Nancy MB book chapter - clinch

Science Journalism in the Clinch

The Knowledge Society Favours Science Communication, but Puts Science Journalism into the Clinch

Chapter prepared for: Baranger, P & B Schiele (2013), (ed.), Science Communication Today. International perspectives, Issues and Strategies, Paris: CNRS Editions.

[6025 words]

26 October 2012

Martin W Bauer (LSE [email protected])i

Abstract: The knowledge society creates favourable conditions for science communication, while science journalists come under pressure. Journalists working on the ‘science beat’ are key actors in the chain of communication that keeps the great conversation of science-in-society alive, but their professional situation is becoming precarious. Recent studies bring together systematic observations on the working conditions, the professional ethos and the future of science reportage in the mass media. These studies allow us to gage trends and to put into perspective a ‘sense of crisis’ in the profession. The paper will report some results and interpret them into the light of larger trends in the relationship between science and society and the need for a functioning public sphere of science.

Keywords: knowledge society, science communication, science journalism, sense of crisis, comparative research, decline of public sphere, public relations

1 A new context of science communication

Many people live in high expectations, maybe not in great expectations, of a ‘knowledge society’. For the movers and shakers of the European Project this is a key notion of the Lisbon Agenda 2000 and it merges into the current Agenda 2020. The term denotes a historical transition from an old to a new modus operandi of society, anticipating a society where the productive forces are tied to newly created knowledge, i.e. the productive sector will depend on developments at the frontiers of science. Nations with the ambitions set on the ‘knowledge society’ seek to increase their R&D spending, currently somewhere between 1-4% of GDP in OECD countries, but mostly from the private sector. The knowledge society will revive the private patronage of science, but not of Church, Kings and Queens, but of global business interests. The knowledge economy will restructure employment. Jobs will move to the knowledge sector; and investment will flow into intangibles such as patents, education and communication rather than into tangibles like machinery, land and real estates. This was modelled by Rohrbach (2007) who


reclassified some national statistics. According to these calculations, the knowledge sector of ten major OECD countries has increased by 58% in employment and by 34% in value added from 1970 to 1999. The knowledge sector comprises four domains of employment, some of which have grown considerably faster than the overall sector:

• Knowledge Creation: Research and development (employment 1999:191 / added value 1999: 132; 1970=100)

• Knowledge Infrastructure: paper products, manufacture of computing, radio, TV and other equipment, computing, post and telecommunication (82 / 221)

• Knowledge Management: legal, accounting, auditing services, tax consultancy, market and public opinion research, advertising, business consultancy (592 / 208)

• Knowledge Mediation: education, publishing, printing and reproduction, distribution of contents in newspaper, radio, internet, library and archival services, culture industry (133 / 80)

We note that ‘Knowledge Management’ and ‘Knowledge Mediation’ have grown faster than expected, and will probably continue to do so. We can reasonably locate science communication in these two sectors with the double role of research into public understanding of science (knowledge management) and the professional design of science communication (knowledge mediation). In the knowledge society, science communication will support techno-science in its ‘expeditions into the unknown’. These expeditions have many names and ‘rallying calls’ such as the war on cancer, biotechnology and genomics, nanotechnology, synthetic and systemic biology, nuclear power, neuroscience and brain research and many more to come. Techno-science refers to large-scale research where science and engineering are indistinguishable. Arguably communication is integral to these efforts to mobilise support and to secure resources among stakeholders, to make the knowledge creation possible in a context that is nationally and internationally competitive. Much can be learnt from looking at this effort in analogy to how social movements mobilise resources and frame issues for societal impact (see Bauer & Jensen, 2011; Zald & McCarthy, 1987; Tarrow, 1994, p135ff). Let us consider attention seeking, actor coalitions, action repertoires and risk management.

