Politicized Science Communication: Predicting Scientists’ Acceptance of Overstatements by Their Knowledge Certainty, Media Perceptions, and Presumed Media Effects

Abstract

Partisans in mediated conflicts usually perceive hostile news media, anticipate undesired media effects, and intend to engage discursively. It is hypothesized that hostile media perceptions also encourage polarizing communication. This is tested for scientists involved in a politicized science dispute. German climate scientists ( n = 131) firmly believe in anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Yet not all dismiss alternative hypotheses altogether. Results indicate that the more certain climate scientists are of AGW, the more they perceive that the news media downplay AGW and presume that the media nourish politicians’ doubts about it. This explains their justifications of overstatements of scientific findings in public.