Article: Science and the media

By Peter Weingart

Institute for Science and Technology Studies, UniÍersity of Bielefeld, Postfach 100131, 33501, Bielefeld, Germany - Research Policy 27 _1998. 869–879

Abstract

The traditional view of the popularization of science, if it was ever correct, is being challenged in the new arrangement

between science and the media. The paper discusses the changes in that arrangement and gives three particular cases of what

is termed an increasingly closer science–media-coupling: pre-publication of results in the media, the role of media

prominence in relation to scientific reputation, and the cassandra syndrome in some areas of research, i.e., the initiation of

catastrophe discourses in order to catch public attention. The coupling with its problematic consequences seems inescapable

given the increased dependency on public support on the part of science, and the media’s enhanced role in providing

legitimation. q1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Science; Media; Legitimation; Public; Democracy

1. Science discovers the media

A Dutch Aids-researcher announces the discovery

of a vaccine. Pressured by his colleagues to give

proof of his discovery he has to admit having exaggerated

his claims. In justifying his behaviour he

declares that only with such exaggerations is one

able to obtain the desired public attention and sup-

port _Hagendijk and Meeus, 1993.. This is just one

example among many others. It indicates a new

relationship between science and the media. The

question to be pursued here is if this relationship is

really novel and if so what its consequences are for

science.

2. The traditional model of popularization and its

criticism

The scientists’ approach to the media and the

repercussions this has for science can only be understood

appropriately if one considers how popularization

mediates between science and society. The prevailing

understanding of popularization derives from

a hierarchical concept of forms of knowledge. According

to this, scientific knowledge is superior to

popular everyday-knowledge, so-called common

sense. Science has a monopoly on truth in society, it

produces ‘true knowledge’. The media transmit information.

The current model of popularization of

scientific knowledge derives from this image. Scientific

truths are produced within the social system of

science and then are transmitted in accessible form

to the public. The control over the adequacy of this

transmission lies with science. From the perspective

of science, popularized knowledge is in the best case

simplification, in the worst case pollution _Hilgartner,

1990, 519f.; Green, 1985..

The traditional concept of popularization is one

which typically implies a passive and generally unspecified

public. The process of communication of

scientific discoveries from science to the public is

unidirectional. The public is perceived as purely

receptive. It is excluded from the production and validation of knowledge and by implication is considered

to be incompetent to judge the transferred

knowledge _Whitley, 1984, p. 4.. In this asymmetrical

image, the popularizers whether they be authors

or the modern media are not granted an independent

function, and it is also implied that they have no

selection criteria of their own when processing scientific

knowledge.

The ideology of science reporting which corresponds

to this traditional concept of popularization

has prevailed until far into the 1970s _Lewenstein,

1992.. The conviction underlying this ideology was

that if the public only understood science better it

would also support it more readily. The media were

given the role of the translator and propagandist.

Their task was to represent discoveries of science in

adequate, popular and appealing form to the public.

Many of the training programs for science journalists

which are oriented to the improvement of the quality

of representation and an increase in the level of their

education can be traced back to this time. Accordingly,

the media have been under the critical observation

of science whenever questions of the ‘ade-

quacy’ of reporting were at issue _Dunwoody, 1982..

This view is still far from being out of date _Kepp-

linger et al., 1991.

3. The independence of the media

It has taken a long time until criticism began to be

levelled at this asymmetrical concept of the relationship

between science and the public. The media have

gone through a development very similar to that of

science in terms of growth rates and internal differentiation.

The insight that the media do not simply

mirror reality but make their own selections is not

new _Lippmann, 1954, 317ff... Meanwhile, however,

the implicit criteria according to which journalists

judge the ‘news value’ of a piece of information and

according to which they process it to news have been

decoded: actuality, sensation, personalization, and

locality are among the most important ones. It is

evident that these criteria are different from those

which structure communication in science. The socalled

‘frames’ according to which the media select

and process information and which structure their

knowledge world are also different from, say, the

‘disciplines’ within science. Basically they are mostly

implicit theories about ‘‘what exists, what happens

and what is important’’ _Dunwoody and Peters, 1993,

p. 331.. The specific parameters of the production of

the media, i.e., organizational factors, have an impact

on the way in which news is selected and

processed. The accessibility of information, the

availability of crucial resources: time, money and

competence, the dependence on advertisement accounts

as well as editorial policies all have an impact

on the processing and diffusion of information.

