Journalism Changing Research*
* in a complex and intriguing way that warrants further research
In the very early days of my teaching/public speaking career in science journalism and science communication, I accidentally walked into a talk that went on to become one of my most sought-after topics.
It was part of a university tour in Russia where we still had to start by explaining what science communication even is and how it’s different from writing papers. I had been asked to talk about the relationship between scientists and journalists and the practical tips to make it work (better).
I could not know, though, what the audience breakdown would be between journalists and scientists, and thus whom the tips should be geared towards. That was not insignificant: a lot of the tension in that relationship is not from bad choices or lack of experience, but ultimately comes down to legitimate and rather fundamental differences in outlooks and approaches. Scientists and journalists can absolutely have conflicting interests in a comms setting. And since I could not hope to resolve those differences in one 60-minute lecture, effectively I could end up giving tips that appeared mutually exclusive and confusing to different parts of a mixed and inexperienced audience.
So, as far as I can recall, I described the setting, took turns in asking scientists and journalists in the room about various aspects of it, and pointed out how each side’s actions could be “matched” by the other side for better odds of a good outcome overall. And I found that one of the ways to describe the inherent tension was always very visceral and a handy opening for a lot of good tips: who controls the text?
With time, I even commissioned a slightly goofy graphic for the title slide of that presentation —
Over the years of polishing that talk, I have learned a lot about the relationship at the heart of it, in no small part from audience interaction. For example, spelling out how journalists think of what they do to scientists helped me come up with more coherent and clearer “rules of engagement“ for my own interviewees. And talking about science as a process to journalists increased my appreciation for more nuanced, less “churnalistic“ stories.
But because I always had to be very pragmatic for the sake of (mostly) beginners, I never really got to delve deep enough into how both sides see and think of each other’s work — and why. And that’s the topic of today’s paper.
Welcome back to TITLE-ABS-KEY(“science journalism“), a newsletter about science journalism research! If you missed the previous issue, I talked about instructional design in scicomm education, a symposium in Venice, and possibly writing a paper of my own. This time, we are indeed back to our usual programming with a nice qualitative study someone else has already written and published. Onwards!
Today’s paper: Moorhead, L. L., Fleerackers, A., & Maggio, L. A. (2023). “It’s my job”: A qualitative study of the mediatization of science within the scientist-journalist relationship. JCOM 22(04), A05. DOI: 10.22323/2.22040205.
Why: It’s 100% on point for this newsletter, but also I smiled when I looked at that title, saw the word mediatization and instantly remembered how one student, bless his heart, was not at all sure what mediatization meant — after having written a whole thesis with literally this word in the title.
Abstract: Through 19 interviews with scientists, this study examines scientists’ use of media logic and their relationships with journalists using research as the focal point. The authors identified that the scientists shared a basic understanding of media logic classified in three patterns. Two patterns were previously identified by Olesk: 1) adaption (ability to explain research in a simple, engaging fashion but with a reactive approach to journalist interaction) and 2) adoption (proactively create and manage media interactions for strategic aims through a more active use of media logic). The other emerged as a new, third pattern, affiliation (enthusiastic contributors to journalists’ production practices and desire to engage in public outreach).
As I said, this aspect always felt too reflective for my scientist-journalist presentation, where I basically told people not to shy away from talking to each other as opposed to exchanging emails, and to consider keeping their promises even if the other side failed to.
Moreover, with almost any researcher audience, I had to start by defusing palpable frustration with journalistic practices (often by taking on the famous SMBC comic How Science Reporting Works). So discussing how scientists actually change their scientist behavior according to media logic and their understanding of it — and that is neither good nor bad but just reality! – was on a level of meta best kept for more advanced courses I thought.
That’s why it’s somewhat bittersweet to read in this paper that both journalists and scientists see science-media interactions as beneficial and the use of research as a shared touchstone. I like to think I’ve played a very small part in encouraging more scientists in Russia to see it this way.
So, what is mediatization of science? (Asking for a former student.) According to the paper, it’s an increase in the orientation of science to its social context, which seems rather broad. The intro goes on to explain that, as mass media are quite important in framing public opinion, and science is an important part of society, it’s not just science journalism that gradually builds expertise in covering this tricky subject – but science itself slowly starts to bend under “media logic.”
