research_proposal december 5

8/14/2019 Research_Proposal December 5

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The Presence of Literary Journalism Techniques in Effective Print

Coverage of Scientific Topics

December 5, 2007COM 502 Research Methods

Research Proposal

Ashley Brenon


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With the goal of building an understanding of the scientific process and increasing science

knowledge, science journalists attempt to take discoveries from the laboratory into public

awareness. Because scientific discoveries often have broad implications in politics, religion,

ethics and sustainability, the publics general understanding of scientific topics is fundamental to

the continuation of a democratic society (Frsich and Lester 24). Citizens must be well-versed in

the concepts of global warming, stem cell research, abortion, cloning, genetically modified

agriculture, power generation and nanotechnology in order to make knowledgeable assessments

of advances and their implications. They must choose the candidate that most closely represents

their views and question organizations they feel may be overstepping ethical bounds in the name

of science. In their article regarding the use of narrative techniques in environmental science

coverage, McComas and Shanahan write, Maintaining public interest in environmental issues is

key to finding and implementing solutions (30).

At the same time the media are responsible for the continuation of democratic society,

they are also relied upon for the continuation of science itself. In a world of ever-narrowing

scientific specialization, scientists themselves have come to rely on popular media for

information about scientific topics outside their realms of expertise. The media are responsible

for providing the information scientists need to spark breakthroughs in their own fields and to

initiate interdisciplinary projects. In addition, scientists are dependent for much of their research

funding on agencies and foundations that are governed by both scientist and non-scientists

(Dunwoody & Ryan 27). A board member who reads a coherent article about a scientific

advancement is more likely to grant funding for its continued development. Faber summarizes

the role of science media in his article regarding the popularization of nanoscience. It is

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coverage of cancer research gone awry. The mechanics of our profession force us to present a

fragment of new information in isolation and then move on to the next big break through (4).

In seeming response to the conflict between traditional news values extraordinary

breakthroughs and heart-thumping medical consequences and the slow and steady world of

scientific research, a new method of drawing the readers in has emerged. In several ways, literary

journalism identifies more closely with scientific topics than does conventional journalism.

Gradual connections, increased subjectivity, framing, biographical information, narrative and

science-fiction references work to help journalists cover science in ways that include all of the

information and keep articles interesting (Faber 156-160).

This paper will confirm the division between conventional journalism and the practices of

science, discuss the emergence of literary journalism as a bridge between science and journalism,

describe the methodologies science journalism researchers have used to study the appearance of

literary techniques in science writing and propose a study that will identify the frequency of each

type of literary technique in a set of science articles. Ultimately, an interpretation of the proposed

studys results would provide more information about the use of literary journalism techniques in

effective science writing.

The Findings of Previous Studies

Many science journalism researchers have devoted studies to quantify exactly how inaccurate

science articles are. All have found that scientists are justified in their displeasure and that

science articles are far less accurate than they should be. A study by Dunwoody and Scott asked

scientists to rate the accuracy of coverage of their own field and the other scientific disciplines.

On a scale in which one was worst, and five was best, scientists rated coverage in their own

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fields at 2.2 and coverage of other fields at 2.9 (56). In her work regarding the accuracy of

coverage of deforestation, Lundburg found that only slightly over half of the potential

information on tropical rain deforestation was comprehensively covered (380).

Much research has been devoted to identifying exactly how journalists incorporate

inaccuracies in their work. Several studies cited omission as the most prominent of science

journalism sins. Journalists often exclude research methods, qualifying statements and important

results (Lundburg 381). Inaccurate headlines, ambiguity, sensationalism, changes in emphasis,

overstating and incorrect generalizations were also noted (Molitor 212-218).

Other researchers have focused on the causes of the inaccuracies. Some blame editors for

the lack of space devoted to science news. Franklin writes, Editors ignorant of science tend to

handle paragraphs they dont understand by taking them out (9). Similarly, Boreman found

shorter articles were more likely to omit pertinent scientific information and to be less accurate

(345). Editors also impose deadlines which restrict sources and opportunities for in-depth

coverage (Dunwoody, News-Gathering 34).

Others media researchers blame the scientists for being uncooperative (Dunwoody and

Ryan 26). In the same way journalists are admonished for not understanding science, scientists

are criticized for not having better news sense. According to Dunwoody and Scott, scientists

have little understanding of or sympathy for the news process. In fact, 11 percent of scientists

view the media as a necessary evil (Dunwoody and Scott 57). Reluctant sources result in

articles that are poorly informed.

Others blame the culture within the science community, in which rewards have been

linked to communicating with other scientists, not the public. Moreover, those scientists that do

seek to disseminate their work through the popular media are often shunned. Thurs notes,

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Present-day scientists who engage too heavily in popular outreach have sometimes been

dismissed by their more research-minded colleagues (70).

