science and the media in south africa: reflecting a 'dirty mirror

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Science and the media in South Africa:Reflecting a ‘dirty mirror’George Claassen

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COMMUNICATIO Volume 37 (3) 2011 pp. 351–366Copyright: Unisa Press ISSN 0250-0167/Online 1753-5379DOI: 10.1080/02500167.2011.622288

Science and the media in South Africa: Reflecting a ‘dirty mirror’

George Claassen*

Abstract

The public understanding of science is vital in any society, to counter pseudoscientific claims and quackery. The relationship between scientists and the media (the latter often the only channel through which scientific findings reach the public) was studied within a South African framework. An empirical survey was conducted by means of a comprehensive questionnaire sent to 740 South African scientists and researchers and 360 journalists. Because the media are important in the public understanding of science, the survey tried to establish the depth of and possible reasons for distrust between the two professions and what structures could be put in place to overcome this. This study found some significant differences in the views of scientists and journalists about the role of science in society, how it could be communicated to the public, and the reasons for this dichotomy. Finally, proposals to bridge the gap between scientists and the media are made: the media should give serious attention to raise the standards of science reporting by establishing science desks headed by properly trained science editors and well-trained science reporters. On the other hand, scientists should be trained to communicate better with the media and, therefore, the public.

Key words: media, public understanding of science, quackery, science communication, science journalism, scientific literacy, scientists

INTRODUCTION

The South African media in various ways neglect reporting on scientific discoveries and developments, although some attention is given to reporting on technology, environmental affairs and (rather randomly) medical matters. As one study found, ‘the coverage of science and technology in the South African press is insufficient. Less than 2% of editorial space in some of the country’s top publications is awarded to these topics’ (Van Rooyen 2004). When journalists do report on science, the quality of reporting is often open to criticism from the scientific community, as this survey among scientists and journalists shows. The other side of the coin is that many scientists (also in South Africa, from the experience of journalists) are known to be fairly inaccessible communicators of their research to the public, who are mostly funding them either directly or indirectly (Claassen 2001 and 2011; Hartz & Chappell 1997). Science reporting in the traditional media (newspapers, television and radio) has been curtailed over the past two decades, especially since the global financial crisis at the end of 2008. A study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism (2008) found that people watching cable news in the United States (US) for five hours on a given day, would only have been exposed to more or less one minute of science and technology news. Mooney and Kirshenbaum (2009: 6) argue that in the US, the number of newspapers ‘featuring weekly science or science-related sections shrank by nearly two-thirds’ between 1989 and 2005, from 95 to 34.

* Professor George Claassen is affiliated to the Department of Journalism, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch. E-mail: [email protected]

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The situation in South Africa is far worse. The status of science news reporting in the popular local media is reflected in the fact that although most of these media do report on science, it does not occur in a structured media environment where science editors are treated as equals to other editors in the news process. Only one South African newspaper (Business Day), magazine, broadcast station or Internet news site has a structured and organised science desk, managed by a designated science editor with a team of trained science journalists. This is in contrast to structured political, business and financial, sports, arts, culture, lifestyle and other designated news desks run by senior editors in those specialist fields, and also to the status of science reporting in many European and American media, as noted for example by Knip (2002: 35).

As Nelkin (1995: vii) claims, and supported by a report for the British Royal Society on the lack of communication between scientists and the media (1985: 8), ‘although we depend on the media for science news, there is little understanding of the relationships between scientists and journalists that lie behind the images of science conveyed in the press’.

The importance of better communication between scientists and journalists was emphasised by a Royal Society report as far back as 1985, followed by the International Indicators of Science and the Public Workshop, organised by the British Royal Society (2007: 4). The first comprehensive survey of the relationship between scientists and journalists, conducted in 1996/1997 in the US, similarly emphasised an amicable relationship between scientists and the media, to ensure that scientific literacy would be obtained by the public and to prevent the growth of pseudoscience. In addition, mention was made of how the absence of such a friendly relationship can threaten a country’s future (Hartz & Chappell 1997). Numerous studies also give attention to this relationship, highlighting the general trend that the relationship between quality science journalists and scientists communicating their findings through the media is an important cog in the wheel of the public understanding of science (Bauer 2000; Bucchi 2004; Hesmondhalgh 2008; Shukla & Bauer 2007; Webster 2006).

