engleski

Empowering or Impoverishing? Science News, Scientists and the Public

We analyzetrends and changes in the recent media coverage in Croatia, with particular regard to the sources mentioned, style of presentation and method, authorship, etc. We are looking at the four year period between 2009 and 2012. Present newspaper science coverage in Croatia is balancing between impoverishing and empowering the public. Croatian dailies regularly provide a flow of the news, which generally meet the needs of the public (mainly about medicine and natural sciences )., This is a consequence of the lack of authenticity, analytical approach, more complete and documented information and news. In general, this is caused by the specific media market (due to the difficult social and economic circumstances), in which the newspapers are either over-controlled and thus unpopular in the public, or they are left to the voluntaristic market-guided will of a few media moguls. Croatian dailies do not see original and authentic science reporting as its comparative advantage on the market . They rather follow news services or other media coverage and bring short news that can be used to fill in blank newspaper space independent of «classical» news values like importance or proximity or prominence. In present-day newspaper's science coverage, the quality of information, the analysis and the evaluation of the scientific results are not always seen as a chance and means to attract a broader readership, or as a tool to gain comparative advantages in the convergent media market, or to serve as "legitimation discourse" of science in the media.

Science; news; scientists; public; science communication

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