In view of all this it is hardly surprising that the

media cannot function as transmitters of representations

of scientific discoveries or any other events

‘true to reality’. They construct their own reality in

the same way as science does. They only use different

instruments, different approaches to ‘reality’ and

different forms of representation. Thus the complaint

of science about ‘wrong’ or ‘distorted’ reports or the

purportedly wrong ‘selection’ of news is futile.

With recognition of the constructed character of

reality represented in the media, the asymmetry be-

tween science and the media _and implicitly also the

hierarchy of forms of knowledge. is questioned.

Evidently the media also produce knowledge at least

in so far as they have their own independent representation

of reality. And part of this reality is also

science and its descriptions of reality. It is thus no

accident that especially between science and the

media there is hard competition and even conflict

over the adequacy of representation. To the degree

that the media gain in importance, the monopoly of

science in judging representational adequacy may be

weakened. Science’s abstract criterion of truth is

now being confronted by the media’s criterion of

public acclaim. The reliability of information _for

example, as represented by the prestige of a scien-

tific journal. now competes with level of diffusion

_represented by the circulation figure of the newspa-

per or the number of viewers of a TV broadcast..

The validation criteria of science are not replaced but

are supplemented by others.

This becomes particularly evident with respect to

media reporting on science: prominence in the media

competes with reputation in science. Prominence

has a similar function in the media as reputation does

in science _Luhmann, 1990, p. 247.. It has news

value insofar as it represents an attractive item for

reporting. At the same time prominence, like reputetion in science, is a product of the media, an

orienting mark and an indicator for self-referentiality

and autonomy. Media prominence does not have to

be consonant with scientific reputation. Scientific

reputation is only one condition among several to

attain prominence in the media _Dunwoody and Ryan,

1987.. Goodell has pointed out in her pioneering

study that the usual criteria characteristic for the

media have to be added in order for a scientist to

obtain media attention: extraordinary personality,

high level of communication and self-representation,

the attractiveness of the topic of hisrher work with

reference to problems and fears of society _Goodell,

1977..

The media may use scientific reputation as an

orienting criterion implicitly regarding the competence

and credibility of a scientist. Thus, reputation

may have a legitimating function for the media in

their reporting about science, but credibility is not

sufficient to guarantee media prominence _Peters,

1994a,b, p. 174; Peters, 1994a,b.. Scientific reputation

and media prominence refer to very different

and unrelated processes of attribution. They overlap

and interfere when the media report about science or

let scientists speak. This happens on the stage of

public discourse in which politics and science are

involved _for example, when the legitimation of the

funding of research before the public is at issue..

In view of the selectivity of the media and their

self-referentiality and operational independence, it is

problematic to hold on to the traditional concept of

popularization. The arrangement has changed fundamentally.

The more important the media are for the

structuring of public discourse the more important it

is for science to gain media attention. Or put in

different terms: the stronger the dependence of science

on public consent, the more important is attention

and consent of the media. Under these conditions

the most interesting question becomes what the

repercussions of this dependence on the media will

be for science itself. What are the consequences of

an orientation to the media for science?

4. The ‘medialization’ of science

The recourse of science to a non-scientific public

is not a novel phenomenon. In a sense it is part and

parcel of popularization. If originally unspecified and

diffuse publics were envisioned by popularizing authors

these non-scientific publics become more focused.

Thus, their involvement loses the characteristics

of education and enlightenment and assumes a

more strategic function. Non-scientific publics are

engaged by science in order to settle conflicts which

cannot be solved internally. In a very general sense

one could say that recourse to the public by scientists

serves the purpose of mobilizing legitimacy with

reference to two types of problems: _1. the securing

and expansion of the boundaries of science vis a` vis

its social environment, and _2. the settlement of

conflicts within science. Mobilization of the public

and specific groups, respectively with the help of the

media, the forms it takes, and the changes it has

undergone are the focus in the following.

There are many indications that the relationship

between science and the media has changed but a

plausible explanation is lacking. A prominent example

of an instrumentalization of the media by science

is the pre-publication of scientific discoveries in the

media. It is evidently a phenomenon which occurs

increasingly often. Usually it is attributed to a

changed behavioral pattern of scientists. However,

Robert K. Merton has argued convincingly that this

does not signal the dissolution of the normative ethos

of science. The interest of scientists in priority has

remained unchanged. In his view, the really interesting

conditions which decide over the intensity of

competition are to be seen in the quality of research

areas, i.e., whether they are ‘hot’ _Merton, 1973..

