D2

1. D2
The impact of the media on science
One may believe that the public is not interested in becoming more knowledgeable about
science Whiles others may think that the public is just not adequately informed about science.
All these claims may be true however the media plays a major role in this. The public is
persuaded by the biased news coverage which emphasis the views of interest groups and other
vocal minorities rather than that of the actual scientists in a way the public would loose interest
in science.
furthermore, studies have proven that many journalists lack specialist training so would end up
making a poor scientific coverage. Although we can't ignore the fact that some journalists
produce accurate content for the public but lack an effective communication with scientists
which makes it difficult for science to be reported.
The use of in our daily life is very common and the impact the media has on it is unbelievable.
Going back to the questionnaire survey made at P2, the number of volunteers were mostly
between the ages of 16 to 18 (teenagers). With this you might expect that their knowledge
about science would be so fresh since they use more scientific materials and are exposed to
many scientific blogs. However their opinions about trusting scientific method was not very
promising. Some gave the reason for choosing "yes" was because science has made life easier
and that you don't to exert too much energy on something that can be done within seconds.
Another was their response to the question about if they believed the media perceived science
in a bad way. The outcome showed a close gap between the number of people who believed
that the media portrayed science badly and those who thought different. Although the majority
of participants agreed with the motion, the number to which they overtook the people who
disagreed was very little. Which again shows how much influence the media can have on the
public.
Nevertheless we cannot ignore the fact that, when it comes to effective method of
communication with the public about the implications of social and ethics, television and
national newspapers are used as the platform. Also some scientists do believe that the do not
always portray science in a bad way as seen from previous examples. An evident is the results
from the AAAS/Pew survey that shows that "scientists are equally split between those who
view the media's tendency to oversimplify as major or minor problem but are in near unanimity
in their negative opinion of science coverage "