Hans Peter Peters

Interactions with the Mass Media

A survey reveals that media contacts of scientists in top R&D countries are more frequent and smooth than was previously thought.

Science-Media Interface It's Time to Reconsider

An international mail survey of 1,354 biomedical researchers in five countries has revealed that interaction with the media is widespread among this group and that this interaction is largely perceived in a positive light. Possible reasons are offered as to why the perception persists that the scientist-journalist relationship remains troubled, despite the apparent reality. This reality may have negative as well as positive implications; the potential for too much control by the scientific community of media coverage about it, as well as that for too much media influence on inner-scientific processes, are also addressed.

Gap between science and media revisited: scientists as public communicators.

The present article presents an up-to-date account of the current media relations of scientists, based on a comprehensive analysis of relevant surveys. The evidence suggests that most scientists consider visibility in the media important and responding to journalists a professional duty—an attitude that is reinforced by universities and other science organizations. Scientific communities continue to regulate media contacts with their members by certain norms that compete with the motivating and regulating influences of public information departments. Most scientists assume a two-arena model with a gap between the arenas of internal scientific and public communication. They want to meet the public in the public arena, not in the arena of internal scientific communication. Despite obvious changes in science and in the media system, the orientations of scientists toward the media, as well as the patterns of interaction with journalists, have their roots in the early 1980s. Although there is more influence on public communication from the science organizations and more emphasis on strategic considerations today, the available data do not indicate abrupt changes in communication practices or in the relevant beliefs and attitudes of scientists in the past 30 y. Changes in the science–media interface may be expected from the ongoing structural transformation of the public communication system. However, as yet, there is little evidence of an erosion of the dominant orientation toward the public and public communication within the younger generation of scientists.

Medialization of Science as a Prerequisite of Its Legitimization and Political Relevance

Sociologists have diagnosed an increasing ‘medialization’ of science—that is, an orientation towards the mass media, with the consequence that media criteria become relevant within science. The medialization of science is seen in this chapter as a consequence of the medialization of politics. Based on empirical surveys of German researchers, public information officers of science organizations and decision-makers in the political-administrative system, as well as a hermeneutical analysis of German press coverage, the authors analyse the manifestations and political impacts of medialization in the public communication of scientists and science organizations. Two biomedical fields—stem cell research and epidemiology—are used as case studies. Results of the empirical analyses support the hypothesis that the medialization of science, in so far as it guides the public communication strategies of scientific actors, increases the chances of scientific actors being noticed and taken seriously by the political-administrative system. Effects are seen in a contribution to the legitimization of science by reinforcing the perception of its social relevance and in improving the chances of scientific expertise becoming effective in policy-making.

Journalism and Social Media as Means of Observing the Contexts of Science

The transformation of todays mass media system leads to uncertainty about communication behaviors concerning scientific issues. So far, few researchers have investigated this issue among scientists. We conducted a survey of neuroscientists in Germany and the United States in which we asked them about their own information-seeking behaviors and their assessment of the influence of various types of “old” and “new” media on public opinion and political decisionmaking. Our findings suggest that neuroscientists continue to use traditional journalistic media more often than blogs and social networks for information seeking but perceive all of these channels to have a strong influence on public opinion and political decisionmaking processes.

Constructing (un-)certainty: An exploration of journalistic decision-making in the reporting of neuroscience.

Based on 21 individual case studies, this article inventories the ways journalism deals with scientific uncertainty. The study identifies the decisions that impact a journalist’s perception of a truth claim as unambiguous or ambiguous and the strategies to deal with uncertainty that arise from this perception. Key for understanding journalistic action is the outcome of three evaluations: What is the story about? How shall the story be told? What type of story is it? We reconstructed the strategies to overcome journalistic decision-making uncertainty in those cases in which they perceived scientific contingency as a problem. Journalism deals with uncertainty by way of omission, by contrasting the conflicting messages or by acknowledging the problem via the structure or language. One finding deserves particular mention: The lack of focus on scientific uncertainty is not only a problem of how journalists perceive and communicate but also a problem of how science communicates.

Risiko-Kommunikation: Kernenergie

Die Kommunikation uber die Risiken der Kernenergie ist zu einem wichtigen Teilthema innerhalb der politischen und sozialwissenschaftlichen Behandlung des Kernenergiekonflikts geworden. Von einer ”Pfadfinder-Rolle” der Kernenergie (HAFELE 1975) last sich auch im Hinblick auf die Entwicklung neuer Kommunikationsstrukturen — etwa zwischen Experten und Gegenexperten — sprechen. Lange Zeit wurde die gesellschaftliche Kernenergiekontroverse unter dem Gesichtspunkt betrachtet, das es den Kernenergieexperten zwar gelungen sei, Kernenergie sicher zu machen, das es ihnen aber nicht gelungen sei, die breite Offentlichkeit von der Sicherheit der Kernenergie zu uberzeugen. Ansatze in verschiedenen Landern, wie der ”Burgerdialog Kernenergie” in der Bundesrepublik, die ”Informationskampagne Kernenergie” in Osterreich oder auch — wenngleich bereits reflektierter — die ”Breite Soziale Debatte uber Energiepolitik” in den Niederlanden (vgl. Kapitel 5.5), gingen implizit von der Annahme aus, das die Kernenergiekontroverse im Kern ein Kommunikationsproblem sei und daher auch durch eine Verbesserung der Kommunikationsprozesse (d.h. ”Aufklarung” der Offentlichkeit) entscharft oder sogar gelost werden konne.

Similar challenges but different responses: Media coverage of measles vaccination in the UK and China

For several decades scholars have studied media reporting on scientific issues that involve controversy. Most studies so far have focused on the western world. This article tries to broaden the perspective by considering China and comparing it to a western country. A content analysis of newspaper coverage of vaccination issues in the UK and China shows, first, that the government-supported ‘mainstream position’ dominates the Chinese coverage while the British media frequently refer to criticism and controversy. Second, scientific expertise in the British coverage is represented by experts from the health and science sector but by experts from health agencies in the Chinese coverage. These results are discussed with respect to implications for risk communication and scientists’ involvement in public communication.

Scientific uncertainty in media content: Introduction to this special issue.

This introduction sets the stage for the special issue on the public communication of scientific uncertainty that follows by sketching the wider landscape of issues related to the communication of uncertainty and showing how the individual contributions fit into that landscape. The first part of the introduction discusses the creation of media content as a process involving journalists, scientific sources, stakeholders, and the responsive audience. The second part then provides an overview of the perception of scientific uncertainty presented by the media and the consequences for the recipients’ own assessments of uncertainty. Finally, we briefly describe the six research articles included in this special issue.

Taiwanese life scientists less “medialized” than their Western colleagues

The article presents results from surveys of life scientists in Taiwan (n = 270) and in Germany (n = 326). Fewer Taiwanese than German researchers have frequent contact with the media and they rate their experiences with journalists less positively. Furthermore, they are less prepared to adapt to journalistic expectations and to a greater extent than German researchers they expect journalists to consider scientific criteria in their reporting. These findings are interpreted in Weingart’s “medialization of science” framework as indicators of lower medialization of science in Taiwan than in Germany. However, Taiwanese scientists are more willing than German scientists to accept journalistic simplification at the expense of accuracy. This is explained as an adaptation to the media system and to the perceived scientific literacy of the media audience. We hypothesize that cultural differences regarding the relative priority of relational vs. rational communication goals may also contribute to more tolerance of journalistic simplification in Taiwan.