As with so many complex phenomena, mediatization is a double-edged sword. When discussed by scientists, an example that’s brought up most often is probably the most prestigious multidisciplinary journals such as Nature and Science, which are accused of being heavily biased towards “newsy” research for the sake of media clout. (Full disclosure: I do occasionally write for Science’s news desk, which is independent from the academic publishing wing of the journal.)
But scientists generally accepting that they should be accountable to the rest of society, and that they have a social responsibility to communicate their findings to wider audiences, is arguably also the result of mediatization. A little commitment to serve the public never hurts.
Here’s the key question, though: suppose scientists do change their behavior as a consequence of their interactions with journalists. Is it really the media logic, though, that is shaping that change? If you are a journalist and you have ever talked to non-journalists about “the media,“ you know that audiences remain blissfully unaware of most stuff happening under the hoods of their favorite newspapers and TV channels.
So it’s the perception of media logic, some idea of how media works based on both individual news consumer experience and interactions with journalists, that is driving mediatization. To me, that is wildly interesting in itself: there’s nothing quite like observing an outsider try to unpack the ‘black box’ between your input (in this case, the reality) and your output (the media product.) I am with the six-and-a-half million people who follow Nathan Pyle’s Stange Planet on Instagram.
And then there’s also the issue of which media interactions tend to have the most profound effect on scientists; I would bet that if an interview is uneventful, your typical Q&A that leads to a solidly average news story, that does contribute somewhat to an expert’s level of confidence, but it’s also unlikely to leave a lasting impact.
It’s likely the bad experiences that make people leave colorful reviews and become twice shy. So this version of the media logic might actually be a funhouse-mirror, evil-twin version that is less about public accountability and more about clickbaity headlines.
That may be why the authors of this paper chose to look closer into communicating post-normal science and controversies. That is where neither side can quite rely on a body of established experience, heuristics, and solutions, and journalists and scientists may come to share norms, practices, and goals, as the boundaries between the two professions blur and are renegotiated.
They talked to 19 scientists whose research was mentioned or hyperlinked in stratified random sample of 400 news articles from each of the following publications: The Guardian, HealthDay, IFL Science, MedPage Today, News Medical, New York Times, Popular Science, and Wired. These 400 articles were published in the spring of 2021, but did not focus exclusively on COVID-19.
Curiously, the authors also did not limit the search to scientists who had been interviewed, i.e. who had an actual conversation with a human journalist for that specific story. By including press release quotes and even citations of papers (where academic communication effectively becomes science communication), the study covers a much wider range of interactions with media, most of which provide very limited insight into the coveted media logic. That is, feature articles don’t typically come with a ‘methods’ section where the author explains how sources were chosen and what made this or that particular sentence highly quotable (although maybe they should.) A journalist interviewer can and often does take the time to explain their thinking, especially when asked.
On a side note, I was heartbroken but also… bizarrely relieved?… to learn that 153 out of 224 scientists just ghosted the poor research assistant who had emailed them requesting an interview. So it’s definitely not me then! The 19 scientists who agreed were mostly from the US (13), and mostly mid-career or senior (15). I think this might be the result of self-selection based on their own sense of how well they understand media logic and the concept of mediatization.
Within the interviews, researchers first answered general questions about their experience working with journalists and then described an actual experience linked to a specific science news article from the sample. I agree this is clever, as the study points out:
This approach allowed scientists to say what they typically did (first portion of interview) and then explain what they actually did for a particular story (second portion).
The authors analyzed interview transcripts using a framework from this 2021 paper. That paper presents a “typology of mediatized scientists,“ that is, it looks at mediatization in multiple aspects and describes the ‘pattern’ of change that has occurred in that particular aspect. For instance, one of these aspects, or dimensions, of mediatization is mastering media logic, or essentially an ability to trigger news coverage. Within the pattern of adaption of media logic, a mediatized researcher does contribute to or even initiate occasional press releases, but that is pretty much the extent to which they understand news production practices (press release – ???? – news). And within the pattern of adoption of media logic (subtle one-letter difference), the researcher contacts journalists proactively and “sells” story ideas and angles to them – also known as pitching, a bona fide journalistic practice.
