Lee Wilkins

Mass media framing of biotechnology news

In fast-changing scientific fields like biotechnology, new information and discoveries should influence the balance of risks and rewards and their associated media coverage. This study investigates how reporters interpret and report such information and, in turn, whether they frame the public debate about biotechnology. Mass media coverage of medical and agricultural biotechnology is compared over a 12-year period and in two different countries: the United States and the United Kingdom. We examine whether media have consistently chosen to emphasize the potential risks over the benefits of these applications, or vice versa, and what information might drive any relevant changes in such frames. We find that the two sets of technologies have been framed differently—more positive for medical applications, more negative for agricultural biotechnology. This result holds over time and across different geographic locations. We also find that international events influence media coverage but have been locally framed. This local newsworthiness extends to both medical and agricultural applications. We conclude that such coverage could have led to differences in public perception of the two sets of technology: more negative (or ambivalent) for agricultural, positive for medical applications. Our findings suggest that understanding news frames, and the events that drive them, provides some insight into the long-term formation of public opinion as influenced by news coverage.

Conflicted interests, contested terrain: journalism ethics codes then and now

By analyzing ethics codes, a professional statement of what constitutes good work, this essay links codes to a theory of culture and history. It considers two early journalism ethics codes and assesses the latest New York Times code in the light of philosophical theory. The paper suggests that professional tensions outlined in Good Work are reified in the Times code—and that history and culture may be less supportive of a positive outcome of this struggle over values than the insights of psychology might suggest.

The Moral Development of Journalists: A Comparison with Other Professions and a Model for Predicting High Quality Ethical Reasoning

This study gathered baseline data on the moral development of 249 professional journalists. Journalists scored fourth highest among professionals tested, ranking behind seminarians/philosophers, medical students, and physicians, but above dental students, nurses, graduate students, undergraduate college students, veterinary students, and adults in general. No significant differences were found between various groups of journalists, including men and women, and broadcast and print journalists; journalists who did civic journalism or investigative reporting scored significantly higher than those who did not. A regression analysis points to five factors predictive of higher moral development in journalists—doing investigative journalism, a high degree of choice at work, moderate religiosity, a strong internal sense of right and wrong, and viewing rules and law as less important than other factors.

Risky business: Covering slow‐onset hazards as rapidly developing news

Abstract The emerging field of risk communication has yet to thoroughly grapple with how the mass media report risk. Through a content analysis of five newspapers noted for their science reporting, newspaper coverage of four environmental hazards is compared to media coverage of more traditional risky events. In general, these slow‐to‐develop stories are reported in much the same way as more traditional disaster stories. News accounts emphasized an event orientation, framed risks in terms of human activity rather than social and political contexts, described risk in terms of harms and benefits, and relied on traditional sources. The authors then explore how this version of mass‐mediated risk might change current definitions of risk communication and how a mediated construction of risk may influence public perception of the political choices these issues raise.

Searching for the Ethical Journalist: An Exploratory Study of the Moral Development of News Workers

This study gathered preliminary baseline data on the moral development of journalists using the Defining Issues Test (DIT), an instrument based on Kohlbergs (1969) 6 stages. Results show that a sample of journalists scored 4th highest among professionals tested using the DIT. The journalists ranked behind seminarians/philosophers, medical students, and physicians but above dental students, nurses, graduate students, undergraduate college students, veterinary students, and adults in general. No significant differences were found between various groups of journalists, including men and women, and broadcast and print journalists. The journalists in the study scored significantly higher on the 3 journalism-specific dilemmas than on 3 nonjournalism dilemmas.

An ethical risk communication protocol for science and mass communication

This paper explores the philosophical foundations of risk communication, develops a protocol for ethical risk communication to be used by scientists, journalists and public relations practitioners, and applies the protocol to two cases of risk communication. We argue that the goals of risk communication are firstly to do no harm, and secondly to promote a public dialogue about risk. After outlining the philosophical foundation for these goals, we develop the protocol which will allow both the creators and the recipients of risk communication messages to evaluate their content. The protocol focuses on questions of accuracy, context, mobilizing information, and public environmental literacy.

The Moral Development of Public Relations Practitioners: A Comparison With Other Professions and Influences on Higher Quality Ethical Reasoning

This study gathered baseline data on the moral development of 118 public relations professionals. The respondents scored 7th highest among all professionals tested. They performed significantly better when the ethical dilemmas were about public relations issues than when they were not, indicating domain expertise on ethical issues. No significant differences were found between men and women, or managers and nonmanagers. There were significant correlations between moral reasoning and several variables including political ideology and fundamental/liberal religious views.

Plagues, Pestilence and Pathogens: The Ethical Implications of News Reporting of a World Health Crisis

This essay explores the ethics issues raised by SARS coverage and places them in the context of the history of pandemics. Building on earlier work, I suggest that health crises, at their onset, induce journalists to change their role from normal, critical reporting to news coverage that has the goal of saving life. Once the immediate crisis has passed, however, journalists’ roles return to the norm, that of societal watchdog. This shift in roles has particular implications for how the media cover the risk of health issues, such as SARS, as well as how the media, as institutions, relate to other institutions in society, particularly the medical/scientific community and national governments.

Philosophy Meets the Social Sciences: The Nature of Humanity in the Public Arena

Using a base of philosophical athropology, this article suggests that an ethical analysis of persuasion must include not just the logic human response, but culture and experience as well. The authors propose potential maxims for ethical behavior in advertising and public relations and applies them to two case studies, political advertising and the Bridgestone/Firestone controversy.

THE WAGES OF SYNERGY

In the current economic environment, message synergy may result in a perceptible manifestation of ownerships impact on media content. That influence raises ethical issues: journalistic independence and access to the media marketplace for a variety of messages. This project analyzes the “soft news” content of the two most popular morning television news shows, The Today Show and Good Morning America during November 2007 sweeps. The analysis demonstrates that “soft news” story topic selection appears to be strongly influenced by economic connections to the parent corporation. The potential impact of this distortion of the cultural public sphere for journalists, viewers, creative artists and advertising at the institutional level are analyzed. The wages of synergy include a restriction of journalistic autonomy, confining viewers to a role that is exclusively consumption oriented, and, at the institutional level, jeopardizing the credibility of news programming which could have a long-term impact on advertising revenues.