Since 1985, the emphasis on scientific literacy to enhance development in societies gradually evolved to the public understanding of science concepts. Scientists became more aware of the need to understand the reasons for the generally negative attitude of the public towards science, and science as a career. As Bauer (2008: 119) points out, this has led to a new emphasis on why science should be important to the public, as it was ‘important for making informed consumer choices; it enhances the competitiveness of industry and commerce; and it is part of national tradition and culture’.

The Economic and Social Research Council in the United Kingdom (UK) set out guidelines (1993: 2) to scientists on the process of the mutual education of scientists and journalists, emphasising that it

needs to be conducted more publicly and coherently and, in particular, in the media. There is no doubt that the media has an enormous impact on public perceptions. It can force governments to abandon policies; persuade businesses and public bodies to adopt new techniques (often based on research

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Science and the media in South Africa: Reflecting a ‘dirty mirror’ 353

findings); and bring the full force of public opinion behind social and economic issues, including academic research.

Yet it is not only a sound relationship between the media and scientists that can enhance the public’s understanding of science. Wynne (1995: 377) emphasises the role members of the public can play in obtaining scientific information from the marketplace of ideas, without making direct contact with scientists. He emphasises the role social context can play in the manner in which local knowledge (e.g. the benefit of indigenous knowledge about the use of plants in healing the ill) is distributed:

The scientific discourses conceal founding assumptions about those institutional dimensions, although there is usually accessible historical experience of relevant ‘institutional demeanour’ that can be used as evidence to test the assumptions framing science. Hence scientists patronisingly describe public reactions as ‘subjective’ irrationality even though science may legitimately be rejected on grounds different than technical ignorance. (ibid: 377)

The difficulty in communicating the difference between science and pseudoscience, and the way the media sometimes fail to make that distinction, can also be linked to a lack of understanding of traditional indigenous knowledge. As Bauer emphasises (2008: 122), ‘science and technology operate in society and therefore stand relative to other sectors of society’. Science communication, therefore, is not only merely a matter of the media informing communities about new discoveries or necessary science education programmes, but it is often complicated by the influence of indigenous cultures and belief systems based on religion and folk wisdom. What is quackery for one society can be a valid belief system for another, where the role of the placebo effect is becoming a more important and not yet well understood facet of illness, health and recovery from disease (Golomb et al. 2010: 532–535; Niemi 2009).

The ‘canonical account’ of the communicative relationship between science and the public, as discussed by Shapin (1990: 990–1007), is summarised by Bucchi (1998: 3) as standing on three pillars: the scientific enterprise has become too highly specialised and complicated to be understood by the general public; a form of mediation (the science journalist as mediator) is needed to make scientific achievements more suitable and accessible to the public; and this mediation is often described using the metaphor of linguistic translation or simplification, where the ‘third party’, i.e. the science journalist, breaks down the barriers of scientific jargon to describe the findings of scientists in simple, accessible terms.

Why should scientists, and even more so medical scientists, whose work has or can have a direct influence on the health of a nation, communicate better? Five reasons can be given for improving communication from scientists to the public via the media: public accountability; influencing policy-makers and practitioners; stimulating additional funding; encouraging collaborative work and research; and giving scientists greater control over their research (Economic and Social Research Council 1993: 2).

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354 George Claassen

On the other hand, ‘writing well about science requires … bridging the jargon gulf, acting as translators between the sciencespeak of the researchers and the short attention span of the public at large,’ as Blum, Knudson and Henig observe (2006: 7).

