“Visible scientists revisited”: on the relationship between scientific reputation and the public presence of scientific experts in mass media coverage of infectious diseases

Lehmkuhl, Markus; Leidecker-Sandmann, Melanie

doi:10.1007/s11616-019-00530-1

Cited by 7 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…In a study by Lehmkuhl and Leidecker-Sandmann (2019), bibliometric profiles of scientists were used as an indicator for scientific expertise. They analyzed the expertise of all scientific actors who were cited by six news media in their coverage of three health risk phenomena.…”

Section: Scientific Actors In Media Coverage (Of Covid-19)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As far as we know, there are only a handful of studies, mostly older ones, that deal with the role of scientific expertise as the basis for journalistic source selection. With one exception (Weingart, 2001), their results suggest that there is at most a weak correlation between a scientist's expertise and their public presence (see e.g., Goodell, 1977;Boyce, 2006;Dunwoody & Ryan, 1987;Shepherd, 1981;Lehmkuhl & Leidecker-Sandmann, 2019).…”

Section: Scientific Actors In Media Coverage (On Covid-19)mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Selected by expertise? Scientific experts in German news coverage of COVID-19 compared to other pandemics

et al. 2022

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At the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientific expertise was and is more in demand than perhaps ever before. Scientific “experts” serve as an important source of information for journalists and for society. Our study analyzes, which experts get a chance to speak in German news coverage of COVID-19 compared to other pandemics, how diverse the spectrum of selected experts is and how their scientific expertise is to be assessed. Our findings show that the COVID-19 coverage is dominated by actors from the political executive and less than in previous pandemics by scientific experts. In addition, the coronavirus debate is characterized by a greater diversity of expert voices and the journalistic selection of scientific experts is biased in favor of those who have a high scientific expertise. On average, COVID-19 coverage seems to be biased more pronouncedly in favor of reputable scientific experts compared to previous debates on pandemics.

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Section: Scientific Actors In Media Coverage (Of Covid-19)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Scientific Actors In Media Coverage (On Covid-19)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Selected by expertise? Scientific experts in German news coverage of COVID-19 compared to other pandemics

et al. 2022

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“…At the statement level, more detailed information on the actors were coded, such as name, frequency of (direct or indirect) citation, affiliation and affinity to a social area (e.g., science, politics, interest group, etc.). The reliability between the five coders who have coded the sample on former pandemics was satisfactory (article analysis: Holsti: 0.82-0.98; Cohen's Kappa: 0.74-082; statement analysis: Holsti: 0.92-0.97; Cohen's Kappa: 0.82-0.93) and is reported in detail elsewhere (Lehmkuhl & Leidecker-Sandmann, 2019).…”

Section: Identification Of (Scientific) Actorsmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…In addition, we would like to shed more light on one point of criticism of the media coverage that has been expressed several times, namely that the selection of experts in media coverage on was not very diverse (see e.g., Jarren, 2020;Brost & Pörksen, 2020;Meyen, 2020 All three topics related to pandemics are highly complex medical risk issues, for which one can expect that journalists are dependent on the help of external scientific experts in order to be able to report well-founded on those issues. There were also practical research reasons for choosing issues from biomedical research: As described in chapter 2.2, the current analysis was created as a continuation of a former study (Lehmkuhl & Leidecker-Sandmann, 2019) in which we based on Collins and Evans (2002)…”

Section: Hypothesis and Research Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Selected by expertise? Scientific experts in German news coverage on Covid-19 compared to other pandemics

Leidecker-Sandmann¹,

Attar²,

Lehmkuhl³

2021

Preprint

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At the time of the corona pandemic, the population has a great need for information. (Mass) Media try to provide the concerned citizens with answers to their pressing questions with the help of scientific actors and their expert knowledge. Scientific experts serve as an important source of information for journalists and for society. Therefore, it is of particular relevance to examine, which scientific actors are discussing scientific issues related to the Covid-19 pandemic publicly via media coverage. Of particular interest is a look at the scientific expertise of the so-called experts, because the quality of the available information stands and falls with it. Our study describes the journalistic selection of scientific experts in German news coverage on Covid-19 compared to other pandemics. We analyze, which experts get a chance to speak in media coverage, how diverse the spectrum of selected experts is and how their scientific expertise is to be assessed. Our findings show that the Covid-19 coverage is dominated by actors from the political executive and less than in previous pandemics by scientific experts. Further, the Corona debate is characterised by a greater diversity of expert voices than the previous pandemic debates and therefore less concentrated on a few individual scientists only. Further, the journalistic selection of scientific experts is biased in favour of those who have a high scientific expertise. On average, media coverage on the Covid-19 pandemic makes references to more reputable and acknowledged scientific experts compared to earlier pandemics.

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“…When their visibility is analyzed from a communication or social science perspective, the focus is on to what extent and how they are covered by the media. In most studies on visibility in science communication, a visible scientist is one who has media visibility (Brantner & Huber, 2013;Lehmkuhl & Leidecker-Sandmann, 2019;Peters, 2013;Rödder, 2014). Thus, Thompson's (2005) perspective on reciprocity is no longer applicable to traditional mass media because scientists who are visible on television do not see their audiences.…”

Section: The Visibility Of Scientistsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tension between visibility and invisibility: Science communication in new information environments

Metag

2021

SComS

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The visibility and invisibility of scientific knowledge, its creation, and of scientists are at the core of science communication research. Thus, prominent paradigms, such as the public understanding of science or public engagement with science and technology, have implications for the visibility of scientific knowledge in the scientific community and among the public. This article posits that visibility in science communication is achieved with the availability of scientific knowledge, the approval of its dissemination, and its accessibility to third parties. The public understanding of science and public engagement with science paradigms emphasize different aspects of visibility with the latter focusing on the visibility of the creation of scientific knowledge more than public understanding of science which focuses on the knowledge itself. The digital information environment has engendered new formats and possibilities for visibility but also new risks, thereby creating tensions in science communication.

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“Visible scientists revisited”: on the relationship between scientific reputation and the public presence of scientific experts in mass media coverage of infectious diseases

Cited by 7 publications

References 42 publications

Selected by expertise? Scientific experts in German news coverage of COVID-19 compared to other pandemics

Selected by expertise? Scientific experts in German news coverage of COVID-19 compared to other pandemics

Selected by expertise? Scientific experts in German news coverage on Covid-19 compared to other pandemics

Tension between visibility and invisibility: Science communication in new information environments

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