Attention seeking One of the key functions of communication is to seek attention among stakeholders. Seeking attention is not an easy task in a post-modern public sphere that is brimming with fragmented conversations of all kinds: important, entertaining, futile and ephemeral. The public sphere is constituted by a multitude of arenas and channels, old one like meetings, conferences, newsprint and broadcasting but also new ones like internet, Facebook, blogging and Twitter. The fragmentation of societal conversations into small niches of common outlook makes it harder to capture the attention of sizeable parts of the public at any moment in time. Achieving issue framing with lasting resonance is thus more important and more difficult than ever. The communication function of techno-science seeks public attention for the following reasons, maybe there are others as well:

• To attract sponsors and move as yet undecided bystanders • To mobilise insiders and believers in the project, and to give them public status • To determine the leadership of the research world sector which is very competitive • To demobilise opponents


• To absorb epistemic uncertainty The researcher at the coal face of the laboratory bench is rarely sure of what (s)he does and finds, uncertainty rules the day. However, uncertainty is not very convincing to outsiders, who often are under pressure to act. In response, science communication often present knowledge as more certain than it is, as more concrete than it is conceived, and visualises the unfamiliar in iconic images. All this is suitable to manage public attention, makes for public appeal, and for more comfort among scientists.ii Communication of science outside the core-set is thus integral to the conduct of modern science, and not an optional add-on to established facts (see Fleck, 1979; Jurdant, 1994). But scientists and researchers happily leave the communication to the professionals, while keeping the focus on their lab bench. They are happy to savour the good news on their research, and they easily dismiss it as journalistic simplification should it ever become controversial. The notion of ‘popularisation’ is open to self-serving interpretive flexibility (Hilgartner, 1990). Hence, much of the attention seeking for techno-science is professionalised according to the age old logic of product marketing. We are familiar that clothes, cars and creams need a USP, i.e. a unique selling proposition. Now we have found a genetic test for breast cancer, or several and they might differ little if not in robustness, mode of application, and the reputation of the provider. So what is their UPS? Public Relations comes into play to create brands and brand value; hitherto for Corona, Kaiser or Carling Black Label, now also for research groups and laboratories. Not only do we brand research projects and universities, but the Regio Basiliea and Silicon Valley, or entire countries as locations for research, ‘Iceland, the gene lab’. Apparently, most embassies are now show-casing the national sciences. And finally Public Affairs Management is at hand to secure a favourable policy environment and pre-empt laws and regulations that could unduly interfering at the national and international level, not only for the traditional armaments industry, but for innovation more general.

Figure 1: shows the annual movement of the NASDAQ-index for stock of high-tech companies and references to the ‘internet’ in the British press. Source: ‘Guardian archive’; indexed on 2000=100.

Professional communication relies on the mass media to attract an audience. Communicators know the operational ins-and-outs of mass and social media, and adapt to their ‘Eigen-logic’. This logic of operations includes the particular news values for science (see Hansen, A, 1994), exogenous and endogenous issue cycles (see Bauer, 2012a) and framing which resonates in the context (see Neidhardt, 1993; Gamson & Modigliani, 1989). An implication of this new context of communication might be illustrated in figure 1, which shows the recent issue cycle of news that is captured by the


keyword ‘internet’. Newspapers follow each other on such cycles (i.e. journalistic herding), so taking one paper as proxy for all others is quite valid to measure the news intensity. The UK press coverage of computer news and the NASDAQ stock index are highly, if not perfectly correlated (r=0.97). This is consistent with the supposition, that science and technology news is seeking the attention of capital as much as anybody else. On the other hand, success on the high-tech stock market feeds more internet news.

Actor coalitions A large number of actors are seeking to spread the word of new scientific knowledge. There are actors close to the core-set of the lab bench, such as universities and research laboratories, hospitals and clinical research units, and industry with an R&D function. Then there are particular interests such as patient groups, scholarly societies, funding agencies, philanthropic foundations and stock markets and venture capital. And then there are the old and new sectors of outreach as in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), The British Science Association (BSA), and its European (ESOF) or Chinese (CAST) and equivalences in many places; then there are the science museums, and their younger cousins the science centres. There are scientific journals and publishers, and a smarm of entrepreneurs who partake in science communication as advisers and consultants whose services can be hired. Finally, there are the controversial counter-voices who also refer to techno-science with strong public resonance, such as the anti-nuclear movement, the environmental movement, creationism and anti-science activism; animal liberation activists, Flat Earthers and so on. In this concert of public references to science it is increasingly difficult to say who mobilises whom. For some developments one can identity a co-ordinating actor, such as HUGO (Human Genome Organisation) which sought to co-ordinate globally the research and communication on human gene mapping during the 1990s. More often than not, we face an uncoordinated network of actors in mutual stimulation and competition. Many actors are issue entrepreneurs who seek revenue to sustain their own mission of communicating science, seeking issue attention and brand value at the same time.