The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between scientists and journalists in South Africa, and to find a possible link between the way the media in South Africa report on science and technology and the scientific illiteracy of society in the country in general. The author undertook a survey in late 2009 and the beginning of 2010, based on a questionnaire sent via mail to 740 South African scientists and 360 South African journalists. The response by those targeted in the survey (questionnaires filled in and returned) was 18.9 per cent (N=208), of which the media’s response was 15.2 per cent (N=55) and that of scientists 20.6 per cent (N=153).1

The returned questionnaires consisted of scientists working in the following fields: physical sciences (27.8%), biological sciences (37.7%), chemical sciences (12.6%), human and social sciences (13.9%), and other sciences (8%). In a further division, 38.9 per cent were working in pure or basic sciences, and 61.1 per cent as applied scientists.

The questionnaires which the journalists returned showed them working in the following sections of media journalism: newspaper (31.7%), television (12.9%), radio (23.4%), magazine (16.1%), Internet (14.2%), and freelance (1.7%). Determining a precise figure for journalists working as Internet reporters was, however, problematic, as some newspaper print journalists had the primary function of writing for the paper version, but also sometimes delivering copy for the newspaper’s website. They thus fulfilled a dual role.

The scientists and researchers included were all based at South African universities and research institutions. Respondents from all the main media were questioned, i.e. journalists at daily newspapers, weekly or weekend newspapers, a variety of niche and popular magazines, Internet journalists, and those working as journalists in broadcasting all over the country. Freelance journalists also participated in the study.

TEXTBOOK SCIENCE VERSUS FRONTIER SCIENCE

One of the most serious problems scientists encounter when dealing with the media, is a lack of distinction between textbook science and frontier science, as defined by Bauer (1992: 37):

Textbook science is the settled scientific knowledge on which (in natural sciences) one can build one’s own work. In contrast, frontier science is science as it is actually being conducted. Its results have just been obtained, they are uncertain and unconfirmed.

From the media’s side the failure to distinguish between frontier and textbook science often creates distorted views of new discoveries. Nelkin (1995: 31–32) argues that, as regards scientific discoveries and developments, the media often promote these ‘as the cutting edge of history, the frontier that will transform our lives’, but adds that this frontier (which is characteristic of

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media reporting on science and technology) is often biased and ‘most apparent in the coverage of computers and biotechnology’. What often happens in the process of news presentation in the media is that highly complex research findings are reduced to misleading headlines and reports that present deductions which are either exaggerated or blatantly wrong. In this way editors and journalists fail to make a distinction between textbook science – the facts that have been accepted for generations, even centuries, about a specific scientific field – and frontier science, with all its untested and unverified uncertainties. In the medical field, the media quite often report on medical research findings published in scientific magazines in a sensational way, as if the final word has been spoken about, for example, the causes of cardiovascular disease or cancer. Frontier science is thus presented by the media as textbook science, only to be refuted a few months later by a contradictory report.

This confuses the public, whose main source of information is the media and not scientific publications. The fault lies with both the media and scientists – the former because they quite often do not understand scientific research as a long process with preliminary findings, and the latter because they do not communicate the intricacies of research findings in a proper, direct way with science journalists, but rather work through secondary channels or media liaison officers. Adelmann-Grill, Waksman and Kreutzberg (1995: 2) discuss this dichotomy by stating that in textbook science ‘an expert is easily identified’, but acknowledge that citizens ‘are not much interested in textbook science but in frontier science’.

THE PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF SCIENCE

‘Enough scientific evidence exists to support Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.’ Ten thousand adults from ten countries (Argentina, China, Egypt, India, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Great Britain and the US) were questioned on their views about the veracity of this statement, put to them by the British Council Global Education Darwin Survey (2009). In not even one of the countries did more than 50 per cent of the population believe that enough scientific evidence existed to support Darwin’s theory, as formulated 150 years ago in On the origin of species.

In the first study of public science literacy in South Africa, Pouris (1991: 358–359) found general ignorance among 1 300 people questioned. When posed the question, ‘Would you say that astrology is very scientific, sort of scientific or not at all scientific?’, 32 per cent indicated that astrology was very scientific, while 31 per cent responded that it was ‘sort of scientific’. This study also found that 54 per cent of respondents believed the statement ‘Human beings developed from earlier species’ to be false. In another study in which 400 white and 400 black teenagers between the ages of 13 and 20 were questioned, not one of the ethnic groups showed a majority of more than 50 per cent believing the statement ‘Human beings developed from earlier species’ as true (Pouris 1993: 68–69).