This depends on whether they allow relatively many

original discoveries andror if they are socially _eco-

nomically, politically, ethically. relevant. Illustrations

of the latter are priority conflicts between the

American Robert Gallo and the French researcher

Luc Montagnier over the discovery of the AIDS

virus when not only the honor of the involved researchers

was involved but also patent rights for a

presumptive vaccine worth millions of dollars.

In this and other spectacular cases, the practice of

pre-publication in the media has played a large role,

but an orientation to the selection criteria of the

media is not yet at issue. Instead this practice reflects

instrumentalization of the media in order to obtain

priority and public attention. Possible sanctions by

the scientific community are accepted in exchange for the advantage of gaining time with regard to the

publication in scientific journals which have long

intervals between submission and publication of

work, if the relevance of the results for society and

thus the expected gains are considered very high.

Phillips et al. _1991. have shown that even within

science, perception of scientific publications may

indeed be affected by the media. Their study supports

the assumptions held by scientists who use the

media in their fight for priority.

Beyond this case many studies show that criteria

and frames of the mass media are incorporated in

scientific publication strategies and thus have an

impact on the core of knowledge production _Shinn

and Whitley, 1985.. Nelkin _1995. shows how scientists

adapt themselves to the increasing importance

of media for the perception, evaluation and promotion

of their work and how they develop strategies of

information control in public relations work. With

the necessity of selling results of research influencing

researchers’ strategies, it is a reasonable assumption

that they have a potential media impact in mind.

Nelkin provides numerous indications of an active

and strategic dealing with the potential of mass

media representation on the part of science. She

gives examples for PR-activities of institutions and

scientific journals which by targeting mass publication

of scientific results try to improve the image of

their institution or to enhance public support for

particular research lines. In many of the cases mentioned

by Nelkin popular mass media frames are

being used. The aversion of global catastrophes,

hopes for new medications and treatments or the

opportunity to solve fundamental problems of humanity—

all these are referred to as a possible basis

for legitimacy in the competition for scarce resources.

This strategy is most successful where the internal

mechanism of peer review is already weakened and

more direct political decisions determine the allocation

of resources. Nelkin points out that especially

decisions on large scale research projects are no

longer made within the traditional system of research

support and that external criteria therefore gain in

importance. Where this is the case, science is under a

very concrete pressure of legitimation _Nelkin, 1995,

147f... Numerous indications for the media orientation

of individual scientists are provided by Goodell

_1977. who describes the ‘visible scientist’ as a new

type molded in the media age. The visible scientist

seeks for the public especially in controversies in

order to obtain public prominence even if this behavior

does not conform to the scientific ethos. However,

Goodell does not pursue the question whether

or not public prominence has an impact on scientific

reputation.

Finally it has been shown in specific cases how

the implicit rhetoric of scientific articles is targeted

to the acquisition of resources and thus oriented to

external interests. Green demonstrates with the example

of the media discussion in the USA over the

XYY-chromosome that the basis for sensationalist

reporting was prepared by the scientists themselves.

The ex-post criticism by scientists of the XYY myth

which was purportedly created by the media recreates

the known pattern of a division between ‘good’

science and the ‘distorting’ media. The role of the

scientists themselves is ignored _Green, 1985..

All these indications of a new relationship between

science and media can be assembled into one

picture. Communication of science to the public is

nothing fundamentally new. Novelty is in the form

and intensity which emanates from a closer connection

between science and its social environment as

well as the new role of the media in observing this

connection. The phenomenon which is at issue here

may be termed the science–media-coupling. It is the

basis for the thesis of the medialization of science:

With the growing importance of the media in shaping

public opinion, conscience and perception on the

one hand and a growing dependence of science on

scarce resources and thus on public acceptance on

the other, science will become increasingly mediaoriented.

Under certain conditions the constructive

effect of the media-specific processing of scientific

knowledge can lead to the establishment of themes

on the political agenda. This process which is oriented

to the attainment of public attention follows

the logic of discursive overbidding. Large research

programs can be derived from such themes which

become the basis of long term projects designed to

mobilize financial resources on a national and supranational

scale. Thus, the thesis of medialization

claims an indirect impact of the orientation to the

media on science itself. The assumed mechanism

described with medialization is the coupling between science and relevant societal environments. This is

typical for modern mass democracies.

In order to illustrate and corroborate the thesis of

medialization I will examine three cases.

