This article provides an overview of science communication, which is a vital area of mass communication scholarship. The review is organized around the key players, including news organizations, re...

Communicating Science A Review of the Literature

The media are crucial players in the construction of, and communication about, risk. Yet their role is often under-theorised, and sometimes misrepresented or parodied. In particular, the media are accused of routine sensationalism. Journalists are blamed for exaggerating risk, ‘whipping up hysteria’ and distorting reality. Academic studies of the media, however, suggest a more complex picture. The first half of this article reflects on the theoretical and methodological considerations which inform studies of ‘risk reporting’ and highlights some of the key questions when designing or assessing such research. The second half of the article draws out some common findings about how ‘risk reporting’ operates, focusing, in particular, on what we know about ‘news values’ and media production processes. It outlines the factors influencing media coverage of risk: from the organisation and resources of different source agencies through to the news gathering routines of journalists, and reflects on the ‘cul...

Researching risk and the media

Research on media communication of risks has become a reasonably well funded and popular domain for scholars around the world. Although one can find a great deal of collaboration among these scholars within countries, cross-cultural collaborations are far more rare. In this article, an American and a German scholar attempt to bring results from studies in both their countries to bear on some of the more popular questions being asked by risk communication researchers and practitioners. With a few exceptions, studies from the two countries demonstrate highly consonant results, suggesting great similarities between (1) the general social and technological cultures of these two developed countries, (2) the ways in which their scientific and journalistic cultures deal with the concept of risk, and (3) the ways in which risk communication researchers in these two countries conceptualize and operationalize this domain of inquiry. The review concentrates on studies that examine the construction of risk stories by...

Mass media coverage of technological and environmental risks: a survey of research in the United States and Germany:

(1992). Risk Communication: An Emerging Area of Health Communication Research. Annals of the International Communication Association: Vol. 15, Communication Yearbook 15, pp. 359-373.

Risk Communication: An Emerging Area of Health Communication Research

The Internet made an enormous amount of information on Fukushima available, far more than was provided by the media during the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents. While journalists contributed much of the news about Fukushima, citizens actively participated in blogs and on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, exchanging views and directing others to important news articles or videos. The Internet also gave the traditional media many opportunities for better coverage, with more space for articles and the ability to publish interactive graphics and videos. Coverage in The New York Times, for example, included an abundance of background and explanatory information about the Fukushima accident and radiation releases in multiple formats and gave readers the opportunity to better understand technical information. Consequently, radiation coverage of the Fukushima accident was better than that of the Three Mile Island or Chernobyl accidents. Television reporting, however, still presented some problems.

Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima: An analysis of traditional and new media coverage of nuclear accidents and radiation

,At Three-Mile Island reporters faced one of the major science controversies of recent years-the question of the safety of nuclear energy. Citizens measured news reports on what was labeled the worst nuclear accident in history as they reevaluated their positions on nuclear energy. Any slant in coverage of the major issues raised during the accident could have affected public opinion on the controversy. At Three-Mile Island reporters also faced a pressure that was new to science reporting. Residents of the area monitored news reports for hints on whether to flee. Overly alarming coverage could have spiead panic; overly reassuring coverage could have risked lives. This was science reporting under the gun. And reporters faced these responsibilities and pressures in particularly difficult circumstances. Journalists’ struggles in recent decades to keep up with scientific developments had been eased somewhat by helpful journal articles, triumphant NASA briefings, accomodating public relations people, loquacious environmentalists and, even in less sociable environs, by extended deadlines. But when the cooling system for one of Metropolitan Edison’s two reactors on Three-Mile Island failed, there were no journal articles to predigest the implications of that failure; the press briefings were tense and at times intentionally obscure, the sources often hostile and tightlipped; and complex occurrences. for which scientists themselves were unprepared, had to be assimilated under the most intense deaqine pressure. With these handicaps, how did journalists handle the major issues raised during the accident? Was their reporting balanced? Was it restrained?Theauthors were charged with investigating news media coverage of the accident by the President’s Commission on the Accident at ThreeMile Island. The news media have been attacked for sensationalizing events at Three-Mile Island. Sensationalism is a particularly difficult concept to analyze. Some events are sensational. Is a murder on a subway such

News Media Coverage of Issues during the Accident at Three-Mile Island.

An Analysis of News Media Coverage of Issues at Three Mile Island

Coverage of Events at Three Mile Island

/pdf/a-content-analysis-of-news-media-coverage-of-the-accident-at-gjq5hi2ydj.pdf

A Content Analysis of News Media Coverage of the Accident at Three Mile Island.

Staff Report to the President's Commission on the accident at Three Mile Island. Report of the public's right to information task force

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