On the interests, public attitudes and sources of scientific information in South Africa, Pouris (2001) found that 84 per cent of a sample of 1 000 people believed science and technology made

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their lives easier and more comfortable, 76 per cent believed that scientists wanted to work on things that make life better, and 71 per cent believed that science and technology would create more opportunities for future generations. However, 58 per cent of respondents voiced reservations about the adverse effects of science and technology on society, by agreeing that we depend too much on science and too little on faith.

A 1999 nationally representative survey to gauge public understanding of science in South Africa, commissioned and undertaken by the Foundation for Research Development and the Human Sciences Research Council respectively, revealed a low level of understanding of science. Blankley and Arnold (2001: 65) found that over ‘30% of adults had never studied mathematics at school, 50% had never studied biological science, and 55% had never studied physical or chemical science’.

In an overview of research on the relationship between science and the public in South Africa, Reddy et al. (2009: 64–66) recommend drawing up a framework to reflect the public’s relationship with science and technology: ‘This framework would consider both science and the public as important stakeholders in the relationship, and acknowledges that each affects the other, rather than previous frameworks which gave science a position of power and perceived the public to be more or less deficient.’

SCIENTISTS, THE MEDIA AND NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

The results of the questionnaire which the author sent to South African scientists and journalists showed significant differences, but also clear similarities in the respondents’ attitudes towards and confidence in important national institutions.

On the question, ‘How much confidence do you have in national institutions?’, in the results obtained from the two groups (see Table 1) both groups showed low confidence levels in education, the executive branch of the government, organised labour and trade unions, parliament, and the military. Journalists who had a great deal of confidence in education accounted for only seven per cent, in the executive branch of the government (0%), organised labour and trade unions (2%), parliament (5%) and the military (5%).

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Table 1: How much confidence do you have in … (%) How much confidence do you have in

Group Hardly any Only some A great deal

1. Major companies Journalists 6 65 29

Scientists 8 51 41

2. Organised religion Journalists 37 41 22

Scientists 37 44 19

3. Education Journalists 26 67 7

Scientists 22 60 18

4. The executive branch of the government

Journalists 49 51 0

Scientists 45 52 3

5. Organised labour and trade unions

Journalists 60 38 2

Scientists 66 31 3

6. The press Journalists 8 62 30

Scientists 24 64 12

7. The broadcasting media Journalists 21 60 19

Scientists 35 60 5

8. Medicine Journalists 6 49 45

Scientists 5 47 48

9. The South African judicial system

Journalists 29 48 23

Scientists 24 46 30

10. The scientific community Journalists 5 45 50

Scientists 1 42 57

11. Parliament Journalists 48 47 5

Scientists 44 48 8

12. The military Journalists 51 44 5

Scientists 49 46 5

Among scientists the same trend is noticeable where only 18 per cent had a great deal of confidence in education as national institution, the executive branch of the government (3%), organised labour and trade unions (3%), parliament (8%) and the military (5%).

The confidence levels of scientists and journalists in their respective and in each other’s professional fields show a clear distinction in perceptions about science and journalism. Only eight per cent of journalists had hardly any confidence in the press, but the figure was three times higher for scientists (24%).

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Journalists also had far more confidence in the belief that they were doing a good job than scientists had confidence in the media: 30 per cent of journalists showed a great deal of confidence in the press and 19 per cent had confidence in the broadcast media. Only 12 per cent of scientists had a great deal of faith in the press and only five per cent believed broadcasters were doing a good job.

SPECIAL QUESTIONS FOR JOURNALISTS AND SCIENTISTS

Sections of the questionnaire consisted of a list of special questions aimed only at journalists, or only at scientists.

