Grasping scientific news

Abstract

By developing model-based news articles and presenting them to audience focus groups, this research gauges reader response to “test stories” based on four models of science journalism: science literacy, contextual, lay-expertise, and public participation. This approach allows investigation of how to tie journalism theory to practice to audience reception, and back again. The results show how journalists and readers differently engage with various models of science journalism and used them to gain different knowledge and understanding. These differences show the need to articulate more clearly hybrid models of science journalism that make use of the overlapping positive features of the models investigated. Such hybrid science journalism models could provide new educational tools aimed at showing how to better understand who “the audience” is and exemplifying how to position audiences as active members in stories and as stakeholders in the scientific process.

KEYWORDS:

• audiences
• biofuels
• focus groups
• genomics
• models
• science journalism

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Elyse Amend and Gabriela Capurro contributed equally to this work.

FUNDING

This work was supported by Genome Canada and Genome Quebec as part of the GE3LS component of the Genozymes for Bioproducts and Bioprocesses Development project.

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2013.868146.

Notes

1. For Appendices A and B, please see the online supplemental material at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2013.868146.

2. To maintain anonymity participants’ names have been replaced by codes based on group and participant number.

Additional information

Funding

FUNDING: This work was supported by Genome Canada and Genome Quebec as part of the GE3LS component of the Genozymes for Bioproducts and Bioprocesses Development project.