_1. The phenomenon of pre-publication of scientific

discoveries in the media with the example of

cold fusion. Here the relationship between traditional

scientific communication and communication in the

media is at issue.

_2. The role of scientists as media stars and

potential impacts of media prominence on scientific

reputation.

_3. The intertwining of scientific, political and

media discourses using the example of climate

change. The resulting pattern is a discourse dynamics

by exaggeration triggered by media orientation leading

to catastrophe discourses. It may be termed the

cassandra syndrome.

5. Priority, profits and the press—cold fusion

The story of cold fusion has been described many

times and does not need to be repeated here _Close,

1991; Huizinga, 1993.. The most important condition

for cold fusion to catch media attention was the

expectation of an economic and political revolution

in the energy sector. The leading industrial nations

have invested billions of dollars into physical _hot.

fusion research over the last three to four decades.

The solution of the problem of nuclear fusion is

expected at the earliest in 2030. The promise of

cheap _chemical. cold fusion could only be regarded

as a sensation and had to attract worldwide attention.

Just this was promised by B. Stanley Pons of the

University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of the

University of Southampton at a press conference

immediately before the Easter weekend 1989: They

had achieved nuclear fusion at room temperature

with a little water, wire and electricity. The news

magazine Newsweek commented: ‘‘It was as if

someone had said he’d flown to Mars in a prop

plane!’’ _Newsweek, May 8, 1989, 41.. The announcement

of the two researchers was unusual insofar

as it did not contain any details of their experiment.

In fact, they had published an article in a

non-review journal _April 10, 1989. titled ‘Preliminary

information’ that did not specify any details

either. Another article was sent to the reputed journal

Nature, but was rejected for ‘paucity of experimental

details’. The press conference announcement ignited

a hysteria both within the scientific community and

in the media. Lewenstein stresses that for lack of the

normal stable communication _via scientific journals.

in this situation there was a confounding of different

forms and sources of communication. Lacking more

precise data scientists used video tapes of the press

conference in order to replicate the experiment. The

press served at least in part as a source of information

and information broker for the scientists

_Lewenstein, 1995, 415f...

Thus, the special role which the media assumed in

this phase of the story consists of their becoming

part of the process, source and broker of information

in a communication process which actually belongs

only in the domain of science. Of the six leading

German scientists who took part in the cold fusion

debate, four received their first information from the

media, none from scientific journals. Lewenstein

characterizes this situation as instability of informa-

tion _Lewenstein, 1995, p. 417.. This phase of insta-

bility lasted for a while _according to Lewenstein’s

scheme until May 1989. and is reflected in the actual

information behavior of scientists, in the insecurity,

and contradictions of their evaluation of Pons’ and

Fleischmann’s results as well as in their evaluation

of the situation with respect to its impact on science.

The views about the role of the media were split.

But in the conflicting opinions the two central aspects

of the science–media-coupling become apparent:

First the importance of amplification and second

the impact and repercussion of media prominence.

Regarding the importance of amplification: critics

warned that media hysteria would lead to ‘bad science’.

Wrong results published without control could

lead research laboratories into impasses. Proponents

saw positive impacts in the fact that attention and

excitement would increase the speed of scientific

debate and the exchange of opinions and results.

Also science would be shown with a ‘human face’

so that possibly the interest of schoolchildren in it

would be aroused. Of the six fusion researchers

interviewed, four were opposed to publication in the

press. The two others were opposed in principal but

thought that in spectacular cases like that of cold

fusion, a duty to inform the public existed. As can be expected, the guardians of a traditional but slow

communication system operating with the control

mechanism of peer review are in opposition to those

researchers interested in a stronger and faster focussing

of attention.

A partial aspect of amplification is the intensity of

reaction. Lewenstein’s comparison between the volume

of electronic and traditional information communicated

shows again the faster reaction time of the

media _e-mail, fax. and also the larger volume compared

to the delayed and relatively slower reaction of

scholarly journals. This pattern is another illustration

of media’s function of concentrating attention and

diffusing information faster.

Lewenstein speaks of their ‘‘catalyzing role in

creating complexity’’ _Lewenstein, 1995, p. 419..

