| Characteristics of Major Players in the Science Communication Paradigm | |||
| Characteristic | Science | Media | Public |
| Judgments | No moral judgments | creates protagonists and antagonists | Needs to have someone to blame. Judgments about risks are social. Personal, moral, and political judgments. |
| Values | thinks its value-free | combination of value-free and value laden | value laden |
| Objectivity | objective data | strives for objectivity | subjective beliefs |
| Negativity | Avoids it | Jumps on it. Makes good copy. | Likes it. Likes to see specialists brought back down to earth. |
| Holistic View | No | More than science, yet normally considers just two sides of a story. | Yes |
| Political Content | unbiased and democratic | political | highly politicized view of nature |
| Cultural Context | Not recognized and/or acknowledged | Extremely important | Integral |
| Impact on Risk Perception | Very limited | Not clearly understood | High |
| Alternative Risk Views | Not appreciated | Thrives on them, creates contests of opinion | Wants to know alternatives, see complete picture, choose sides |
| Tradition | values tradition | values tradition | values tradition |
| Drama | avoids drama | generates drama | remembers drama |
| Thrives on … | consensus | controversy | consensus & controversy |
| Social Impacts | limited interest in social systems | highlights impacts on social systems | concerned and interested in impacts on social systems |
| Information Management | reluctant to release information immediately | desperate to get recent information out | concerned and interested in “the now”, need-to-know |
| The Future | Concerned with the future | Concerned with the future | Concerned with the future |
| Action | slow, careful, conservative approach | calls for action | demands action |
| Spatial Perspective | universal scientific perspective | emphasis on national or international perspective | prefers local perspective |
| Language | quantitative language | mixture of quantitative and qualitative | qualitative language. Apprehensive and suspicious of scientific lingo. |
| Personalization | Avoids it | Needs it | Needs it |
| Uncertainty | Normal and acceptable | Tries to switch to certainties | Apprehensive and suspicious of scientific uncertainty, deny it, viewed as indecisiveness |
| Predictability | Predictable, dwells on prediction | Predictable, likes to predict future | Unpredictable |
| Technical Information | Reassuring | A challenge. Must transfer most of it into lay terms. | Not reassuring. More technical information increases concern. |
| Trust & Credibility | demands credibility and emphasizes trust only within scientific community | demands credibility and emphasizes trust, concerned about overall image | demands credibility and emphasizes trust – crucial elements |
| Framing | unaware of public framing | aware of public framing, uses it | understands via framing |
| Information Vacuum | creates information vacuum | fills information vacuum | must rely on media in an information vacuum |
| Effects of Information Vacuum | information vacuum comes back to haunt them | unscathed by information vacuum | fear, mistrust, resentment of science |
| Information Vacuum Threshold | threshold at which information should be reported | relies on leaks or whistle blowers | should have “official version” before media runs with it |
| Judgments | requires data for judgments | can impact judgments by altering perceptions | do not require scientific data to make judgments |
| Emotions | emotions do not play a role | risk amplification – plays on emotions | social amplification – worries and fears spiral out of control |
| Risk Perception | real risks, objective truths | real and perceived risks | perceived risks. complex – don’t conform to expert opinions on risk |
| Communication Techniques | highly standardized, cut and dry techniques, objective observation. Monologue. | reliance on persuasion, manipulation, sensationalism, and/or clever techniques, metaphors. Monologue. | sensitive to manipulation and sensationalism, questions objectivity, question motivation. Prefer dialogue. |
| Communications Training | Very little. Viewed as unnecessary – even detrimental to scientific inquiry | Highly trained | Highly variable, heavy reliance on trained communicators |
| Trust | thinks they will be trusted | thinks they will be trusted | trust can’t be manufactured |
| Temporal Constraints | spends a lot of time thoroughly studying topic, few time constraints | can’t spend enough time on topic, severe time constraints | need to know immediately, thirsty for facts, impatient |
| Mistakes | Strongly discouraged. Peer review allows corrections. Doesn’t learn from mistakes. | Inevitable. No time for corrections. Learns from mistakes. | Natural. Learns from mistakes |
