Taking stock: A meta-analysis of studies on the media’s coverage of science

Abstract

The presentation of science in the mass media is one of the most important questions facing social scientists who analyse science. Accordingly, media coverage of science has been a constant focal point in the respective literature, and a flurry of such publications has appeared in the past few years. Yet the activity and growth of the respective research have not been accompanied by systematic overviews. This article aims to provide such an overview by means of a meta-analysis: it analyses existing studies systematically and provides an empirical overview of the literature. The analysis shows that while the research field grew significantly in the past few years and employs a variety of research strategies and methods, it has been biased in three ways: mainly natural sciences (and namely biosciences and medicine), Western countries, and print media have been analysed.