Evidence and fact-checking

One of the questions for journalists was whether science has amassed solid and convincing evidence for specific theories (see Table 2). The answers show in some sense the ignorance of journalists about evidence-based science, e.g. 65 per cent believed that science had established that cold fusion is possible, 49 per cent did not know or had no opinion on whether lead causes mental impairment, 11 per cent did not know cholesterol causes heart attacks, as many as nine per cent of respondents said HIV does not cause Aids,2 41 per cent did not believe evolution as a scientific theory is based on solid and convincing evidence, whereas 47 per cent of journalists believed there is enough solid and convincing scientific evidence that an Intelligent Designer created Earth and the universe.

Table 2: To what degree do you as a journalist believe scientists have established the evidence for certain findings that have been in the news? In your opinion, has science amassed solid and convincing evidence for the issues outlined here?

Has science established that … Yes No Don’t know/no opinion

Cigarettes cause cancer? 95 5 0

Lead causes mental impairment? 36 15 49

Cholesterol causes heart attacks? 86 11 3

Life develops through the process of evolution? 32 41 27

An Intelligent Designer created Earth and the universe?

47 29 24

Radon causes cancer? 46 28 22

Coffee causes pancreatic cancer? 10 80 10

Cold fusion is possible? 65 15 20

Saccharin causes bladder cancer in humans? 56 28 16

Silicone breast implants cause connective-tissue disease?

46 26 28

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Has science established that … Yes No Don’t know/no opinion

Asbestos causes cancer 81 10 9

Margarine is more dangerous than butter? 16 53 31

HIV causes Aids? 89 9 2

This question about evidence in science should also be evaluated in the light of what Nelkin (1995: 31–32) calls the ‘confusion over the definition of “evidence” … Most lay people accept as credible evidence anecdotal information or individual cases. So, too, do journalists.’

One of the important pillars on which sound journalism is based, is independent verification of the truth of stories by journalists. Checking the facts in science journalism, based on solid evidence, entails at least six basic guidelines, as set out by Blum, Knudson and Henig (2006: 15–17): do not trust the blurbs on tip sheets distributed by scientists and peer-reviewed science publications; do not trust news releases; be aware of the pitfalls of the peer-review system; ask a paper’s authors about previous news coverage of their work; ask about potential conflicts of interest; and check trivial facts. As Levi (2001: xi) points out, the syndrome of ‘breakthrough-or-alarm’, which is a common characteristic of journalism, is ‘all too common in science’ (and specifically medical and health) reporting. With reference to fact-checking, the journalists in this survey were asked how often they attempted to independently verify the truth of science stories before they were printed or broadcast. As many as 15 per cent indicated that they rarely independently verified the truth of these stories before publication or broadcasting, and just more than a further 13 per cent never verified it.

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE AND EDUCATION IN SCIENCE

Another pillar of journalism quality, not only with regard to science reporting specifically but in the broader sense of reporting, is that journalists should be well-read professionals with an excellent general knowledge about a wide variety of topics and fields (Berger 1996; Broder 1987; Claassen 1995 and 2001; Hirsch 1987; Hirsch, Kett & Trefil 2002; Minow 1991 and 2011; Perry 1990; Postman 1987; Sesanti 2009; Starck & Villanueva 1993).

When scientists participating in this survey were asked ‘How would you rate the general knowledge of the journalists that covered the story or stories you have been involved in?’, they rated more than 46 per cent of journalists as either ‘not very knowledgeable’ (32.6%) or ‘not at all knowledgeable’ (13.7%). That is less than the just over 37 per cent of journalists rated as ‘very knowledgeable’ (0.7%) or ‘somewhat knowledgeable’ (36.2%).

This lack of confidence in the general knowledge of journalists, as indicated by scientists, may also be applicable to a special question put to journalists about their science backgrounds. Less than

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ten per cent of journalists with a degree had majored in science. This correlates with other studies in South Africa which show a dearth of scientifically trained and numeracy-literate journalists in newsrooms (Brand 2008; De Beer & Steyn 2002; Prinsloo 2006).

