[September 9, 2009]

The prevailing wisdom among many scientists and scientific organizations is that, as a rule, scientists are press shy, and those who aren’t are mavericks.

However, a new study by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers, published in the current issue (summer 2009) of Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, suggests otherwise. The study, conducted by journalism professor Sharon Dunwoody, life sciences communication professor Dominique Brossard and graduate student Anthony Dudo, provides evidence that many mainstream scientists occasionally work with journalists and some do so routinely. And the interplay between scientists and journalists, say Brossard and Dunwoody, has been remarkably stable since the 1980s.

“By and large, scientists speak to journalists, they know it is important and they’re willing to do it again,” Dunwoody says. “The frequency with which scientists and journalists interact has been pretty stable over time.”

The findings, extracted from a survey of 1,200 researchers in the areas of epidemiology and stem cell research, two fields that experience extensive news media attention, contradict the widespread view in science that scientists are out of touch.

“We found relatively frequent interactions,” says Brossard, explaining that about one-third of the respondents claimed to have had up to five contacts with journalists during a three-year period, while another third of the sample said they experienced more than six contacts with reporters over three years. Only one-third of respondents reported having no contacts with journalists.

“The frequencies are definitely encouraging,” adds Brossard.

The proportion of scientists in the sample who interact with journalists, according to the Wisconsin researchers, is intriguingly similar to studies from the 1980s, as well as patterns identified in the 1990s. The new data imply that journalistic engagement of scientists over time is greater and more stable than “persistent, anecdotal cautionary tales would suggest,” Dunwoody, Brossard and Dudo write.

Another key insight from the data is that it is generally not the case that journalists focus their attention on scientific outliers. Instead, scientists who interact most frequently with reporters tend to be senior, highly productive researchers or administrators. “The notion that journalists concentrate on mavericks is not true,” says Dunwoody. “That’s an important pattern. What it says is that journalists are working mostly with successful mainstream scientists.”

The results of the new study are important because they chip away at the common perception among scientists that media coverage of science is flawed. “We don’t know if the interactions are, in fact, better,” says Dunwoody. “But scientists are eager participants. It reflects a more active role by one of the major players in the process.”

The new study, according to Dunwoody, indicates that although scientists may have a general perception that news media coverage of science is faulty, that perception does not extend to coverage of their own work. “They often view their own work as being covered well, but that doesn’t influence the larger perception.”

The involvement of scientists in active public communication is widely viewed as critical, especially when controversial issues are at play or important policy is being forged. Coverage of such things as stem cell research, infectious disease, nuclear power, nanotechnology and biotechnology frequently entails important information about human health and has economic and social implications that reach far beyond the scientific community.

“We need to keep in mind that most people learn about scientific topics through mass media and not informal channels like science museums,” says Brossard. “Hence, the necessity for scientists to engage journalists.”

Another key insight from the study is that the scientists who work with journalists perceive that they do so not for personal gain but because their participation can influence public understanding of science and the role of science in society. In short, appealing to scientists’ moral or ethical values may be a way to increase participation in the process of making news.

Finally, the study provides evidence that scientists who have been trained or otherwise briefed about how to work with journalists are more likely to engage reporters.

CONTACT: Sharon Dunwoody, 608-263-3389, dunwoody@wisc.edu; Dominique Brossard, 608-262-0482, dbrossard@wisc.edu.

<<RYCU

[April 12, 2010]

A meta-analysis of 23 existing terrorism studies found that exposure to media coverage of terrorism is related to posttraumatic stress reactions.

The meta-analysis also found that the relationship between exposure to media coverage of terrorism and posttraumatic stress was greater for studies involving youth and for studies including people who were farther away from the terrorist event.

These results mean that youth who are further away from the terrorism event are at increased risk for developing posttraumatic stress reactions resulting from exposure to media coverage of a terrorist event.

“Parents, teachers, counselors, and anyone else who works or lives with children should be aware of these effects,” said Dr. J. Brian Houston, an Assistant Professor of Research in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center who authored this study.

“The mental health needs of youth not directly affected by terrorism may not be obvious in the aftermath of a terrorist attack, but by analyzing the results of several terrorism studies together we can see that this group experiences the greatest amount of posttraumatic stress reactions related to exposure to media coverage of terrorism.”

Dr. Houston says that future work should focus on developing public health interventions for youth that are aimed at ameliorating these potentially negative effects of media use.

Posttraumatic stress reactions may include: feeling hopeless, detached from others, and numb; having trouble concentrating; being startled easily; feeling always on guard; experiencing nightmares and trouble sleeping; and having problems at work or school.

Meta-analysis is the process of combining numerous existing research studies to answer research questions or hypotheses. Meta-analysis provides a more powerful estimate of how variables are related than is possible from a single research study.

CONTACT: J. Brian Houston, Assistant Professor of Research and Program Director for the Terrorism and Disaster Center in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, 405.271.8001 ext. 47633, brian-houston@ouhsc.edu

<<RYCU

[April 12, 2010]

As new digital media replace traditional sources of news, the public’s knowledge of local affairs may be undermined.

This result headlines a new study by Lee Shaker, a researcher at Princeton University, that examines the effect of increased media choice upon citizens’ local and national political knowledge. The article, “Citizens’ Local Political Knowledge and the Role of Media Access”, is available in the current issue of Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly (winter 2009). Based on data from a 2007 survey of 1000 Philadelphia residents, a clear, negative relationship between having access to cable TV or satellite radio and citizens’ local political knowledge is depicted in the piece. A similar relationship does not materialize between new media access and national political knowledge. These results reinforce the fears voiced by many regarding the decline of local media – especially newspapers.

