Abstract
When does a science topic become a topic in journalism? Whereas for other fields of (especially political) journalism several news factors have been identified as key factors in the selection process of the mass media, it is unclear to what extend these factors are applicable to selection processes in science journalism. This chapter analyses issue selection processes of science topics from a practitioner’s point of view and from the perspective of the general theory of news values as a starting point. The catalogue of news factors used by the general theory is adapted with regard to some identified specialities in science reporting. This adapted catalogue is tested qualitatively by guided interviews with leading science editors and quantitatively by a content analysis of major German broadsheets. Our results clearly indicate that a certain adaption of the classical approach is reasonable to improve the description of selection processes for science news. Some of our conclusions also raise the general question in how far the classical news theory is still up to date in the fast changing crossmedia world of journalism.
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Notes
- 1.
“Journalistische Qualität in der Krise,” Dortmund University, Jan. 2010; http://idw-online.de/en/news352415.
- 2.
The term “science journalism” is used in the sense of “reporting on (natural) sciences, medicine and technology” (see Wormer 2008) regardless whether the reporting is done by specialised (science) journalists or others.
- 3.
Aside from the concept of different epistemic cultures of science, we are convinced that some rather simple parameters should also have an influence on the amount of science coverage in the media: For example, the total scientific output in biomedical research is higher than in, let’s say, archaeology (in terms of number of scientists and scientific publications). Therefore, in this case, the amount of coverage is in line with the expected situation because larger fields get more awareness in the media than smaller ones. Concerning the journalists themselves, we could also confirm (at least for Germany) a dominance of science journalists with a background in biology who may have a tendency to prefer biological and (bio-)medical issues. Among other explanations, such aspects are at least one part of the story on why these disciplines are nearly always at the top list of the most covered topics.
- 4.
The corresponding article was published November 25, 2004.
- 5.
The fact that in the same year a best-selling author had published a novel also dealing with a Tsunami delivered an extra (cultural) angle for the reporting after the disaster (e.g., Wellershof 2005). Interview with Frank Schätzing, Der Spiegel, 1, 3.1.2005, pp. 114–115. http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-38785544.html).
- 6.
Others such as cognitive and socio-psychologist concepts are also interesting but rare in the literature. For a short introduction to the different concepts, see the International Encyclopaedia of Communication (Donsbach 2008).
- 7.
For the intensity, a grade system in four steps (between 0 and 3) is often used and was also applied in this work. Other authors use different scales, e.g., from 1 to 5 (Ruhrmann and Göbbel 2007).
- 8.
For example, in the classical definition, the factor influence is defined according to “a person, group or organisation with political, economic or cultural power”; “scientific power” would not be taken into account.
- 9.
For example, applying the classical factor reference to elite nation science journalists would probably not have in mind the “military power” or the “foreign trade of the country where the reported event took place” but rather indicators such as the “scientific importance” of this country.
- 10.
Useful data collections are offered e.g., by the OECD or published in the CIA World Factbook which provides information on the people, government and further items for more than 250 world entities.
- 11.
As a consequence, the adapted definition of the news factor influence is given by: “political, economic, cultural, sportive or scientific power of a person, group, or institution.” Our proposal to operationalise “scientific power” is as follows: 0 = no influence, e.g., a student; 1 = low influence, e.g., a PhD student; 2 = high influence, e.g., a professor or the scientific leader of a national research project; 3 = largest influence; e.g., leader of an international research group.
- 12.
By using this approach, the potential concern of a population regarding a certain disease is rated in a first approximation as equivalent to the mortality. This approach has the big advantage of being highly objective. However, in reality this selection process may be distorted at least in some cases by the subjective perception of a news editor. For example, editors are likely to over-estimate the impact of diseases such as HIV/Aids (about 650 deaths in Germany in 2008; Robert-Koch-Institut 2008) in comparison to diseases such as diabetes mellitus (20,000 deaths per annum; Statistisches Bundesamt 2009).
- 13.
