The Great Debate: Media vs Science
There has been much debate about the problems surrounding the media and science’s fragile relationship. Here is a representation of key arguments.
Stephen Lewandosky and Steve Sherwood from The Conversation believe that “the media thrive on conflict, and.. believe conflicting opinions usually have equal validity”, whilst science is based on “the weeding out of bad ideas”.
Ananyo Bhattacharya from the scientific journal Nature wrote a blog post in The Guardian that scientists just don’t understand what makes a good journalism piece.
Ben Goldacre from The Guardian column Bad Science wrote in his article that the problem between media and science is that media articles are written by non scientists who believe that the public “won't understand the "science bit"” and so have to be dumbed down.
All three arguments do have valid points, and much has to be done about the cooperation between two of society’s most important and interesting sectors.
But where to begin?
How about actually cooperating instead of having jabs at each other? Science and the media need to start collaborating with each other and develop a form of journalism that both the scientific community and the media would be proud of. This may mean (dare I say it) changing the inverted pyramid style of writing and science accepting that sometimes statistics alone just don’t attract readers. It means finding a balance between interesting and accurate. It may mean creating a new generation of journalists/ scientists that specialize in the fine art of science media.
Don’t get me wrong, such people and media do exist. Take a look at Robin McKie’s article about why Neanderthals died out.
All I’m suggesting is that more collaboration and cooperation needs to happen in order to see this issue tackled. In true scientific spirit, prime evidence for how well collaboration works in science is the success of genetics data sharing in 1986. The best thing is that this is still working today.
Bibliography
Bhattcharya, Ananyo (2012), ‘Nine ways scientists demonstrate they don’t understand journalism’, The Guardian, January 18, < http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2012/jan/17/scientists-journalism>
Eberhart, Achim (2012) ‘Science vs. the Media’, Australian Science Communicators, February 4, < http://www.asc.asn.au/blog/2012/02/04/science-vs-the-media/>
Goldacre, Ben (2005), ‘Don’t dumb me down’, The Guardian, September 8, < http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/sep/08/badscience.research>
Lewandowsky, Stephen and Sherwood, Steve (2011) ‘Way off Balance: science and the mainstream media’, The Conversation, November 24, < http://theconversation.com/way-off-balance-science-and-the-mainstream-media-4080>
Mckie, Robin (2013), ‘Why did the Neanderthals die out?’, The Guardian, June 2, < http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/jun/02/why-did-neanderthals-die-out>
Pisani, Elizabeth (2011) ‘Medical science will benefit from the research of crowds’, The Guardian, January 11, < http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/11/medical-research-data-sharing >
Lecture word: open science
*this article was edited 3rd June, 2013- placed added Mckie's article.