This complexity is best illustrated by the insecurity

of the scientific community’s evaluation of Pons and

Fleischmann’s theses. Another aspect of the same

phenomenon and a further consequence of amplification

can be seen in the higher risk of misleading a

much larger number of laboratories and scientists

working in them than was previously the case. An

American researcher cited in Newsweek pointed this

out with some exaggeration: So many scientists had

been lured into cold fusion that it ‘‘probably brought

the rest of science to a halt for the last months’’

_Newsweek, May 8, 1989, 44; c.f. Lewenstein, 1995,

p. 422.. Indeed, research laboratories all over the

world entered the race for the confirmation or refutation

of the PonsrFleischmann experiments. It is

conspicuous that researchers involved directly or indirectly

see the case of cold fusion as confirmation

that the control system of science functions in spite

of the new role of the media. But surprisingly they

overlook or denigrate the sheer breadth of reaction

and the cost incurred by it due to the type of

information _incomplete description of experimental

setup in the press. and its amplifying effect. Five of

the German fusion researchers interviewed declared

that the resources used were extraordinarily few:

Hardly any material was needed and the apparatus

for measurements was available everywhere. The

expenditure in manhours in the five groups varied

between five days for three scientists and one technician

up to about a month with a group of around ten

scientists and several technicians. The sixth expert

belonged to a group of four physicists and three

electrical chemists who worked on cold fusion for

about 20 months. Elsewhere this financial aspect of

the cold fusion affair has also not been thoroughly

investigated. The research center in Harwell, England,

purportedly spent half a million dollars and two

months full time work for several dozen specialists

in examining the PonsrFleischmann results. If one

were to extrapolate data such as these to the total of

all laboratories in the world engaged in replication

attempts, one would perhaps obtain a more realistic

picture of the overall impact of the combination of

publications in the media and the withholding of

crucial information on the scientific community as a

whole. The prevailing attitude is that given the extremely

high scientific and economic stakes, no one

can afford to let an opportunity pass by. The costs of

following a wrong path must be borne.

6. Scientific reputation, media prominence: on the

role of scientists as media stars

With this background in mind, the role of media

attention for scientists and the themes propagated by

them gain particular relevance. As argued above, one

of the indicators of the independence of the media is

that although they orient themselves in their reporting

on science to scientific reputation, which they

take as a sign of reliability and competence of the

scientists concerned, on the other hand they do not

feel bound to scientific reputation and thus feel free

to depart from it and highlight other features. Thus,

the media have their own internal reconstruction of

scientific reputation. Media prominence of scientists

is a media-specific construct. In view of a science

media coupling, the question arises—from the perspective

of science, of individual researchers, and of

science policy—how scientific reputation and media

prominence relate to one another in directing the

course of science and the decisions to support it.

With this, the difference between scientific reputation

and media prominence becomes a crucial research

site: From the perspectiÍe of science it is

theoretically possible that the attention of politics is

directed to media-prominent scientists and their topics

and that this attention is translated into decisions

of resource allocations even though the scientists’

prominence is not in line with their reputation; from the perspectiÍe of the indiÍidual scientists, it is

likewise imaginable that the path to success which

has previously been blocked in internal evaluations

may be found via prominence in the media; from the

perspectiÍe of science policy this creates the potential

problem of focus being directed to topics whose

state of research does not justify the support suggested

by media attention. In other words, the media

coupling may theoretically lead to a competition

between media and scientific criteria of relevance

and validation. In modern mass democracies such a

development is increasingly probable. In order to test

if there are empirical indications for this hypothesis,

a thorough examination of media reporting on scientists

in the leading German print media was carried

out. 1

The first question concerned the frequency of

scientists being mentioned in the media. The assumption

was that the media create their stars among the

scientists through frequent mentionings and that they

refer to only a few names known to them. Surprisingly

the share of scientists who appeared in the

sample more than once was only 12%, i.e., most of

the scientists were mentioned only once, with one

notable exception. 2 Also the reporting remains very

closely tied to the expert role of the scientists concerned.

All scientists mentioned more than three

times speak on only one topic.

In order to control for a possible bias of the

period of observation and to obtain a more detailed

picture of the role of well-known scientists represented

in the media, the media presence of 11

selected scientists was analyzed over the entire pe-

riod of their appearance in the media _usually several

years.. The results of this analysis were set in a

temporal relationship to the citation profiles of the

same scientists. _Citations are taken as a rough measure

of perception and recognition of a scientist in

the scientific community and thus as an indirect

1 2The first phase of the project covered all reporting on

scientists and science between April 15 and July 23, 1996 in four

daily and three weekly papers.

