Exploring Audience Judgments of Social Science in Media Discourse

Abstract

In contrast to research on the communication of “hard” sciences (e.g., nanotechnology), research on public assessments of social science’s role in media discourse is rare. Extending previous work on how the general audience perceives and assesses the quality of journalistic news reports about scientific research programs and their respective results, the present study explored how the lay audience perceives and evaluates the visibility of social sciences in the media discourse on controversial public issues (in this particular case, the violent video games debate). The results revealed that the public audience recognizes a high visibility of social sciences and furthermore believes that social sciences can substantially contribute to the public debate about violent video games and their effects. Moreover, we found a positive association between people’s recognition of social sciences in the debate and the quality of journalistic coverage on the violent video games debate. These findings are discussed with regard to their implications for research on public understanding of, and public engagement with, science.