This is a summary of Prof. Weiman's lecture from the Jules Verne conference website that ends today
Prof. Gabi Weiman, Department of Communication - University of Haifa
Gabi Weiman - picture from the website here is pleasant
Among scientists there is great bitterness towards the mass media when it reports on scientific research. The bitterness is focused on inaccurate reports, emphasizing the margins and the treatment, not understanding the language of the scientists and their thinking. In the media itself there is quite a bit of criticism of scientists. My lecture, the opening lecture of this conference, is dedicated to the presentation of the real causes of the gap between science and mass media, factors that make cooperation between the professions and mutual bitterness difficult. To conclude, I will illustrate the problem as found in two studies I conducted, one on the coverage of the polls in the Israeli media and the other on the way cancer is reported in the Israeli press. The problem of representing science in the popular media is a combination of objective factors that distinguish between the two professions, factors that create gaps that are difficult to bridge between the ways of thinking, the work patterns and the success criteria of scientists and journalists. These problems can be grouped into four levels: the level of importance values, the level of time, the level of language, and the level of reference groups.
Level of importance values: scientists and journalists judge importance according to different and sometimes contradictory indicators. The importance of a media item is measured in terms of "newsworthiness" which includes predictors such as drama, surprise, negative events, sensationalism and more. The scientific evaluation scale includes different indicators and often contradict those of the journalists.
The plane of time: journalists and scientists operate in different time dimensions. The media has a tight and short schedule, delineated in the terms of the "deadline", short-term and quickly outmoded. The scientists, on the other hand, operate in prolonged studies, long time spans, cumulative findings.
The level of language: communication and media have different languages. Sometimes the same terms have a different meaning in the scientific context compared to the popular one. An empirical scientific finding is examined with different tools and is defined differently from the "findings" of a media investigation or a journalistic investigation, and the same is true of terms, for example, such as "significant gap", "social status", "worrying phenomenon", "distinct tendency" and more.
The level of the reference groups: each profession has its own reference groups and according to them, success and failure are defined in each profession. But journalists and scientists consider different reference groups (mainly colleagues in the profession) and therefore their definitions of success and failure are also different from the beginning.
The differences between the ways of working, thinking, language and time frames of science and mass media are the causes of mutual frustration and the problematic of representations of science in the media. I will illustrate this with two examples from my research:
"The media's survey disease": surveys are a legitimate, important and useful research tool by scientists. But when they are used in the media to entertain pre-election predictions, wild speculations and far-fetched interpretations - then the coverage is toxic and dangerous. In a series of studies I conducted during 13 election campaigns in Israel, from the 1969 elections to the current elections, the coverage of the election polls in the printed and electronic media in Israel was examined. The data show a rapid and steady increase in the number of newspapers that include election polls in their reports, in the amount of articles that include polls, in the placement of polls on front pages, in the use of polls in headlines and in the analysis of election polls in articles and commentaries. But in the recent election campaigns, the eagerness for polls takes on the dimensions of a hysterical obsession. Comparing the content of the poll coverage throughout the election campaigns shows that the reports on the polls are very selective: most of the reports are based on ignoring the limitations of the survey's representation, sampling problems, the number of people who refuse to answer, slanted question wording, and more. In many cases, commentators present and explain "changes" and "fluctuations" in public opinion based on tiny differences, single percentages that do not statistically justify an inference of a significant change. Clear evidence of the polls' failures is the difference between them: polls conducted on the same day, testing the same question and this in a sample that is supposed to represent the same population - come up with contradictory findings (often with huge differences). It is important to note that most journalists and commentators are well aware of the limitations of surveys, their failures and omissions. But they ignore this, fascinated by the "rating" value of election polls, poisoned by the intoxicating drug of predictions (which will mostly be false).
"Cancer" in the media: This study examines the way in which cancer is presented, its characteristics, diagnosis, prevention and cure - in the Israeli media. Comparing the media reality to the real reality as it appears from the data of the Ministry of Health, cancer doctors and cancer researchers in Israel. It is important to preface and explain that the media reality is known to the general public, it is the common source of information for the public and it is perceived by many as a reflection of the real reality. The findings of this study show that the press tends to present a "reality" that does not match the data regarding the disease, the issue, the characteristics of the patients with it, the ways of treating it and more. The findings may not surprise those who are in the findings of the hundreds of studies in the field of constructing reality, but they have a special meaning when it comes to a disease and a terrible disease that carries the risk of suffering and death. In the case of cancer, these misconceptions and expectations may take a heavy toll.
Municipal Elections of 1998". In A. Brichta & A Pedahzur (Eds.), Elections in the Local Authorities in Israel – 1998: Continuity or Change? . Tel Aviv: Ramot, 185-198.
Weimann, Gabriel, Abraham Kuten, Nissim Haim and Eimi Lev, 2005. "Reporting Cancer in the Israeli Media: Real Reality vs. Reconstructed Reality”, Harefua (Journal of the Israel Medical Association), 144(2): 85-88.
Weimann, Gabriel, 2000. Communicating Unreality: Mass Media and Reconstruction of Publications. Sage Realities, Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
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