but separate from “Popular Science” — the type of stories famously published in a magazine of the same name. Neither of these types of science communication inform us of the actual science done or its true results.
Thus my recommendation to students and the interested public to use such reports ONLY to become aware that “something” has been done and follow the links to read the actual journal paper — carefully avoiding forming any opinion or accepting any data from the “Press Release Science” or “Popular Science” report.
I have many times emailed scientists and asked them “Did you really say ‘such-and-so’, as quoted in your University’s press release?” 90% of the time, the answer has been along the lines of : “Well, actually no, I’m not quite sure how they arrived at that quote. I would have said something very different.”
Speaking of “hype and exaggeration”, you may like the following sequence of exaggeration taken from http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2014/6/6/lwec-report-card-a-microcosm-of-global-warming-exaggeration.html .
Here is the step by step recipe to exaggerate spring warming in Britain.
1. Hide behind peer review delays to avoid noting the 1994-2013 CET mean temperature spring trend of -0.003+/-0.034°C per annum.
2. Concentrating on 1994-2006 then, consider March-May CET means but reject them because the 0.49°C OLS trend over 12 years is not statistically significant.
3. Instead, use April-July (breeding season) as this gives 0.91°C over 12 years, which is statistically significant.
4. Better still, rather than using freely available CET series, use the data from Davey et al, which give 1.11°C over 12 years.
5. But why use a new fangled method like OLS when simply drawing a straight line through the end points gives 1.39°C? Yes, that value should keep the eco-troops happy, and the great British public surely won’t notice that this is not usually the way that science is done.
Voila!
Rich.
Rich. The cult of science – scientism. And this quackademic blames the mythical ‘PR’ industry…try blaming the quacks including yourself. Tulips to teachers. 20 ppm trace chemical causes cold and warm weather. Endless b.s. from tax funded studies. Blatant fraud and lies. Quackademia and the Quackitists have degraded science to the level occupied previously by lawyers, insurance salesmen, and chiropractors.