Limitations within the journalists capabilities are often cited as well. With the

expectation that journalists cover such a wide range of cutting-edge scientific topics, there is no

way for a journalist to be well-versed in each. Increased dependence on sources compared with

other topics makes journalists less likely to criticize sources (Caudill 226). Articles with fewer

well-understood details often result.

Though less frequently, the consequences of inaccurate science news coverage are

studied also, especially those found in major media. Kirtz describes how oneNew York Times

article sparked several weeks of exaggerated cure-claiming news. The weight of [theNew York

Times] initial story led much of the rest of the press into less-nuanced follow-ups (2). The

nation was infused with misinformation and false hopes.

Those studies that did not focus on accuracy, attempted to identify the qualities in

effective reporting of science news. If conventional journalism techniques do not work to cover

science in a way that is both accurate and compelling, what methods are effective in covering

science? Surprisingly, the best techniques are neither journalistic nor scientific. Bridging the gap

between the two disciplines seems to be literary.

Journalism is often criticized for portraying sciences making big leaps and uncovering

indisputable facts. Wilcox explains, Media coverage of science tends to present individual

studies as exciting new discoveries, while scientists view their research as contributing small,

incremental pieces to a larger picture (226). Scientific results are continuously scrutinized and

validated. In actual scientific research, nothing becomes fact (Wilcox 226).

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Because articles based on literary journalism are often longer and more detailed, they are

less likely to cover the fast-paced, late-breaking advances that so often get journalists into

trouble. Avoiding major leaps, the genre seems to respect the scientific process. It is more likely

to describe gradual connections between the known and the unknown. This convention of

literary journalism mirrors science much more closely than does conventional journalism. An

emphasis on the process, rather than summarizing results, is a quality of good science writing

(Frsich and Lester 35).

In a criticism of aNew York Times exaggerated cancer breakthrough article, Shapiro

writes,

Can a story that promises the possibility of less than the cure, a story about a step a

crucial step, but a step nonetheless be equally compelling? It cannot; How could

anything short of a cure be so? Yet, could that seemingly lesser piece, the step story,

grab attention and keep it? I believe it can. (16)

In several communications research articles, the use of objectivity in science writing

came under fire. Perhaps the most-respected tenant of journalism, objectivity is not as useful in

this genre. When describing its use in the climate change debate, Gorss and Lewenstein write

that journalists often misstep by using the he said/she said approach to covering the issue,

rather than demonstrating the true weight of scientific consensus (4). Writing objectively,

journalists are often at the mercy of maverick scientists and government officials who are using

the media to perpetuate their own needs and interests (Gorss and Lewenstein 10). Holstein and

Stocking cite several industries and their scientific nemeses: the tobacco industry and lung

disease researchers, the fossil fuel giants and global warming, religious groups and evolution,

polluters and researchers for the environmental causes of cancer (3). If allowed to penetrate the

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news media, these perpetrators may use the publics scientific ignorance to create uncertainty

and discredit threatening science (2). Rather than simply acting as a scribe or translator, the

subjectivity found in literary journalism allows the journalist to present the most prevalent view

without pressure from journalistic norms. This, communications researchers say, increases the

likelihood of accuracy in science news.

Frames have also been found useful in making science journalism more accurate and

more interesting. A journalist may view a scientific topic through a social lens by discussing its

potential economic benefits, historical significance or the associated health risks (Gorss and

Lewenstein 4). Framing connects relatively obscure technology to important social issues (Faber

161), increases newsworthiness (Caudill 783) and shows what types of arguments are being

mobilized (Gorss and Lewenstein 4).

In the same way that frames connect scientific information to social contexts, the

inclusion of personal or biographical information about the scientists destructs the notion of

scientists as aloof wizards, brings them into the real world and helps demystify the scientific

process (Frsich and Lester 32). Faber writes that journalists are showing scientists multi-level

personal and professional lives more often. The data supported this claim with numerous highly

personal and biographical accounts of scientific research and the researchers who pioneered

studies (159).

After having established a character within the research, journalists often choose to insert

narrative elements. Narrative leads, scene-on-scene construction, dialog, characteristic habits and

third-person point of view give science stories a narrative feel that is desirable to both readers

and to scientists (Hornmoen 169). Hornmoen writes, Narrative devices are used to capture

public attention and ultimately their purpose is to contribute to explaining and informing the

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public about science (169). After having associated realism with scientists and the

constructionist philosophy with journalists, McComas and Shanahan write, A narrative

approach also allows realist and constructionist perspectives to coexist (36).

The narrative technique explores scientific cultures and reveals dramatic conflicts. A

science article may take the shape of a detective story or a race against the clock. Like drama,

the method is as free to highlight failures as successes of scientific research (Hornmoen 174).

