Science Communication 2007 Abstracts
Science Communication Interest Group
Print Media Coverage of Passive Smoking: A Content Analysis Study of Mainstream Newspapers • Asya A. Besova, Louisiana State University • The primary objective of this research study was to assess the extent and content of newspaper coverage of passive smoking. The researcher found that passive smoking was portrayed as a controversial issue. Twenty nine percent of articles concluded that passive smoking is not harmful. Although the majority of people quoted in articles were scientists, physicians, and academicians; reporters devoted a considerable amount of quotes to tobacco company representatives.
Perspectives of African Americans and Dentists on Oral Cancer and Dentist-Patient Communication • Youjin Choi, Virginia Dodd, Jennifer Watson, Scott Tomar, Henrietta Logan and Heather Edwards, University of Florida • Oral cancer is one of the most pressing diseases that disproportionately affect African American men and White American men. Dentists’ role in delivering oral cancer information and explaining the importance of early detection exams is vital in reducing the disparities. Using focus groups with African Americans and dentists, this study compared African American’s knowledge about oral cancer and its exams, and perceptions of dentist-patient communication with dentists’ perspectives on the same topics.
To booze or not to booze? Newspaper coverage of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders • Colleen Connolly-Ahern, Penn State University and S. Camille Broadway, University of Texas at Arlington • This paper reports the results of a qualitative framing of the coverage of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). Findings indicate that media discourse about FASD is characterized by differing story types and competing frames. The study also documents the recent emergence of a news frame in opposition to the prevailing abstinence frame in health coverage. This frame has shown physicians to be conflicted in their advice about drinking during pregnancy.
Precision of Information, Sensationalism, and Self-Efficacy as Message-Level Variables Affecting Risk Perceptions • Michael Dahlstrom and Anthony Dudo, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Risk studies often investigate how risks are processed psychologically, but few have investigated the effects of message-level variables on risk perception. This study examined the effects of three message-level constructs, risk precision, sensationalism and self-efficacy, on general and individual fear toward the risk of sick building syndrome. Results show that risk precision significantly affects general fear, but is moderated by sensationalism. Individual fear was not affected by any of the constructs.
News Frames of Hormone Replacement Therapy Before and After the Women’s Healthy Initiative Report in 2002 • Kenneth Kim, University of Florida • Until July 2002, Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is widely recommended by physicians for reducing the symptoms of menopause. However, in July 2002, there were alarming reports on the long-term HRT use from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), a national health study for postmenopausal women. The WHI reported that any potential benefit of HRT might be offset by potential harms, including an increase in the risk of breast cancer, stroke, and heart disease.
Misunderstanding Public Understanding of Nanotechnology: Nanotechnology Researchers’ Views of Ordinary People, Media and Public Discourse • Victoria Kramer, University of South Carolina • Nanotechnology is an emerging technology predicted to have major impacts on society. There are those within the nanotechnology community calling for public involvement, yet there appear to be no studies examining nanotechnology researchers’ views of the public and science communication. This exploratory study examines how nanoresearchers perceive ordinary people, media coverage of nanotechnology and science’s role in society. The findings’ implications for how nanoresearchers are likely to approach science communication are discussed.
Public Concern, Risk Delineation and Source Use in Newspapers’ Coverage of Genetically Modified Food • Xigen LI, Southern Illinois University Carbondale • This study examined ten U.S. newspapers’ coverage of genetically modified food during 1994 and 2004,and attempted to answer several important questions on how U.S. newspapers covered issues of public interest, how media dealt with risk information, and to what degree source used was associated with the key aspects of the coverage.
Understanding Public Support for Stem Cell Research: Media Communication, Interpersonal Communication and Trust in Key Actors • Hui Liu and Susanna Priest, University of South Carolina • This paper analyzes data from a 2005 telephone survey of 1200 people in the U.S. that included questions about attitudes toward stem cell research and a broad range of communication variables. After all controls, trust in university scientists and religious leaders, exposure to national television news, familiarity, and religious service attendance produced statistically significant main effects on perception of research benefits, together explaining about 31% of the variance. Interpersonal communication may have contingent effects.
The Perceived Justice of Local Scientists and Community Support for their Research • Katherine McComas, Cornell University, John Beesley, University of South Carolina and Zheng Yang, Cornell University • This study investigates the relationship among measures of justice and attitudes toward local scientific research. It uses results of a mail survey of residents in two upstate New York counties (N=1306) that host substantial biotechnology and nanotechnology research facilities. Predictor variables are distributional, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice. Controls include demographics, media use, basic science knowledge, and technology awareness.
