Science Journalism: Mediating the Relationship between Science and Society

In this video series, Hans Peter Peters lectures on the task of the science journalist, including: presenting relevance to the media audience, making science comprehensible, and causing the audience to engage.

As a lecturer, he presents, among other topics, approaches that can capture audience interest - for example, a competition between nations in a certain scientific pursuit when the content of the science is difficult to approach. Peters goes on to differentiate between information transmission and translation. He recognises and gives examples of science and its role in politics - using climate change as his demonstration topic. He presents evidence-based studies, primarily using survey data and content analysis, to analyse relationships of scientists and journalists, differences in foci of the two groups, expectations of information transmission, and presentation that drives emotional engagement.

Peters speaks about disjunctions between scientists' and journalists' expectations, including: assumptions on control of the story and its content; the approach and tone of the story; instrumentalisation of journalism (the expectation of support of scientists' goals); the expectation of a critique and control approach (that knowledge is used as critique); and the relationship to the media audience (scientists' expectation of a paternalistic or teaching function, for example).

Peters presents data on the frequency of contact of scientists and journalists, disaggregated by country, field, and scientific position (status). He speaks about the institutionalisation of behaviours of media/scientist contact. He describes an ongoing study of the effects of media coverage on science, including the effect of media resonance on scientific decision about what to research.

The links below lead to the videos:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7
• Part 8
• Part 9

Below is the final video of the series as a sample.

Click here to access to a paper published on the proceedings of the recent PCST conference and summarising some of the thoughts presented in Hans Peters's presentation at Laval University in Quebec.

Click here to access an interview published in French that summarises some aspects of his presentation.

Click here for Hans Peters's website.