| Responsibility | Not responsible for risk communication or its outcomes | suggests responsible parties | demands responsibility |
| Short & Long Term issues | short and long term monitoring | issues get short term coverage | issues are long term, irrespective of monitoring |
| Perceptions | one type of perception, Cartesian (observer & object) | limited, more than one type of perception possible, journalist and subject but may be scientific as well | multidimensional perceptions |
| Information Assimilation | believes that research will diffuse into the public mind | does not believe that research will diffuse into the public mind without intervention | highly variable diffusion rates, gets most risk and science information from the media, interested but not well informed. Need it fast – utilitarian. |
| Attracting Attention | Avoids it | Vital. Aware of “Magic Seven”. | Only “seven” issues attract public attention at any one time. |
| Responsibility for Science Education | Not their responsibility, but think elementary and high school science education is poor. | Perform it, but not necessarily qualified. | Think scientists and teachers are responsible. |
| Science Education Assumptions | Assumes that everyone is willing to learn about science | Assumes that people need help to learn about science | Not everyone is interested in learning about science |
| Complaints | complains about media coverage | complains about lack of cooperation | complains about lack of information |
| Narratives | uses strict scientific standards, peer reviewed journals | creates classic narratives and stories | prefers classic narratives and stories |
| Media Handling of Hazardous Events | media sensationalizes hazardous events | doesn’t sensationalize hazardous events | media sensationalizes hazardous events |
| Transparency | avoids transparency | seeks transparency | demands transparency |
| Language | scientific lingo | lay lingo | lay lingo |
| Democracy | thinks it’s democratic | upholds democracy (freedom of the press) | values democracy highly |
| Political Sway | Very little | Potentially large | Depends on circumstance. Increased with help of media. |
| What risks are important? | risk choices dictated by reason/deduction, choices outside of scientific reason seen as irrational | chooses to cover a risk based on a combination of factors (I.e., whistle blower, public consensus, relevance to other issues, editorial concerns) | values freedom to choose risks. |
| Media Personalities & Celebrities that Take Up Causes | Suspicious of them | Creates them, promotes them | Suspicious of them |
| View of the Media | Blames media, need more qualification, overly dramatic, “hack” work, omissions. Must gain their trust first – then the public. Much more suspect of general media. Respects science media. Chemistry and engineering are poorly represented. | believes they are doing the best job possible, feels they are pawns for grants. | sensitive to manipulation and sensationalism, questions objectivity. Chemistry and engineering are poorly represented. |
| View of the Public | blames public perceptions, easily alarmed, emotional. Think public has generally negative view of them. No rules governing relationship with public. | Very concerned with the public mind. More likely to criticize scientists. Has subscribers and customers to satisfy ( Public = revenue!). | Highly variable. Underestimated by both parties. Caught in the crossfire. Uncertain and apprehensive. |
| View of Scientists | objective professionals, overly confident, passion for what they do, unaware of how inaccessible they are. | objective professionals, trusts them, places them on pedestal, may make them look too authoritative. Don’t think science sells. Sometimes view science as foreign news. | Generally positive, wants scientific info, but highly variable: arrogant, unpassionate, mistrust them – or in awe of them. Responsible, concerned, but secretive. Invisible until they need them. Believe science is value laden and political. |
| View of Advocates and Whistle Blowers | Looked down upon, criticized by peers. Bad for science. | Protagonist, heroic, David and Goliath. Great story material. | Like a “hero” story. Like a personal story with emotion. BUT trust is not guaranteed. |
| Professional Image | objective professionals, isolated | objective professionals, isolated | Variable |
| Rate of Change | predictable and controlled change, paradigm unchanged for centuries | Predictable, follows consensus and “fashion”, changes with the times | unpredictable, postmodern doubt of science, increase in spirituality |
| Constraints | Strict methodology. Peer review needed, consensus needed. No space constraints. Few time constraints. | Editorial, space, and time constraints. | Highly variable, but democracy = no “real” constraints |
Trapped on a rock floating in space 