2 The exception is Daniel Goldhagen who gained unusual attention

for his book Hitler’s Willing Executioners. Even Goldhagen

is not a media star in the strict sense insofar as although he is

mentioned very often, he only speaks about or is asked questions

concerning his own narrow field.

measure of hisrher scientific reputation.. The patterns

resulting from this comparison were interpreted

in connection with biographical data and the contextualizations

of the articles in the media. The crucial

question is whether relationships can be identified

between presence in the media _prominence. and

scientific reputation. The method does not allow any

causal inferences but it does justify interpretations

about plausible connections.

The comparative analysis of the patterns of media

presence and citations of nine scientists resulted in

two distinguishable types: _1. Scientific reputation

precedes growing attention by the media. _2. Media

attention precedes growing reputation in science.

Within these two typical patterns there are considerable

variations which, however, do not alter the

fundamental pattern. The first pattern corresponds to

expectations directed to the relationship between science

and the media: scientists who gain recognition

in their respective fields eventually become an object

of media attention and are recognized by them as

experts. The media accept the scientific evaluation of

a person. This pattern appears more often than the

second one. The second pattern is in the extreme

case the opposite. Attention obtained in the media

leads post hoc to attention and recognition in the

scientific community. Thus the second pattern raises

the issue to what extent the media have an influence

on the scientific reputation of the respective scientists

and thus secondarily on the control mechanisms

of science proper. Scientists who fell into the first

pattern were Ulrich Beck _social scientists., Paul

Crutzen _atmospheric chemist., Robert Gallow _im-

munologist., Hartmut Grassel _climate researcher.,

Hubert Markl _evolutionary biologist. and Otmar

Wassermann _toxicologist.. Those who fell into the

second pattern were Wilhelm Heitmeyer _research on

violence., Opaschowski _research on leisuretime. and

Ernst–Ulrich von Weizs¨acker _biologist and environ-

mental researcher..

The most interesting case among scholars falling

into the second pattern, is the pedagogue and researcher

on violence Wilhelm Heitmeyer. Heitmeyer’s

scientific reception and his media presence

are obviously connected to the boom enjoyed by the

topic of Ausla¨nderfeindlichkeit _hostility to foreign-

ers. at the beginning of the 1990s. It is impossible to

determine without a doubt whether the attention to this topic that set in with some delay in science can

be traced back to an increased media presence. Heitmeyer’s

most highly cited work, Rechtsextremistis-

che Orientierung bei Jugendlichen _1987. had gone

through three editions before he himself appeared in

the media and was published a fourth time in 1992,

the year of his highest media presence. Nonetheless,

85% of all citations of Heitmeyer’s work occurred

after 1992. This means that scientific reception began

largely after media presence had been established.

Another indication that attention for Heitmeyer

was connected to the topic of Ausla¨nderfeindlichkeit

and the respective incidents is the always

dramatic and personalized form of media presentation.

It is also evident that this is primarily a

German discussion: Half of all citations to Heitmeyer’s

works are found in German pedagogical and

social science journals; only 14% come from Anglosaxon

journals. Heitmeyer is not a media star but

he had considerable presence in the media as long as

the topic Ausla¨nderfeindlichkeit was strongly represented

in the media.

In a case such as Heitmeyer’s, the question may

be asked whether media attention preceding scientific

reception had an impact on political decisions

concerning the allocation of resources. In 1996, the

State Government of Northrhine–Westfalia appropriated

funds for the foundation of an institute for

interdisciplinary research on conflict and violence at

Heitmeyer’s home university in Bielefeld. One of the

laudatory speakers commented at the opening of the

institute that this topic did not have the same priority

on the research agenda as that accorded to it by

politicians due to its actuality. In fact, however,

violence was decreasing at the time, and research on

violence was nothing new, but had been carried out

for a long time. Heitmeyer’s example is perhaps an

extreme case among those analyzed. The connection

between his media prominence and resource allocation

is plausible but cannot be proven. However, that

such a connection can exist is beyond reasonable

doubt.

7. Catastrophe discourses: science’s strategic orientation

to the media

A third example of the science media coupling is

the strategic adaptation of scientific discourses to the

_anticipated. desires of media attention. To be clear,

the issue is not whether scientists provide the public

with wrong information. To prove this would be

difficult. The case at issue is different. Scientists

adapt to the media when addressing policymakers

and the public. The results are simplified, dramatized

pronouncements and prognoses calling for immediate

action which are taken up and amplified by the

media. Often enough they become politically effective

discourses. The strategic element recedes into

the background. Only when public attention wanes

do dissidents and critics speak up and question the

original catastrophic scenarios. In this phase the

allegation may be formulated explicitly that the predicted

threats were a conscious misleading or at least

a public relations version of the truth.