Faber found that dramatic events were often described. Issues such as funding, competition,

national pride and personal ambition were prominent (160).

As an extension of narrative techniques, science-fiction references are often used to

describe actual science. Thurs writes:

The storehouse of visual and rhetorical images accumulated by science fictions last

half-century as a mass genre has proved particularly useful in attempts to inflect a variety

of late twentieth- early twenty-first-century emerging technologies. (67)

In his work, Thurs discovered that science fiction references are most prevalent in the time

before the public becomes familiar with a new technological concept. Once the topic has become

more common, science-fiction references drop off significantly. For example, science-fiction

references hit an all-time high in biotechnology articles in 1997 and in nanotechnology articles in

2002 and 2003 (67). Now that the technologies are prominent within the public consciousness,

science-fiction references rarely appear in articles about these topics.

Like science-fiction references, metaphors are used to bridge the gap between the known

and unknown in science journalism. They are used to relate an otherwise unknown phenomenon

to a familiar phenomenon that shares central attributes. In common with science fiction

references, metaphors are generated most heavily at the introduction of discourse about emerging

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scientific topics (Knudsen 379-380). For instance, a science writer may compare moving

genes, with which most readers would be unfamiliar, with the generally understood concept of

hitchhiking. Knudsens study on the careers of scientific metaphors reveals that, unlike

science-fiction references which fade into disuse, the most effective metaphors become

entrenched in the language used both by scientists and the public (381).

To summarize, Faber found that science journalists use literary techniques to introduce

readers to dense scientific information that may be otherwise unappealing. Personal

representations of the scientists themselves, narrative, drama, science-fiction references and

metaphors coexist with and enhance accurate accounts of the scientific research (162).

Previous Methodologies

Most often communications researchers use textual analysis to study science journalism by

evaluating all of the articles produced about a specific scientific topic during a defined time

period. Prominent studies have examined coverage of deforestation, aspirins use to prevent heart

disease, genetics, global warming and evolution. For a closer look at this type of study, I detail

Fabers work regarding articles about nanotechnology. Representing the second type of

commonly executed research in this field, researchers often evaluate the techniques used in all of

the articles that appeared in a certain publication during a time period. Frsich and Lesters study

of theNew York TimesScience Times is a good example. Others, like Knudsen, have studied

the appearance of one type of literary journalism technique, the metaphor, in this case.

In his study, Faber examines all of the articles containing information about nano-scale

science and technology published in newspapers and magazines from 1986 to 1999. With this

textual analysis, his goal was to identify the techniques, literary or otherwise, used in the initial

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presentation and perpetuation of new technological topics in print media (147). In doing so, he

inadvertently identified many of the qualities associated with literary journalism (158-161).

The researcher used the ABI/ProQuest database and the search terms nanoscience and

nanotechnology to find articles from all publication types. He used the time period specified

because 1986 was the first mention of the search terms in the database. The end date was set

because the researcher wanted to study the emergence of the field specifically. The researcher

identified 885 articles, differentiated between popular and specialized resources, eliminated those

that were reprinted more than once and retained the original articles. The final data set included

203 articles arranged by date. Using quantitative data-gathering of content and grammatical

structure, the researcher surmised qualitative results to identify how content and structure work

together to create meaning (147). In this way, this study blends quantitative and qualitative

methodologies.

To execute the data-collection phase of the study, the researcher used the clause as the

unit of the study. He divided each clause into the theme and rheme, the parts of the clause

positioned before and after the verb, respectively. Recording themes and rhemes, the researcher

was able to identify similarities within articles and across the data set and to categorize articles in

39 topical groups. After identifying which representations occurred most and least often, the

researcher was able to specify how his quantitative theme/rheme data contributes to the

qualitative understanding of the social/rhetorical process within science articles in popular media

(149).

In contrast, Frsich and Lester study only one resources content. TheNew York Times

Science Times, which was issued every Tuesday at the time of Frsich and Leskers research,

was studied from October 1993 until October 1994. Rather than code the information as they

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may in a quantitative textual analysis, the researchers extracted pivotal cases for further

examination, always after a complete reading.

Although both of the studies above discovered the heavy use of literary techniques in

popularizations of science news, neither set out to find them. Instead, they aimed to determine

the general characteristics of science writing and stumbled across literary techniques. Despite

their use of words likeframing, biography narrative, drama,science fiction and metaphor,

neither used the words literary journalism to express their findings.

