{"id":33823,"date":"2014-06-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.observa.it\/uks-science-media-centre-lambasted-for-pushing-corporate-science\/"},"modified":"2024-05-07T09:40:12","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T09:40:12","slug":"uks-science-media-centre-lambasted-for-pushing-corporate-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.observa.it\/en\/uks-science-media-centre-lambasted-for-pushing-corporate-science\/","title":{"rendered":"UK\u2019s Science Media Centre lambasted for pushing corporate science"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

[SALVADOR\/LONDON] Science media centres, institutions that aim to improve the coverage of science in the media, seem to be proliferating.<\/p>\n

New ones are being planned or created in Denmark, Germany, the European Union and the United States, following the ones that are already operating in Australia, Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

And a possible creation of such a centre in the developing world was discussed at last week\u2019s\u00a0PCST2014<\/a>\u00a0(13th International Public Communication of Science and Technology Conference) in Salvador, Brazil (5-8 May).<\/p>\n

But now a body of academic research is emerging that challenges the self-professed independence and objectivity of the information provided by the Science Media Centre (SMC) in London, United Kingdom, which is said to have inspired the set-up of others.<\/p>\n

Its briefings on various issues, including those of relevance to development, such as\u00a0genetic modification<\/a>\u00a0(GM) or\u00a0renewable energy<\/a>, are reported on by British mass media, such as the BBC and\u00a0The Guardian<\/em>, which have a global audience and influence.<\/p>\n

Researchers are questioning two of the SMC\u2019s claims: to provide neutral scientific views to promote better representation of science in the media, and to be independent of its many\u00a0funders<\/a>, who are largely the corporate world and the government.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"SMC_logo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Instead, they said at PCST2014, corporate lobbyists feature high on the agenda, which is dominated by the topics close to corporate rather than public interest.<\/p>\n

And the journalists who uncritically report on SMC briefings and quotes sent by the centre are being taken for a ride by a lobby organisation instead of a neutral science information provider, they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would close down the Science Media Centre,\u201d said Connie St Louis, former president of the Association of British Science Writers and a senior lecturer at City University, London. She conducted a small study on the centre\u2019s impact on UK science reporting in the 12 national newspapers in 2011 and 2012.<\/p>\n

The SMC\u2019s main activities include sending out \u2018expert reactions\u2019 \u2014 quotes on issues in the news \u2014 and holding media briefings, essentially small press conferences with a few experts.<\/p>\n

She found that more than half the SMC\u2019s expert reactions were covered in the press and, in 23 per cent of the stories that included these, the only quotes were those that came from the centre.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever the SMC delivered to them is what they used,\u201d St Louis said of those 23 per cent of stories. \u201cThe SMC never claims to deliver a balanced [argument], so it\u2019s really interesting that many of them weren\u2019t using somebody independent of what the SMC offered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within the stories that did quote other sources, 32 per cent of those independent views opposed those offered by the SMC expert reactions, suggesting that the centre\u2019s quotes fail to reflect the full range of opinions on a topic.<\/p>\n

The SMC\u2019s media briefings were reported even less critically: 60 per cent of articles based on them contained no non-SMC mediated source.<\/p>\n

For a public relations (PR) organisation\u2019s messaging service, that\u2019s quite a success, said St Louis.<\/p>\n

Read the complete article.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[SALVADOR\/LONDON] Science media centres, institutions that aim to improve the coverage of science in the media, seem to be proliferating. New ones are being planned or created in Denmark, Germany, the European Union and the United States, following the ones that are already operating in Australia, Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom. And a possible…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[475],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-475","description-off"],"yoast_head":"\nUK\u2019s Science Media Centre lambasted for pushing corporate science - Observa Science in Society<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.observa.it\/en\/uks-science-media-centre-lambasted-for-pushing-corporate-science\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UK\u2019s Science Media Centre lambasted for pushing corporate science - Observa Science in Society\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[SALVADOR\/LONDON] Science media centres, institutions that aim to improve the coverage of science in the media, seem to be proliferating. 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