Action repertoire: old and new Equally varied is the action repertoire available to science communicators. This repertoire has gone through a cycle of considerable innovation over the past century. Traditional education in school, public lecturing, the staging exhibitions and information campaigns, public meetings, and press conferences continue unabated. Even the Hollywood film industry is part of the repertoire (see Kirby, 2011). However new formats of event making have emerged such as Table Ronde, websites, Twits and blogs, Café scientifique, Science Festivals, science weeks, consensus conferences, focus group discussions, public opinion polling and NGO stunts. Many innovations respond to unease with public lecturing from high-on to move towards more dialogical formats known as ‘technologies of humility’ (Gregory, 2011; Jasanoff, 2003; Einsiedel, et al., 2001). How to classify and evaluate this repertoire of actions? It remains open to debate and analysis whether do any of these events counts as extension, education, as rhetorical trope of ethos, logos, pathos, as advocacy, persuasion, deliberation, dialogue or community building and empowering (see Bucchi, 2008). To my knowledge, a comprehensive treatment of actors and the action repertoire of modern science communication remains an open task for the research literature.


Communication Risk Management Many statements on public understanding of and public engagement with science are statements that motivate and justify why we should communicate science, do it more often and better. Recently a ‘reflexive turn’ and empirical research raises questions of undue idealism and the spectre of dysfunctional outcomes (see Weingart, 1998). For example, the ‘medialisation of science’ thesis points to repercussions of the media orientation of science. The strategic adaptation to the logic of attention seeking might derailed research from its ethos of robust knowledge and of speaking truth to power (see Roedder, Franzen & Weingart, 2012). If scientific leadership is decided on public prominence rather than scientific reputation, the ethos of science could be jeopardized. There are other risks. The techno-scientific project can fail; this is the ultimate risk of any mobilisation effort. Accidents and errors can happen on the way. Whether due to human error or systemic failure, such events ‘stigmatize’ a development. As in the case of nuclear power, after Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima it is difficult to think positively. The hyperbole around new developments can create great expectations, and frustrations follow when things do not materialise as expected. Many claims to save humanity from cancer have this characteristic. The build-up of professional communication in research institutions can lead to overwhelming PR activities. A recent estimate in the UK speaks of an imbalance six PR officers for every science journalist.iii Finally, modern public opinion is simply too complex to be predictable. An old metaphor of public opinion as the ‘Holy Spirit’ of modernity holds it to evade efforts to control. A final risk of mobilisation lies in the rigidity of the effort in the face of friction; over-commitment to a cause creates immunity to public sentiment and blindness to feedback. The grand question hovering above all social mobilisation remains this one: is public opinion a source of trouble or a valuable resource and potential ally?

2 Science Journalism in the clinch In the remainder of this chapter, I will focus on one particular actor, the professional science journalist. In the knowledge society, the science journalist faces a particular paradox: when his or her services are most needed, the economic basis of their work is eroding fast. How come? On the one hand, the internet and social media undermine the traditional business model of newspapers and print media: to selling the attention of readers to advertisers. Newspapers lose readers, the young no longer buy newspapers nor even read them. They surf the internet and expect information to be free. Advertisement follows the readers, and the income stream of newsprint implodes. Newspapers experience a secular decline, concentrate forces, and reduce the staff of full-time journalists. The internet has not yet generated an alternative business model. The economic basis of science journalism on print and broadcast media is eroding; the specialist beat are often the first to go (see OECD, 2010; Manning, 2009). On the other hand, private patronage changes the typical scientific careers and alters the public image of science (Shapin, 2008). It also brings the professional communication function upon science. Some years ago we called this a trend towards ‘PUS Inc’, elaborating the earlier ‘selling science’ (Gregory & Bauer, 2003; Nelkin, 1987). A secular trend might be illustrated in figure 2. If we look at three time slices, we can say that around 1900 most science communication was done by scientists themselves.


Scientists lectured in public, and others wrote in newspapers and magazines, and later worked with radio. By about 1960 this had radically changed. By then most science communication is done by the professional mediators, the science journalists who formed professional organisation in the post-war period. Into the new millennium, we see a return of scientists to the scene. Many scientists are now active again in blogging, Facebook or Twitter. And on the other end of the spectrum, we witness the massive expansion of Public Relations for science. The middle ground of traditional science journalisms got into the clinch between scientists and public relations.