“Digital media clearly expand access to national political information, but they have yet to yield much additional local news,” Shaker says. “At the same time, traditional sources of local news are forced into a tough competition with new media for citizens’ attention. It appears that lower levels of local political knowledge may be one consequence of our changing media environments.”

Given so many new media options, most of which are non-local, it makes sense that citizens will shift some of their time and attention away from local news. “At some point, time spent consuming new non-local media must inevitably detract from time spent with local news,” Shaker says. “Americans need to be knowledgeable about their communities to effectively participate in local politics. Consequently, any evidence that suggests that citizens may become less informed about local affairs is concerning.”

In addition to examining the relationship between media choice and political knowledge, the article also reveals several other differences regarding who knows about local and national politics. For example, scholars have consistently found white, male citizens to be more knowledgeable about national politics than non-white or female citizens. The Philadelphia study replicated this national level finding – but did not find significant differences in local political knowledge across race or gender. “Local affairs are somewhat overlooked by scholars and these results may surprise people who normally focus on national politics,” says Shaker.

The article, drawn from a larger project that examined the intersection of media, technology, and local politics, depicts results from just one city. It is, however, a unique project that suggests that citizens and scholars alike should take a closer look at communication in America’s communities.

“Americans are being pulled in many opposing directions today,” Shaker adds. “On one hand, new media increasingly allows them to feel like citizens of the world. On the other, pressure is mounting to reduce their carbon footprints, eat local, and support small businesses. The danger is that citizens may become distracted by national, or even international, issues beyond their reach and fail to address local concerns that they could impact.”

CONTACT: Lee Shaker, (646) 450-7533, lshaker@princeton.edu, www.leeshaker.com

<<RYCU

[April 13, 2010]

A recent study shows that ideology is a better predictor of beliefs about climate change than is educational attainment, and that the resulting “belief gaps” between liberals and conservatives grow over time.

This study marks a departure from previous work which showed that heavy media coverage of science news contributed to “knowledge gaps,” or growing disparities in knowledge between those with different levels of educational attainment.

The concern raised in the 1970s by the Minnesota team of Phil Tichenor, George Donohue and Clarice Olien was that widening “knowledge gaps” would impede institutional responses to social problems.

The present study by Doug Blanks Hindman of the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University is different from the previous knowledge gap studies in a couple of important ways.

First, Hindman suggests that knowledge is replaced by beliefs when social problems enter the political fray. Second, he notes that whereas knowledge, and the resulting gaps, are predicted by educational level, beliefs are easily predicted by ideology. Hence, the “knowledge gaps” of a previous era become the “belief gaps” in an era of political polarization.

Data for the study were from five probability-based telephone surveys comprised of nationally representative samples sponsored by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and conducted by Princeton Survey Research International from June, 2006, to June 2008.

Hindman’s study showed that ideology was a stronger predictor than was educational attainment of the belief that there was solid evidence that the earth has been getting warmer.

The hypothesis of a strengthening relationship between ideology and beliefs over time—the belief gap—was weakly supported in the case of beliefs about whether or not there is solid evidence that the earth was getting warmer. Thus, under conditions of heavy media coverage, beliefs about the existence of global warming became more ideologically entrenched so that gaps between conservatives and liberals widened.

Hindman concludes that in an era of unprecedented partisanship, mass media coverage of politically contested issues contributes to widening belief gaps between ideological camps, further raising concerns about system adjustment to change.

Contact: Doug Blanks Hindman, Associate Professor, Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, Washington State University. 509-335-6149. dhindman@wsu.edu.

<<RYCU

[June 16, 2010]

Joining in online newspapers’ message forums increases participants’ perception that they understand their local communities better, according to a new research study in the Spring 2010 edition of Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. However, that participation and accompanying sense of community understanding is not related to their getting out and taking part in real-world community activities.

These findings are based on a survey of 538 participants in message forums at the online sites associated with 80 U.S. newspapers. Such forums generally consist of a portion of the website where visitors can post comments organized into common message “threads,” and can be found at about a third of all U.S. online newspapers.

One of the goals newspapers frequently have in hosting such forums is to build a virtual community that overlaps the geographic one. The study titled “Virtual Community Support for Offline Communities Through Online Newspaper Message Forums” done by Jack Rosenberry, a researcher at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, N.Y., found that this overlap does develop. Forum users tended to be longtime community residents, with 57 percent of them living in community served by the newspaper for more than 20 years. About a third of forum participants said they know one or more of their online correspondents personally offline as well, and a quarter said they have become friends offline with someone they first met online.

Participation in the forums gives users a perception that they relate better to their communities. More than three quarters of respondents agreed with a statement that taking part in forums leads to better understanding of community issues while about 60 percent said the forums offered useful ideas for solving community problems. About half also said that their thinking about community issues had sometimes been changed by information from the forum. A further statistical analysis indicated that greater participation in the forums led to stronger agreement with each of these ideas.

However, forum participation was not related to actual community involvement or social-capital-building activities that might extend from this greater understanding. This was the case even though more than half of survey respondents reported that they had contacted someone offline about a community issue in response to online discussion about it, or had attended a meeting or event based on information from a forum discussion.

Taken at face value, these numbers seem to imply a mobilizing influence on the part of the forums. But statistical analysis showed that other variables were better predictors of this behavior, especially whether or not respondents’ offline relationships overlap their online ones. This means such “civic engagement” behavior is related more closely to existing social relationships and community involvement than it is to association with the online community. As it was colorfully described by another set of researchers who investigated virtual communities, “there is little reason to presume that the Internet will make social butterflies out of homebodies.” Participation in newspaper forums apparently does not, either.

Contact: Jack Rosenberry, Associate Professor, St. John Fisher College, Rochester, N.Y. 585-385-8206; jrosenberry@sjfc.edu.

<<RYCU