A third type of investigation examines a particular literary convention, its appearance and

development. Studies on narrative, framing, science fiction references and metaphor have been

conducted. Knudsen attempts to discover the development and nuances of the code metaphor

in discourse about genetics. She used the search term protein synthesis, the literal counterpart

of the code metaphor, in the Science Citation Index and in six texts covering the history of

science and biology (376-377). After eliminating those articles that contained no metaphors, she

had collected 175 articles from academic journals and popular media. She defined the term

metaphor according to research precedents, isolated the metaphors from the text and categorized

them (377). With this data, Knudsen was able to trace the development and continued deepening

of a scientific metaphor to its eventual conventionality (381).

Proposed Methodology

Of the research articles reviewed for this paper, nearly all used either quantitative or qualitative

textual analysis to discover appearances of literary techniques within science writing. None set

out to quantify how often each of the several literary journalism techniques was used to cover

science news. None used selections from an anthology including only science articles that have

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been pre-identified as both accurate and interesting. By completing a quantitative textual analysis

ofThe Best American Science Writing of 2007, I aim to answer the following:

R1: Are literary journalism techniques used in effective print popularizations of science

research?

R2: If so, which techniques are used most often?

R3: Which techniques are used most often in combination?

R4: Does one literary convention rely on another?

The Best American Science Writing of 2007is an anthology of science writing written

and edited by industry-recognized experts. Text-rich and in-depth, all of the articles were

published for the first time in some of the most widely-read magazines and newspapers in the

country. The twenty articles include those fromEsquire, The New Yorker, The New York Times

Magazine, WiredandHarpers.

I have chosen to concentrate on The Best American Science Writing of 2007because it is

the resource that most closely meets the ideals of all parties: scientists, journalists and readers. A

study from Martin identified story length and the number of resources used are indicators of

quality in science writing (181). Furthermore, Martins study found that popular magazines often

run longer stories with more resources than do science magazines (186). Dunwoody and Scott

found that scientists are more likely to speak candidly with magazine reporters than with those

from other media outlets (57). This diminishes the effects of the reluctant-source argument. In

addition, Lee and Scheufele found that reading is the most effective method for the public to gain

scientific knowledge (826). Using quality-affirmed articles ensures that the literary techniques

included are desirable. Therefore, the study would reflect only literary journalism techniques that

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are used well as defined by the creators of the anthology. Finally, the anthology is current,

representing only work that has been produced in the preceding year.

Because several literary journalism characteristics are most evident when the piece is

considered as a whole, while others are most observable at the sentence level, the proposed the

research would occur in two parts. First an analysis of each article in the anthology as a whole

would consider length, the sources points of view and whether the story is primarily objective or

subjective. The articles frames and whether it covers a breakthrough or a discovery process

would also be noted. In many ways, these characteristics would act as the demographics of each

article. Based on previous research, articles that are text-rich, subjective, framed and process-

based will be considered more literary.

A second reading would involve using the sentence as the unit of study to quantify

appearances of the remaining literary terms. They include biography, narrative, drama, science

fiction and metaphor. The successful completion of this step involves defining each element

according to established literary research. Within each of the terms, several categories may exist.

For instance, the narrative element may include narrative leads, scene-on-scene construction,

dialog, characteristic habits and third-person point of view. Unexpected categories would be

added as they arise.

Using an Excel grid, with the article titles on the upper axis and the literary techniques on

the left, a technique would be marked for every sentence in which it appears. For example, a

metaphor that runs through several consecutive sentences would be marked once for each

sentence. Sentences that contain more than one literary term would be marked once for each of

the terms discovered. Within this method, I would be able to analyze if literary techniques are

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used, which are used most often, which are used most often in combination and if pairs of

techniques seem interdependent.

Limitations

The study is limited in terms of its data set. It considers only the twenty articles included

in the 2007 anthology. If thought necessary, the data set could be expanded to include previous

anthologies as well. Whether it includes previous anthologies or not, the study is limited in

geography, as it represents only stories published in the United States.

Another concern regarding the text is its accuracy. I have assumed that the articles

because were published in highly praised publications, and they are included in a well-respected

anthology are accurate. We know from the research cited in this paper that even the most

prestigious publications can not be relied upon in this way. And although the editor, Gina Kolata,

is a trained scientist with decades of science writing experience, she may not be capable of

judging the accuracy of scientific topics outside her realm of expertise.

In terms of the study itself, we have learned that researchers studying literary elements

specifically, most often choose one. Identifying all of the possible literary elements at once may

be slightly overwhelming. In this way, the limited data set of twenty articles may work to the

studys advantage.

Future Research

Once the study is complete, the interpreted data could be used to launch further research

in literary techniques in science news. For instance, comparing the frequency of literary

techniques in the 2007 edition ofThe Best American Science Writingwith anthologies of the past

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may provide insights into how the use of literary elements emerged and evolved over time. If

successful, this studys methodology could be used as a model for studying the appearance of

literary journalism techniques in broader media contexts.

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