Figure 2: The changing structure of science communication; hypothetical trajectories of stakes of three different actors in the field of science communication. The total for each period is 100%. This scheme is not yet based on actual data, but on the historical imagination and the ‘trend spotting’ of the author.

We explored some of the consequences of this for a critical public of science in another paper (Bauer, 2012b). What is ultimately at stake is the proper functioning of a public sphere of science. The notion of a public sphere (see Habermas, 1989) builds an account of a historical achievement of modern societies that is at risk of decline. The modern public sphere is a space where citizens debate the matters of common concern under circumstances that free them exclusive considerations of kinship (it matters who you are), of the powers that are (power makes truth), and of money (who pays the piper calls the tune). A functioning public sphere is constituted by four ideal features of public reasoning: a) transparency and inclusion of all, b) equality among participants; all hierarchies are bracketed; c) absence of force, violence and coercion; d) neither deception nor self-delusions. These points of common orientation guarantee the power of the better argument (Aristotle ‘on Rhetoric’); they liberate the ‘illocutionary force’ of speech by demanding that all claims are to be validated on truth, morality and truthfulness (Habermas, 2008, 49ff). Figure 3 illustrate schematically the movement of any public sphere between the poles of ‘ideal’ and ‘corruption’. Persuasion towards the ideal side is dominated by deliberative formats; while on the corrupt side persuasion is given to symbolic and physical violence. In extremis, the barrel of the gun makes decisions. Somewhere in between the extremes, most public spheres operation with a mixture of deliberation and uninvited social influence (see Sammut & Bauer, 2011).


Figure 3: a schematic illustration of the shifts contexts of persuasion, towards or away from an ideal public sphere (on the left side). Any particular public sphere is represented by a vertical slice (brackets) and the particular balance of deliberation and social influence which this entails.

What seems at stake in the knowledge society, with a system of science communication where corporate communication dominates over independent journalistic reportage, is a functioning public sphere. Empirical trends in the communication of science shrift the existing public sphere towards the right-hand, more ‘corrupting’ end of the schema (see figure 3). Circumstances where persuasion is dominated by uninvited and hidden influences, bordering on coercion, will open to risks of unreason. The public will no longer be well informed, debates be rigged, and decision made not in view of a common good, but for the benefit of interests of power, money or kinship. One of the factors that increase the risks of unreason is the structural weakness of science journalism between scientists and corporate communication (see Goepfert, 2007).

3 The working conditions of science journalism: a sense of global crisis?

The current crisis of the newspaper business model has generated a number of studies which investigate the situation of science journalists in this uncertain climate. It is useful to contrast the current worries over science journalism with a French study of 40 years ago (see Maldidier & Boltanski, 1969 and 1970). At the time, there was no sense of crisis, but a vigorous ethos of torch bearing for science in society. Science journalists were more defenders of science than scientists themselves.

Into the new millennium the evidence is different. Williams and Clifford (2010) investigated the science beat in Britain. They found that since 1989, the elite press had a stable and well staff science beat; while the popular press and broadcasters expanded their science base over that period. However this expansion stalled in 2005. They went on to interview the core-set of 50 science journalists on the National press and broadcast media. Most of them agreed, that the sector is in a steady state, some see decline; workloads have increased; and the quality of copy is threatened by time pressures and ‘churnalism’, i.e. the pasting of convenient PR materials. Science journalists recognise the increase of PR subsidy, but mostly deny using it. All in all, the prospects of quality reportage are declining.

A feature in NATURE (see Brumfield, 2009) reported on survey of 491 science writers among its


readers, mainly in North America and Europe. Most were in full-time position, more than 10 years in the profession and working mainly on print, Web content and blogging. 30% were aware of recent cuts in staffing, and one third was pessimistic: more or less certain that they would not be working in the profession in five years’ time. Even a higher proportion would not recommend a science journalist career to a young student. NATURE anticipates a paradigm shift in science writing.

But is this predicament of science journalism universal? We recently asked close to 1000 science journalists across the globe on their working conditions and views of the profession. We balanced our sample more evenly to correct for the North Atlantic bias in NATURE. The survey rolled out between June 2009 and April 2012, mostly on-line in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese or Arabic, and we collected 953 responses from North America, Europe, Asia, North Africa & Middle East and Latin America (see Bauer et al, 2012).