The lack of confidence scientists have in the general knowledge of journalists, is further reflected in scientists’ perception and experience of the media’s educational background when it comes to reporting specifically on science and technology. Scientists and journalists more or less agreed that ‘most reporters who cover science are not well enough educated to cover news about scientific and technological affairs’ (see Table 3).3

Table 3: Journalists’ education in science Most reporters who cover science are not well enough educated to cover news about scientific and techno-logical affairs

Group Strongly agree

Agree somewhat

Neither agree nor disagree

Disagree somewhat

Disagree strongly

Journalists 17 43 17 23 0

Scientists 30 45 18 7 0

INTERPRETATION AND CONTEXT OF SCIENTIFIC RESULTS

It is also significant that scientists and journalists were in agreement about the truth of the statement, ‘Most reporters have no idea how to interpret scientific results’, with 24 per cent of journalists strongly agreeing (scientists 26%), and 55 per cent of journalists somewhat agreeing (scientists 53%) (see Table 4).

Table 4: How to interpret scientific results Most reporters have no idea how to interpret scientific results


Agree somewhat


Disagree somewhat

Disagree strongly



Again, scientists and journalists were more or less in agreement about the biggest problem with science reporting. To the statement, ‘The biggest problem with science reporting is that it only tells a small part of the whole story’, a combined total of 74 per cent of journalists were in agreement (with 24% strongly agreeing and 50% agreeing somewhat). Among scientists the figures were 76 per cent combined, with 27 per cent agreeing strongly and 49 per cent agreeing somewhat with the statement (see Table 5).

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Table 5: A small part of the whole story The biggest problem with science reporting is that it only tells a small part of the whole story


Agree somewhat


Disagree somewhat

Disagree strongly



DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN SCIENCE AND PSEUDOSCIENCE

Debates about scientific fact and how to determine the evidence for it, have a long history. Popper postulates (2000: 47) a distinction between a scientific theory and a metaphysical theory on the basis that the former can be falsified and refuted through a process of rigorous scrutiny and testing, whereas the latter is non-falsifiable and not testable. Thus, scientists should always have the ‘readiness to look out for tests and refutations, which distinguishes “empirical” science from nonscience, and especially from prescientific myths and metaphysics.’ Fuller (2006) and Gross, Levitt and Lewis (1996) also elaborate on the emphasis which is placed on the falsifiability test of claims in evaluating the validity of science.

When non-scientific and untested theories are marketed and sold to the public as science, it reinforces, according to Park (2000: 67), ‘a sort of upside-down view of how the world works, leaving people vulnerable to predatory quacks. It’s like trying to find your way around San Francisco with a map of New York.’ Bucchi (1998: 17) calls this distinction a ‘demarcation between orthodoxy (science) and deviance (non-science).’

With regard to the statement that ‘the South African public is gullible about much science news, easily believing in miracle cures or solutions to difficult problems’, journalists and scientists were more or less united in their agreement about the veracity of the statement: 37 per cent of journalists and 31 per cent of scientists strongly agreed, whereas 52 per cent of journalists and 51 per cent of scientists somewhat agreed (see Table 6).

Table 6: The South African public is gullibleThe South African public is gullible about much science news, easily believing in miracle cures or solutions to difficult problemss


Agree somewhat


Disagree somewhat

Disagree strongly



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In some sense this also corresponds to the different constraints on the two fields of work, where journalists generally work with short deadlines to publish or broadcast, often without bothering to verify the facts, in contrast to scientists who have to follow elaborate procedures of ‘observations from nature or from the deliberate perturbations of nature that are called experiments. When the facts are in, they can be compared with the postulated relations to confirm or falsify the hypothetical world’, as Lewontin emphasises (1994: 480). This dichotomy in their approach to time and deadlines often leads to non-scientific claims being propagated as science by journalists. In the survey, the reactions of journalists and scientists to the statement ‘The news media do not cover science better because they are interested in instant answers and short-term results’, the two groups were virtually united in their strong agreement that this is indeed factual (24% of journalists and 25% of scientists agreed strongly). Taken as a whole with those who agreed somewhat with the statement, the overwhelming view by both groups is that instant answers and short-term results are serious hurdles in the way of better science reporting in the South African media, with 65 per cent of journalists and 74 per cent of scientists agreeing (see Table 7).