So the authors look at the body of interviews through this lens and derive another pattern they call affiliation of media logic. In the same aspect of mastering media logic, this means the researcher can articulate and share content production practices used by journalists and is able to co-collaborate with journalists and embrace journalistic ethics and goals.
I know these unicorns exist and walk among us and all, and I am really grateful to them for their service. And this was derived inductively, which I read to mean the authors sampled multiple unicorns (who had likely self-selected into the sample by virtue of being really kind humans who don’t ghost research assistants) and said “Huh, this doesn’t quite fit anywhere in the existing model.“ That’s the way to go when facts challenge your priors.
The paper shows how the two existing patterns were played out in the sample, and I’d just like to share a couple of great quotes from the scientist interviews.
Unfortunately, it just seems really, really, really unlikely to me that a journalist can look at a preprint or an article, something in arXiv, and make any sense out of it, and make any judgment about correctness or importance, or anything like that.
Well, yes and no, and there’s a lot to unpack here. Just for example, correctness and importance are two quite different things, and if we are talking about published peer-reviewed work, then journalists are in effect outsourcing the judgment on correctness to the scientists – it’s not at all ideal but it’s what we have, and any failures here are just as much a responsibility of the scientists.
The last thing I want is for a journalist to write a paper about our work or about anybody’s work without talking to experts, so I’m totally available. . . we want it to be presented in the best, correct scientific light.
This sort of feels like a backhanded compliment in the same vein as the quote above but I’ll take it if it motivates researchers not to ghost me.
For me, I see the press as an ally in terms of helping disseminate information and being very committed to doing that accurately and fairly.
See? I mean, it’s unicorn stuff. That makes me feel all kinds of warm and fuzzy, and I am fortunate to be able to think of a few scientists I know and have worked with who genuinely make an effort to stay at that vantage point despite aaaallll the mad shit the media and life are throwing at them. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Back to the paper now. The authors find that most scientists don’t actually follow one consistent pattern across all dimensions (generally they are much more advanced in seeing communication as a shared responsibility but less so in, for example, internalizing their own communication activities as an actual part of their scientist job, which makes sense.)
Career status (how senior and experienced someone is), journal pressures, and institutional context shaped the pattern mix for individual scientists. Interestingly, these are all factors on the science side, not the media side, in the relationship. So maybe when one scientist grumbles that all journalists do is misrepresent research, and the other can’t praise them enough, it’s not just their history of interactions that is at play.
Finally, the authors present four fictional scientist personas tied to four distinct mixes of patterns: Constrained Communicator, Ambivalent Media Source, Strategist, and Media Enthusiast. And the finding that immediately jumped out at me – no persona hitting the affiliation pattern on “awareness of media logic” — definitely tracks. If we go back to the description of the affiliation pattern for this dimension, it says: “Express appreciation of journalists’ work logic and regularly contribute early on to content production efforts by journalists.“
Okay, so (A) that is a very big ask of a scientist, and (B) I’m not sure I express appreciation of journalists’ work logic that often! (mostly because quite often that logic stinks.)
I know I have called the researchers mediatized in an affiliation pattern unicorns and kind people, but to be fair, it’s not all rainbows. Here’s what the authors write about this:
What this affiliation orientation means for science, journalism, and the public is unclear. On the one hand, mutually supportive relationships between scientists and journalists could support high quality, evidence-based science media coverage—particularly given that this orientation is characterized by goals of improving public wellbeing and maximizing societal benefits. On the other, the affiliation orientation could signal a further breakdown of the autonomy of science and of journalism.
And kudos for flagging that academic journals are definitely undergoing mediatization which is separate from the transformation of scientists and merits more research.
Great paper overall I’d say (although maybe I can’t actually make any sense out of it, and make any judgment about correctness or importance, or anything like that). I’ll definitely reference the personas in a future version of my blockbuster lecture.