Other Issues in Media and Society

Having completed my own blog assignment, I knuckled down to examining my classmates’ work. Frankly speaking, I was deeply amazed. First of all, the variety of issues on the media turned out to be striking. There are so many ways on approaching media problems, that you can get lost easily. Luckily, the blogs are here to help. Second of all, my classmates did such a meaningful job, and it is truly satisfying to watch how they have put a piece of their soul into the blog – in writing, organizing, and doing it up. And it will not be exaggerated, if I say that you can actually feel the passion, with which they talk about their topics.

As for me now, the difficult thing is to choose among the blogs I want to get my readers acquainted with. They all deserve attention as they serve to educate. And yet, let me introduce the most diverse ones.

Science Journalism. My perspective

The horrifying monster of 2017 – fake news – seems to be only growing over the time. It is commonly known that post-truth news is a privilege of political news. As if! Turns out that reporters shape, influence, change and gloss over… Science?!

According to the dictionary, science is ‘knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding.’ (Merriam-Webster.com, 2017) So can we assume that reporters are changing the very definition of it? If scientific data is deprived of accuracy and implicit truthfulness, it is no longer ‘scientific’.

For Further Research

 

1. One of my favourite Web pages for getting reliable information is FactCheck.Org. Even though for many people it is mostly known for shedding light upon U.S. politics, there is also a section called SciCheck, which focuses exclusively on ‘false and misleading scientific claims that are made by partisans to influence public policy.’ (Factcheckorg, 2017)
2. If you are interested in Science Journalism, make sure that you have checked Council for the Advancement of Science Writing. The Web site will answer all your questions related to starting a successful career in science writing. For instance, how do I get started in science writing or how do I know that I should become a science writer and I have what it takes? Additionally, there is a list of fellowships and awards that may interest you as a starting science journalist (Casworg, 2017).
3. Andrew Moore (2006) in his research paper ‘Bad science in the headlines. Who takes responsibility when science is distorted in the mass media?’  brings up a new perspective on the issue of science reporting. It is commonly accepted that journalists are the one to blame for false science reporting. Yet, Moore(2006) argues that scientists are in charge of trustable information being delivered to a reader.

P.S. In case you do want a dose of fake but amusing science news, there is no point in visiting Natural News or InfoWars. Fake Science is here to help.

(Vidani, 2017)

 

Refernces

Factcheckorg. (2017). FactCheckorg. Retrieved 11 December, 2017, from http://www.factcheck.org/scicheck/

Casworg. (2017). Casworg. Retrieved 11 December, 2017, from http://casw.org/casw/guide-careers-science-writing

Moore, A. (2006). Bad science in the headlines Who takes responsibility when science is distorted in the mass media?. EMBO Reports, 7(12), 1193–1196.

Vidani, P. (2017). Fakescienceorg. Retrieved 11 December, 2017, from http://fakescience.org

What Experts say II

Media Sensationalism

‘Sensationalism in the Media: When Scientists and Journalists May Be Complicit Collaborators’ is a research paper conducted by D. F. Ransohoff and R. M. Ransohoff.

The authors explain why science sensationalism is a problem and why it poses a threat to people. It’s been suggested that falsified reporting of medical data may harm psychological health of patients, cause baseless fear or panic (Ransohoff & Ransohoff, 2001).

What Experts Say I

Carl Zimmer.

Science reporting in Age of Fake News

Carl Zimmer is a famous New York Times columnist, who also has hundreds of features for such magazines as The Atlantic, National Geographic and Scientific American. He has won many awards, including the National Academies Communication Award, a prize for science communication from the United States National Academy of Sciences (Carlzimmercom, 2017).

During the inaugural AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award Zimmer gave a lecture on how fake news phenomena affects science reporting.

Current Events II

(Whatthehealthfilmcom, 2017)

‘What the Health’: The Horror Movie of the 21st Century

Recent sensational documentary has got people into thinking about going vegan. Not being a fan of Netflix’s documentaries, I would probably never ended up watching it, but I got a text from a vegan friend: ‘WATCH ‘WHAT THE HEALTH’ AND U WILL NEVER EAT MEAT AGAIN I SWEAR.’ After this I couldn’t restrain my curiosity, so I did what I was told. However after tense 90 minutes of watching it, I lost the desire to eat not only meat, but anything else too. It seemed that every product possessed a threat – milk provoked cancer, eggs were worse than cigarettes, and fish were toxic (Whatthehealthfilmcom, 2017). Though I couldn’t help wondering: 17 years of eating deadly food –  how come I am still alive?

Current Events I

Scholar journals publish Star Wars-themed spoof paper

Science has fallen under the epidemic of fake news

For years scientific journals have been a major source of creditable information. Remember how your teachers used to say ‘Do not cite from journalist articles, Wikipedia, etc. Only refer to scholarly peer-reviewed papers?’

Well, they might have been wrong.

There is evidence that many of scientific journals are no longer ‘scientific’. For instance, I was astonished by the recent case of research on non-existent  midi-chlorians(my wrong, existent, in Star Wars Universe) being accepted by quite a few predatory journals.

Introduction Post

If only a few years ago popularized science was a barely noticeable and almost marginal genre, now information about scientific discoveries comes from almost every news outlets.

Unfortunately, not everything that is said and written about science in the media can be trusted.

Errors arise from a variety of reasons – incompetence, disregard for facts, a conscious distortion of the truth or an excessive tendency to simplifications. Still, one of the main reasons which causes the loss of people’s trust is the tendency of reporters to exaggerate. With the screaming headlines met on every news source, sensations have become a part of our routine news check.

Due to that the world of science seems to be quite a crazy place where groundbreaking discoveries are made every day. At this point, some questions arise. Is it all true? What sources can be trusted? How can a reader differentiate true scientifically proven facts from well fabricated reporter’s lies? Keep up and you will find out in the next few posts.

Let’s the enlightening begin!