Table 7: Instant answers and short-term results The news media do not cover science better because they are interested in instant answers and short-term results


Agree somewhat


Disagree somewhat

Disagree strongly



ACCESSIBILITY OF SCIENTISTS

The survey, from both sides, showed a significant measure of the inaccessibility or unwillingness of scientists to communicate with journalists. In the section on special questions posed to scientists, more than 12 per cent (one in eight of the scientists questioned) were ‘not at all willing’ to ‘take a course that would help you communicate better with journalists and the public’. Similarly, nearly 13 per cent were ‘not at all willing’ to ‘have a continuing series of visits and conversations with a member of the news media’. On both questions the ‘very willing’ percentage showed a generally positive attitude from scientists when it came to engaging with journalists or an openness as regards the need for better communication with journalists and the public about their research.

When journalists were asked ‘How accessible do you generally find scientists, engineers and members of allied professions?, only about 13 per cent regarded them as ‘very’ accessible.

Bucchi identifies this attitude or position (on the part of scientists) as the ‘diffusionist’ conception (2004: 108–109),

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indubitably simplistic and idealized, which holds that scientific facts need only be transported from a specialist context to a popular one ... On the one hand, it legitimates the social and professional role of the ‘mediators’ – popularizers, and scientific journalists in particular – who undoubtedly comprise the most visible and the most closely studied component of the mediation. On the other hand, it authorizes scientists to proclaim themselves extraneous to the process of public communication so that they may be free to criticize errors and excesses – especially in terms of distortion and sensationalism. There has thus arisen a view of the media as a ‘dirty mirror’ held up to science, an opaque lens unable adequately to reflect and filter scientific facts.

CONCLUSIONS

The survey conducted among South African scientists and journalists shows, on the one hand, that scientists need to build a personal relationship with science editors in order to make their research more accessible to the public, and they should also learn to communicate with the public. Yet scientists are in a quandary: the present situation and the status of science reporting in the country need urgent attention. The allocation of journalists who are untrained in science to scientific beats, and the rather haphazard reporting of science by mostly scientifically illiterate journalists, should be changed – this, in order to disseminate the results of science to the broader public. The virtual absence of South African journalism schools which teach science journalism (it features at only one university, with a further one teaching health journalism) should be addressed to be able to feed the media with well-trained science journalists. Furthermore, this study correlates with the findings of a 2011 study by the South African Science Journalists’ Association, that science journalists in South Africa mostly report on health and environmental affairs, but that the formal structure of a science editor with designated, trained science journalists is virtually absent from the South African media, with the exception of a few internet health and agriculture websites (Claassen 2011). One cannot help but come to the conclusion that there must be a correlation between what Pouris (1991: 358–359) found about South African adults’ ignorance about the scientific validity of astrology (32% believed ‘astrology is very scientific’), and the fact that nearly every daily and weekend newspaper and many popular magazines in the country regularly publish an astrology column. The findings also indicate the need for further study into the effect which inaccurate scientific information and pseudoscience in the South African media might have on the public understanding of science. Furthermore, scientists should be far more willing to communicate with the public and the media, whereas scientific associations should emphasise the importance of their members communicating their findings through the media.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The financial assistance of the National Research Foundation in conducting the survey in its original stages is recognised. My thanks to J. Hartz and R. Chappell, as well as the First Amendment Research Centre in Nashville, Tennessee for their research support and permission to include some questions from their Worlds Apart-study.

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ENDNOTES 1 The response of nearly 1 in 5 questionnaires returned is comparable to most similar studies

conducted by means of a postal response method. 2 This high figure of non-believers may be ascribed to journalists’ preference for reporting the initial

controversy in science circles about the reasons for the development of AIDS – and the uncertainty was aggravated by the actions of former Pres. Thabo Mbeki’s invitation to HIV/AIDS denialists to serve on an advisory panel to the South African government.

3 The lack of scientific literacy among journalists and their unacceptable levels of numeracy are most probably merely a reflection of the general state of science teaching in South African schools. In this respect they do not differ from the rest of society, where a generally poor sense of science and its discoveries is common.

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science and the media in south africa: reflecting a 'dirty mirror

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