For example, the intention of an investigative report may be more attractive for a science journalist than a general news piece and thus increase the news value of this publication. The scale for the operationalisation follows Peters’ (1994a) categories for the different kinds of science communication (popularization, clarification, and scientific controversy) and was complemented by the controlling function (Peters 1994b).
- 14.
With expert’s impact we aim at the question whether a scientist appears in the media report just with a single quote or as an interview partner or even as a guest author.
- 15.
The entire codebook with all detailed definitions of the individual factors can be requested from the authors.
- 16.
The empirical part is mainly based on a master thesis which was realised by F.B. and supervised by H.W.
- 17.
This approach has a kind of explorative character on the international level because, as a literature review showed, there is a lack of a scientific discussion about both news values and science journalism in France. Nevertheless, the French data will be considered only partly in the following analysis.
- 18.
Some older studies use definitions such as “An article is regarded as science coverage if a scientist or a scientific institution is mentioned in the first paragraph” (e.g., Böhme-Dürr and Grube 1989: 450). Although such definitions may be easier to apply, they are rather outdated because in the era of “narrative writing” many stories start with a colourful introduction, the story of a patient, etc. and switch to the scientific issue only in a later paragraph.
- 19.
Although this result is striking it should be kept in mind that the sample was not representative for all kinds of media, which is especially true for the guided interviews.
- 20.
However, the French science editor interviewed in our study declared the involvement of France as a “must have” for an event to be selected.
- 21.
Asked whether they miss a criterion in the catalogue, the journalists mentioned rather an “anti-top list” of scientific fields: They only specified topics that barely have a chance to be selected for publication, e.g., “chemistry” or “research policy” instead of saying which topic will be selected in any case.
- 22.
According to Kepplinger (1998) renouncing a broad differentiation and specification of the catalogue of news factors would mean that the explanatory power of the theory of news factors would fall far short of its possibilities. However, it is a mistake to believe that a theory divided into small sections always delivers more knowledge; furthermore it will be less applicable with regard to the scientific and journalistic practice anymore.
- 23.
This method of multivariate statistics finds out which items (news factors) contribute the most to the total variance (total news value) (see Brosius 2006).
- 24.
For example, the value of the news factor influence may be different in the published article and in the basic material if the science journalist has interviewed a further scientist during his investigation. When this scientist is higher in the hierarchy than the scientist mentioned in an original press release the news factor influence would become stronger in the reporting than it was before.
- 25.
It cannot be discussed here why the newly introduced news factors scientific relevance, composition, actuality, intention, and astonishment have overtaken lots of the well established factors (especially according to our interviews). However, two spontaneous explanations should be given: Science is often seen as a kind of entertainment (sometimes its editors are even part of the “miscellaneous” section in the media) which may explain the importance of the factor astonishment. One reason for the high attention to a good mix of topics (composition) might be that, in science journalism, usually fewer general topics are predefined than in the coverage of politics or sports.
- 26.
This is also reasonable because this work has not analysed the effect of the components “news factors” and “selection criteria” on the amount of coverage (the dependent variable in the model of two components).
- 27.
Both aspects were already separated in the simple heuristic model. One reason for that is our observation that science and medical reporting, on the one hand, has often a very personal component (i.e., an individual usability (Nutzwert), e.g.: “Where do I get this treatment? Is it harmful for me?”). On the other hand, the same treatment may be discussed in the context of exploding costs of the health system which is relevant for society as a whole but less important for the personal health question of an individual patient.
- 28.
The original German quote is: “Mehr Wochenzeitung in die Tageszeitung!”.
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Acknowledgments
Both authors contributed equally to this publication. However, F.B. is especially responsible for the empirical part, H.W. primarily for the development from the practical perspective. We like to thank the alumni-society of our Institute (EX! e.V.) for financing the travel costs for the guided interviews.
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Badenschier, F., Wormer, H. (2012). Issue Selection in Science Journalism: Towards a Special Theory of News Values for Science News?. In: Rödder, S., Franzen, M., Weingart, P. (eds) The Sciences’ Media Connection –Public Communication and its Repercussions. Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook, vol 28. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2085-5_4
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