Newspaper Coverage of Maverick Science: Creating Controversy Through Balancing  

Oleh:

Dearing, James W.

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Public Understanding of Science vol. 4 no. 4 (Okt. 1995), page 341-361.
Fulltext: 341PUS44.pdf (1.19MB)

Isi artikel

How do journalists portray the ideas of maverick scientists to the general public? Are mavericks portrayed as credible scientific sources? Do the stories written by journalists function to merely translate maverick theories for nonscientific audiences, or do they more often transform those maverick theories into the realm of scientific controversies? This study hypothesized answers to these questions by analysing how journa~ists wrote about three maverick theories: (1) a 1990 earthquake prediction, (2) an alternative theory about the c a w of AIDS, and (3) cold fusion. A content analysis of 393 news articles in 26 US newspapen and a mailed survey of the journalists who wrote those stories suggest that scienti6c theories which are believed to be credible by a minority of scientists may be lent credibility in mass media stories. even though the journalists themselves thought that the maverick scientisls lacked credibility. Implications for the communication of risk through the mass media are discussed.

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