Most science journalists are young and highly educated. The typical science journalist is male and between 20 and 45 years old, and less than five years in the profession. However, in North, Central and South America, females are more typical in the profession. Most professionals hold a university degree, 10% with PhD. Only 10% learnt the trade in the old style on the job.

Working practices

Print remains the most likely output for all science journalists, only about 5% report never to work in print. Second in output are stories on the Web, again only around 10% report never to work on the WWW. About two thirds of science journalists are blogging; and blogging is particularly likely across Africa. About half report working also for radio or TV, at least occasionally.

The intensity of work varies across different regions of the world, while the intensification of work is global. The average workload is about 9 items over a two-week period. The majority of science journalists works on between 5 and 11 items, those working in Africa and Asia are slightly busier than others. Women and men have similar work loads, except in North Africa, where men report more items over two weeks, and in Asia where women report more work; and two third or more of respondents report increasing workloads over the last 5 years.

Precarious working conditions are more the rule than the exception. About half of science journalists work in full-time positions, the other half works precariously. In Asia and in Latin America, professionals are more likely to work in full-time positions than elsewhere, while across Africa a full-time position is very unlikely. For the trade, the situation has more likely to have worsened over the last five years than to have improved, except in Asia and Latin America, where the outlook seems brighter.

Professional Ethos and Job Satisfaction

The ethos of science journalism varies across the globe. The good science journalists is typically seen to be ‘well trained and reporting the facts independently, neutral and in an original manner’. Though many lament the disappearing critical edge in the profession: too much ‘exposition’ and not enough ‘exposure’, that is how the 2012 meeting of the British Association of Science Writers brought this to the point. For many professionals a ‘formal science training, understanding of statistics and a passion


for science’ are important, for others the journalistic skills of ‘knowing how to deal with new media, visualisation and dealing with facts and their investigation’ is more important.

Despite what are difficult and deteriorating working conditions, the majority of professionals are happy and like their job, only 10% are clearly disappointed and dissatisfied. We distinguished satisfaction with operational specifics of the job, such as physical safety, freedom of expression, access to information and scientists on the one hand, from general job satisfaction on the other. European, US and Canadian science journalists are more likely to be happy about the specifics of their work, than with the general conditions, in other regions of the world, this is reversed. Across Africa the specifics of the job are lacking, while overall professionals are happy. Across Asia and Latin America the two dimensions are in balance.

Asked directly, ‘science journalism is in crisis’, a majority of respondents in North America and across the Middle East/North Africa agree to this, while the majority in Latin America and Sub-Sahara Africa disagree. Across Europe and Asia, opinions are more balanced. Asked directly ‘will you be working in the field in five years’ time?’, between 10-20% of respondents in North America and across Europe reckon they will probably not, or are certain they will not. While in all other regions, the future seems much brighter. Finally, asked whether ‘would you recommend a career as science journalist?’, 20-30% of professionals in North America and Europe would not do so. While across all the other regions, science journalists have no reason for pessimism.

Work pressures are increasing globally, working conditions are becoming more precarious, daily practices move from print to on-line platforms; nevertheless there is much more pessimism in the profession in North America and Europe, than elsewhere. We asked: is there a sense of crisis in the profession? Answer: it depends where you work!

What can be done?

Many analysts concerned with the state of the public sphere advocate philanthropo-journalism (see a critical discussion in Economist, 2012). Charitable organisations provide quality materials to news making outlets, and this not only for political news but also for science news. SciDev.com in London has taken such a subsidiary role and a global mission for some time already. These support actions might also include the enabling of new types of science journalism such as

• Doing less with less: first and foremost searching for the real good story rather than churning out mass stories from PR subsidy (apparently this is the new agenda at the UK Guardian; it seems also how the weekly Economist works);

• The investigator on the scientific paper: peer-review is not able to pick up all possible flaws in modern research. Journals such as the British Medical Journal (BMJ) have an investigative journalist on their staff who will do background checking on authors that are about to be publish. They seek to expose incomplete data reporting and hidden funding that might bias the results;

• A consumer beat for knowledge: there is a new role emerging for journalists who investigate knowledge claims in public. This includes fellow journalists who fall prey to PR spin, or exposing directly the claims producing industry. The British journalist Ben Goldacre has created a brand ‘bad science’ for this sort of debunking in the UK and beyond.