Intersections of Health Literacy and Media Literacy: An Explication of Concepts • Paula Rausch, University of Florida • Mass media are the primary means through which most Americans obtain health information, yet research examining their role in health literacy is rare. This explication provides overviews of both health literacy and media literacy and identifies the overlap between them. It then proposes a conceptual definition and an operational model of health literacy that links the two concepts and takes into account mass media as significant providers of public health information.
How Attention to Local Newspaper and Television Environmental News Relates to Risk and Knowledge • Daniel Riffe and Thomas J. Hrach, Ohio University • Survey data compared influence of local television and newspaper environmental coverage, exploring how environmental risk and value of environmental knowledge are related to exposure to news and attention to environmental news and beliefs about its quality. Respondents perceiving greater risk paid more attention and were more critical. Value of environmental knowledge was negatively related to perceived quality of television coverage and positively correlated with attention to newspaper environmental coverage.
Newspaper coverage of genetic modification events in China, Thailand and the United States: Across-cultural analysis • Lu Lu Rodriguez and Zheng Xiang, Iowa State University • This study compares how the English-language newspapers of three countries covered two genetic modification cases, the genetic engineering of rice in China and the US, and the genetic alteration of papaya in Thailand and the US. The intensity of newspaper coverage of each genetic modification event, the pattern and the tone of the coverage, the sources cited, and the frames employed were determined through a content analysis.
Environment Reporters and U.S. Journalists: A Comparative Analysis • David Sachsman, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, James Simon, Fairfield University and JoAnn Valenti • Reporters assigned to covering a beat like the environment might be expected to be more experienced and better educated in their subject area. However, a comparison between 652 environmental journalists working at daily newspapers and television stations and more than 1,000 U.S. journalists in general found that these reporters share many individual and work-related characteristics, perhaps due in part to their similar backgrounds and to the basic professional training received by most journalists.
At the Frontiers of Faith and Science: News Media Framing of Stem Cell Research • Nicole Smith, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Framing research has shown that media framing of issues has real implications for both policy makers and audiences. As the ethical debate surrounding stem cell research presents a problem of choice to the American people, how that choice is framed is a fundamental determinant of what the American people think, and ultimately decide, about the future of stem cell research. This study presents a framing analysis of newspaper coverage of the issue.
Sourcing Patterns in the Crisis Phases of a Bioterror Attack • Kristen Swain, University of Kansas • This study examined attribution in U.S. news coverage of the anthrax attacks across disaster phases, uncertainty factors, and types of media, attribution, advice, and explanations. Overall, 833 stories from AP, NPR, 272 newspapers, and four television networks were analyzed. Nearly half of attributions were unnamed sources. Prominent sourcing shifted from federal politicians to federal health officials shortly after journalists began receiving tainted letters. Fire-rescue/health care workers emerged as the top source after the attacks ended.
Health on the Web: A content analysis of mobilizing information on local TV Web sites • Andrea Tanner, Daniela Friedman and Kim Smith, University of South Carolina • This study explored the volume and scope of health coverage on local television news Web sites as well as the mobilizing information contained within the online health content. Data revealed that health stories were present on 64% of the sites examined. Little mobilizing information was presented. Health stories were significantly more likely to contain locational MI than identificational or tactical MI. There were also significant differences between large and small markets regarding specific health content.
Power, Knowledge, and Hope: The Framing of Breast Cancer in Women’s and Consumer Health Magazines • Kim Walsh-Childers and Heather Edwards, University of Florida • This framing analysis examined breast cancer articles from five popular consumer magazines read by women. The analysis revealed three primary frames – power, knowledge and hope – and two themes, fear and risks to young women, that were pervasive regardless of the dominant frame. The three frames, power, knowledge, and hope, suggest that while breast cancer is a real threat to women, they have good reason to feel that useful, risk-reducing actions are within their ability.
Media effect, political interests, and other social cultural factors: The making of China’s environmentalists and their view on their societal cultural environment • Qingjiang Yao, University of South Carolina • Using data from China part (2001, N=1000) of the World Value Survey, this research found a positive impact of news media use on environmental concern. However, political interest, income and postmaterialist value are found to have stronger and more consistent predicting power of being a Chinese environmentalist. The research also found that Chinese environmentalists who like to voluntarily work for environment protection with no pay tend to be more skeptical on government and media.
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