The implication of this aspect of the science–

media-coupling is a dual one. On the one hand the

prognoses amplified by the media often create a need

for political action and thus focus on legitimacy.

That means drawn out public debates on impending

catastrophes have delegitimating implications for

politics and force it to self-binding declarations which

ultimately must be implemented in concrete political

measures _especially if other social groups have en-

tered the discourse.. The strength and intensity of

impacts thus created depend on the scope of the

declared threats. On the other hand it can be expected

that the public may get used to scientific

scenarios of this kind. It can then no longer be

judged reliably whether the drama of declarations by

scientists is justified or only construed with a view to

their PR-effect. It may be that politics thus is in

danger of losing an important basis of its legitimacy,

namely certified expert knowledge.

Again, a particular case illustrates the phenomenon

just described: the discourse on global

climate change. It is part of a broader discourse on

global environmental changes. Its chief characteristics

are the globality of threats and their assumed

irreversibility. Along with climate change, these are

the destruction of the ozone layer, of tropical forests

and of genetic diversity.

The debates on climate change ran more or less

parallel in the USA and Germany. I focus here only

on the German discourse. In 1986 an article in the

journal Physikalische Bla¨tter predicted a climate

catastrophe that would render the earth uninhabit able. This prognosis came with a relatively precise

date: ‘Irrevocably in the next 50 years’. The authors

made explicit what interest had motivated them.

Atomic energy should be developed rapidly in order

to lower CO -emissions. In the same year the Ger- 2

man Physical Society published a ‘warning of impending

worldwide anthropogenic climate change’

with estimates of the rise of the sea level _5 to 10 m

were believed possible. which, in turn, triggered the

media to dramatize. Der Spiegel provided the icon

of the debate on its title page with the Cologne

cathedral standing in water. The first proclamation

demanded an immediate worldwide regulation that

focused specifically on Germany. The scientific uncertainties

of the prognoses were played down in

view of the claimed urgency and feared every irreversibility

of the change. A second proclamation

published a year later, now authorized by the German

Physical Society and the German Meteorological

Society, toned down the warning of a catastrophe

somewhat. It no longer spoke of a climate catastrophe

but of climate change. None the less the pressure

on politics was now supported by two large

national science organisations.

The proclamation of the DPG which initiated the

discourse on climate change was closely linked to

the legitimation problems of nuclear energy which

had been heightened after the accident at Chernobyl.

The physicists did not in the end achieve their

objective. The opposition to nuclear energy had become

too strong. Instead, the debate on anthropogenic

climate change took its own course. The

first reaction by policy makers was to call for more

research and thus to allocate funds. A side effect of

the physicists’ initiative was, however, that the issue

of climate change was largely narrowed down to the

CO -emission-problem _Engels and Weingart, 1997, 2

100f...

With this, climate change was established as a

political arena. The success of the scientific whistleblowers

may be seen in the fact that climate research

as a policy-relevant research area was institutionalized:

In 1991 and 1992 two research institutes were

established _Wuppertal-Institut fu¨r Klima, Umwelt,

Energie; Potsdam-Institut fu¨r Klimafolgenforschung..

The Max-Planck-Institut for Meteorology which already

existed in Hamburg was supported so lavishly

with new computer technology that it was able to

develop an internationally competitive climate model.

_The German climate computing center was funded

with 100 million D-Marks, German climate research

by the Federal Ministry for Science and Technology

with 120 million D-Mark annually.. Once this was

achieved, the scientific and advisory community

which was now occupied with detailing their warnings

of the catastrophe and operationalizing them

into regulatory measures, began to diversify.

By the mid-1990s the climax of public attention

for anthropogenic climate change was past. But climate

research has become a firmly established research

sector financed by a multitude of national and

international funding programs. Meanwhile the prognoses

of climate researchers have become much

more cautious, the analyses more differentiated and

more inaccessible to public understanding. In this

phase the controversy among climate researchers

surfaces whether the warnings are justified or not. In

contrast to the usual scientific controversies which

are reported in the media, this one reacts to the

participation of the media. The discourse has reached

a new level. Scientists who had provided the media

strategically with exaggerated climate scenarios were

now forced to regain their credibility under the attacks

by sceptics in the media. The fairytale about

the boy who cried ‘wolf’! once too often comes to

mind.