4 Future challenges and the role of PUS research

I have argued that the emerging knowledge society creates a new context for science communication that bears a considerable risk of a deteriorating public sphere of science. The question would be: can a public sphere that is dominated by strategic corporate communication guarantee the authority of science. Turning this question into empirical data, we have to ask: Is the authority of science in tact, for how long is that likely to last, is this authority stable or changing across all social strata or contexts? Data in the US has shown that the authority of science has declined among ‘conservative’ Republican voters since 1974, while it remains intact among ‘liberal’ Democratic voters. Overall, one finds the population split and an increasing gap between the political milieus, known as the ‘politicisation of the public sphere of science’ (Gauchat, 2012). It is unlikely that this scenario repeats itself easily elsewhere around the globe. In most places, the conditions are very different from those in the USA. Figure 4 shows the relative stability of trust in major social actors over the past 30 years, and the growing advantage of science vis-à-vis other actors in the UK. Public confidence in science is rising in the new millennium from 65 to over 70% of respondents. To monitor and investigate the components of the cultural authority of science in different context is clearly a key topic for PUS research in the coming years. Though old topics will persist, the question of the cultural authority of science is raised.

Figure 4: The general trust invested in various professions in the UK since 1983. The three lines compare scientists against ‘business leaders’ and the median of 16 other public actors; source: IPSOS MORI various reports available on their website.

However, in all the coming and going of research questions, we need to keep in focus the perennial one: the unintended consequences of good intentions. All strategic action creates friction and collateral effects. Evaluation research that is fixated on pre-set targets and objectives often degenerates into exercises of creative data handling to tell a success story. Much more important is to keep a methodical eye on collaterals which jeopardise the sustainability of projects. Since the research on the human genome project of the early 1990, many people refer to a 3-5% clause of funding that should be invested for ELSE themes: ethical, legal, social and economic consequences of new developments. This has been boldly implemented in Portugal under the programme ‘Ciencia Viva’ as public engagement with science. The former science minister, Sr Mariano Gago (see this volume), has advocated this model more widely in Europe.


I go a small step further, and would argue that the 3-5% clause for science communication must be complemented by a ‘3-5% of 3-5% clause’ to evaluate these expanding efforts, as characterised in this paper, with a serious research agenda. In the context of the knowledge society and considering the mathematical product of two percentage figures, 0.9-2.5%0 of research investment must be allocated to methodical evaluations of collateral effects of public engagement with science. Research in this field has to go beyond the development and implementation of a tool box and action repertoire. It is unlikely, that growing activism is always and everywhere for the better, and the known and unknown risks of this expanding field of activism need to be recognised, monitored and managed on an evidential basis to avoid to dual pitfalls of complacency and exaggerated anxieties.


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Short CV: Martin W Bauer read Psychology and Economic History (Bern, Zurich and London) and is Professor of Social Psychology and Research Methodology at the London School of Economics (LSE). A former Research Fellow of the Science Museum, he currently directs the LSE’s MSc Social & Public Communication, edits the Journal Public Understanding of Science, and is a regular academic visitor to Brazil. He investigates science in common sense through theory building, comparative attitude surveys, media monitoring & qualitative enquires. Publications include ‘The Culture of Science’ (Routledge, 2012, with Shukla & Allum) ‘Genomics & Society’ (Earthscan, 2006; with Gaskell); ‘Journalism, Science & Society’ (Routledge, 2007; with Bucchi); forthcoming ‘Atoms, Bytes & Genes – Public Resistance and TechnoScientific Responses’ (Routledge) and papers in Nature, Science, Nature-Biotechnology, PUS, Genetics & Society, SSS, IJPOR, Science Communication and DIOGENE.

i This chapter is based on a presentation given at Universite de Lorraine, Nancy; International Conference on Science Communication – 4th Journee Hubert Curien; 4-7 September 2012 under the title ‘Science journalism in crisis? I would like to thank various commentators who stimulated argument of this paper.

ii Note that increasingly science communication also involves the unmasking of ‘certainty’ in the claims made in public. The pandering of over-stated certainties creates an opening to pander for uncertainty in public controversies. Consider in this context controversies in the field of vaccination and global warming. iii This ratio of 6 to 1 (PR to journalists) was mentioned at the recent bi-annual conference of the Association of British Science Writers Association (ABSW) at the Royal Society, 25th June 2012. The same event bemoaned that science writing spends too much time on ‘exhibition’ and not enough effort on ‘exposure’.

Nancy MB book chapter - clinch

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