When Science Meets Bad Media

“Who takes responsibility when science is distorted in the mass media”- Andrew Moore

This is about an incomplete list of academic papers about hoaxes, scientific misinterpretations, and bad interpretations of scientific data by some mediamen either triggered by their ignorance or intentional. I will divide them into five categories: Bad Press, Semantics in Science, Bad Medicines, Popular Science, and Recommendations. 

Bad Press.  It’s about the effect of whether fabricated stories or poor journalism to public mind.

1. A Case Study of a Retracted Systematic Review on Interactive Health Communication Applications: Impact on Media, Scientists, and Patients
2. A Model of Adolescents’ Seeking of Sexual Content in their Media Choices
3. AIDS, conflict and the media in Africa: risks in reporting bad data badly
4. Are Opinions Based on Science: Modeling Social Response to Scientific Facts
5. Blame the press?
6. Can you trust your journalist?
7. Brain Imaging
8. “Can It Read My Mind?” — What Do the Public and Experts Think of the Current (Mis)Uses of Neuroimaging?
9. Caught on camera
10. Cloning in the media and popular culture
11. Competition among memes in a world with limited attention
12. Don’t blame the CIA
13. Don’t feed the hype!
14. Experimental induction of psychogenic illness in the context of a medical event and media exposure
15. Filthy or fashionable — Young people’s perceptions of smoking in the media.
16. Fix for low sex drive puts reporters in a bad patch
17. Fraud: causes and culprits as perceived by science and the media
18. From climate news to classroom views
19. How movies mirror our mimicry
20. Hyping research
21. Inept media trials of clinical trials
22. It Ain’t Necessarily So: How Media Make and Unmake the Scientific Picture of Reality.
23. Mass Media Release of Medical Research Results
24. Media Doctor prognosis for health journalism
25. Media Exposure and Marijuana and Alcohol Use Among Adolescents
26. Media research: The black box
27. Mutant flu — the view from the newsroom
28. Mystery fraud accusations
29. News Media Coverage of FDA Warnings on Pediatric Antidepressant Use and Suicidality
30. Peer review: Trial by Twitter
31. Public views of the UK media and government reaction to the 2009 swine flu pandemic
32. Reporting risk—that’s entertainment
33. Revisiting the Role of Bad News in Maintaining Human Observing Behavior
34. Quality of Reporting on the Vegetative State in Italian Newspapers. The Case of Eluana Englaro
35. Science on a bad trip
36. Scientific journalism and epidemiological risk
37. Scientists and the media must give a balanced view
38. Signals and noise
39. The brain, the science and the media
40. What Are the Roles and Responsibilities of the Media in Disseminating Health Information?
41. What is newsworthy? Longitudinal study of the reporting of medical research in two British newspapers

Semantics in Science. This is all about the terms use and misuse or has been misinterpreted by some of the mediamen.

1. The code, the text and the language of God
2. Why is the Higgs Boson Called the ‘God Particle’?

Bad Medicines. This is about folk medicines promoted by the media and their implications to public health.

1. A Prompt to the Web: The Media and Health Information Seeking Behaviour
2. An Analysis of News Media Coverage of Complementary and Alternative Medicine
3. Blame the press?
4. ‘Not taken in by media hype’: how potential donors, recipients and members of the general public perceive stem cell research
5. Filthy or fashionable? Young people’s perceptions of smoking in the media.
6. Media Exposure and Marijuana and Alcohol Use Among Adolescents
7. The press under pressure
8. The Unbearable Lightness of Health Science Reporting: A Week Examining Italian Print Media

Popular Science. This is all about the claims popularized by some mediamen on net, on print, and/or on air masquerading as if they have scientific status.

1. Bad science in the headlines
2. Cloning in the media and popular culture
3. Computer model spots image fraud
4. Critical journalism
5. How to beat the media in the climate street fight
6. The aliens haven’t landed
7. Thirst, and (bottled) water everywhere

Recommendation. It’s about a better way to disseminates scientific knowledge and academic papers for mediamen.

1. Bad Press
2. Cheerleader or watchdog?
3. “Do I Need to Know This for the Exam?” Using Popular Media, Inquiry-based Laboratories, and a Community of Scientific Practice to Motivate Students to Learn Developmental Biology
4. Media awards for responsible reporting of suicide: Experiences from Australia, Belgium and Denmark
5. Media coverage of health issues and how to work more effectively with journalists: a qualitative study
6. Publication trends in newspapers and scientific journals for SSRIs and suicidality: a systematic longitudinal study
7. Science and journalism: Never the two shall meet?
8. The brain, the science and the media
9. Training scientists to be journalists
10. Victory for responsible reporting