The journal New Scientist called the controversy

the Greenhouse Wars and cited climatologist Pat

Michels of the University of Virginia who was convinced

‘that the tide is about to turn in his favour’,

that IPCC _ Interparliamentary Panel on Climate

Change. scientists manipulated data. Questioned

whether he saw communalities between the warners

and the sceptics, he points to the agreement according

to which a doubling of CO in the atmosphere 2

would lead to a rise of the average temperature by

1.58C. That is the baseline of what modellers and

climatologists assume. With the view to in his opinion

exaggerated claims, he comments: ‘‘You can’t

make a case for global apocalypse out of 1.5 C

warming. It destroys the issue. If politics weren’t

driving this we could all meet on common ground’’

_Pearce, 1997, pp. 38, 43.. An article by climatologist

Klaus Hasselmann of the Hamburg Max-

Planck-Institut is equally explicit about the role of

the media in the climate change controversy. He accuses the media of dramatization, leaves exaggerated

claims of climatologists in the past unmentioned

and then repeats a controversial probability statement:

95% estimated probability that the observed

temperature changes are of anthropogenic origin.

And again he repeats a standard warning of urgency

to policy makers: ‘‘If we wait until the last doubts

are overcome it will be too late to act’’ _Hasselmann,

1997, p. 31..

What appears here as a recent and unique development

can be demonstrated to be a recurrent pattern.

In policy-relevant areas the emergence of new

research fields follows the path of climate research:

In the beginning is the claim of an impending danger

if not catastrophe. A small group of scientists _from

different disciplines. who proclaims this danger also

provides suggestions for a solution. The promise to

be able to avert the threat comes with the authority

of scientific expertise in a brand new research area

and is tied to the condition of needed financial

support. Once this arrangement is successfully established,

the scientific organizations are founded and

the respective field begins its life cycle, the knowledge

expands, becomes more differentiated, specialized,

abstract and often less important for the practical

arena for which it was originally recommended.

The example of eugenic scenarios of catastrophe

at the turn of this century as well as their revival in

the 1950s are an instructive example that this pattern

is not new. What is new is a much tighter science–

media-coupling which amplifies the mechanism. In

the competition for attention all actors try to gain

control but none of them does control the game. The

results are overbidding discourses: the catastrophes

claimed by science are becoming more global, the

political self-commitments made to secure or regain

legitimation become more riskful and count on the

forgetfulness of the public, and the media comment

their own role in the dramatization as if they had no

part in it. In fact, their role is central in the transfer

of scenarios, their simplification, exaggeration and

effective diffusion.

8. Conclusion

It seems to be paradoxical: the more independent

science and the media are the tighter becomes their

coupling. I have analysed three configurations of this

coupling: _1. the detour of scientists to the media in

order to secure priorities; _2. the media construction

of prominence and how it differs from scientific

reputation; and _3. the competition of science for

public attention through overbidding discourses. In

all three cases the crucial question was whether the

media gain an indirect influence on or compete with

the self-steering mechanisms of science, and whether

the reference to the general public gains greater

weight than the reference to ‘truth’. The examples

which illustrate such an influence are still few and

they are indications rather than proof. They are what

climate researchers call fingerprints of the phenomenon

in question.

The science–media-coupling can be understood

as an expected side phenomenon of modern mass

democracies and corresponds to their increased demands

of legitimacy. The increased importance of

the media on the one hand and the increased dependency

of science on public legitimation on the other

constitute an institutional lock-in which does not

lend itself to moral blame on either the media or

science. Elitist science as it existed both as a self

concept of science and in public perception until the

middle of this century is no longer viable. Beliefs

formerly held to be self evident such as the social

primacy of scientific knowledge are beginning to be

questioned. That such a development has its price

and cannot be exaggerated infinitely without damage

to the arrangement is obvious. The suggestion to

create more distance between scientists and their

observers is useless because it refers to a previous

state of affairs and thus fails to grasp the problem.

The question is how under the conditions described

an adequate balance can be created between a legitimate

public observation by the media and a reflexive

distance of science and who is the proper addressee

of such a demand.

Acknowledgements

Research on the German cold fusion community

_5. was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsge-

meinschaft _DFG.. Research on media prominence

_6. was supported by the Department of Sociology,

University of Bielefeld, and carried out with P.

Pansegrau and M. Winterhager. Research on catastrophe

discourses was supported by the DFG and

carried out with P. Pansegrau and Anita Engels.

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