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Non-news Values in Science Journalism. Felicity Mellor Imperial College London [email protected]. Human life created from a skin cell. Face it, guys, we'd be better off without you. 'Synthetic sperm' infertility hope. Men become unnecessary. Science has gone to seed. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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The End of Men?
Men become unnecessary
It's end of Da world
Fresh hope for childless couples as scientists create sperm in lab
A world with no men? We’d have no one to laugh at!
Science has gone to seedThat's all, blokes!
Face it, guys, we'd be better off without you
An end to fathers? Not in my lifetime
101 uses for a man
'Synthetic sperm' infertility hope
Human life created from a
skin cell
News values
• Negativity
• Recency
• Proximity
• Consonance
• Unambiguity
• Unexpectedness/Novelty
• Superlativeness
• Relevance
• Personalization
• Eliteness
• Attribution
• Facticity
Allan Bell, The Language of News Media (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991) pp. 156-158.
News values
• Negativity
• Recency
• Proximity
• Consonance
• Unambiguity
• Unexpectedness/Novelty
• Superlativeness
• Relevance
• Personalization
• Eliteness
• Attribution
• Facticity
Allan Bell, The Language of News Media (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991) pp. 156-158.
News values
• Negativity
• Recency
• Proximity
• Consonance
• Unambiguity
• Unexpectedness/Novelty
• Superlativeness
• Relevance
• Personalization
• Eliteness
• Attribution
• Facticity
Allan Bell, The Language of News Media (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991) pp. 156-158.
News values
• Negativity
• Recency
• Proximity
• Consonance
• Unambiguity
• Unexpectedness/Novelty
• Superlativeness
• Relevance
• Personalization
• Eliteness
• Attribution
• Facticity
Allan Bell, The Language of News Media (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991) pp. 156-158.
News values
• Negativity
• Recency
• Proximity
• Consonance
• Unambiguity
• Unexpectedness/Novelty
• Superlativeness
• Relevance
• Personalization
• Eliteness
• Attribution
• Facticity
Allan Bell, The Language of News Media (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991) pp. 156-158.
News values
• Negativity
• Recency
• Proximity
• Consonance
• Unambiguity
• Unexpectedness/Novelty
• Superlativeness
• Relevance
• Personalization
• Eliteness
• Attribution
• Facticity
Allan Bell, The Language of News Media (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991) pp. 156-158.
News values
• Negativity
• Recency
• Proximity
• Consonance
• Unambiguity
• Unexpectedness/Novelty
• Superlativeness
• Relevance
• Personalization
• Eliteness
• Attribution
• Facticity
“Science journalism is just journalism, after all”
Same news values for science as other beats ...
“Science journalism is just journalism, after all”
Same news values for science as other beats ...
... except where it is different!
Two strong coffees a day can ‘reverse’
Alzheimer’s
The lifestyle to beat Alzheimer's
Coffee 'repairs memory’
FORGET THE HEALTH
FASCISTS, COFFEE IS GOOD
FOR YOU!
BBC news coverage of science
• Two thirds of items about research findings include no
expression of uncertainty.
• Only a fifth of contributors to broadcast news and a quarter of
contributors to online news made cautionary comments.
• Only 7% of broadcast contributors and 4% of online contributors
made deeper criticisms.
• Only an eighth of broadcast items and two fifths of online items
about research include comment from independent scientists.
Felicity Mellor, Stephen Webster and Alice Bell, Content Analysis of the BBC’s Science Coverage (London: BBC Trust, 2011).
“Unaggressive in their reporting and relying on official sources,
science journalists present a narrow range of coverage. Many
journalists, are, in effect, retailing science and technology more
than investigating them, identifying with their sources more than
challenging them.”
Dorothy Nelkin, Selling Science: How the Press Covers Science and Technology (New York: W.H. Freeman, 1987) p. 175.
News reporting of funders of research
• Eight week sample of BBC news on television, radio and online.
• Only 14% of online items mention funders or funding.
• Only 3% of broadcast items mention funders or funding..
Felicity Mellor, Stephen Webster and Alice Bell, Content Analysis of the BBC’s Science Coverage (London: BBC Trust, 2011).
The non-reporting of funders of research
For 29 press-released stories about research:
• 4 of 142 newspaper articles mention the funders.
• 1 of 99 BBC broadcast items mention the funders.
“Advocacy groups on all sides of debates in science and
technology (including professional institutions) should publicly
disclose funding sources, to allow the public to decide potential
sources of bias.”
Chris Langley and Stuart Parkinson, Science and the Corporate Agenda: The Detrimental Effects of Commercial Influence on Science and
Technology (Scientists for Global Responsibility, 2009) p. 8.
“ It is worth remembering, though, that almost all British research in
– say – theoretical physics, or evolution, or marine biology is
funded directly by the tax-payer and it is surely not mandatory that,
in the interests of impartiality, the precise source of support be
pointed out each time a news item mentions such work. The
Content Analysis shows that often they are not but this seems to
me not a major issue.”
Steve Jones, BBC Trust Review of the Impartiality and Accuracy of the
BBC’s coverage of science, (London: BBC Trust, 2011) p. 58.
Non-news values
Non-news values
• Provisionality
• Contingency
• Dissonance
