MEDIALIZED SCIENCE?

MEDIALIZED SCIENCE?

Neuroscientists’ reflections on their role as

journalistic sources

Joachim Allgaier, Sharon Dunwoody, Dominique Brossard,5 Yin-Yueh Lo, and Hans Peter Peters

Because the neurosciences affect many areas of society and culture, they receive much public

attention. Brain research and other focuses of neuroscience are regularly featured in the mass

media, calling on neuroscientists to serve as sources. Based on 30 semi-structured interviews with

neuroscientists in the United States and Germany, this article analyzes neuroscientists’10 motivations to interact with journalists, their perception of problems with the media reporting

of neuroscience and media contacts, and the strategies they apply in order to gain some control

over the coverage. Results show that most neuroscientists perceive benefits of media coverage

and are willing to cooperate with journalists and conform to their expectations, but only to a

certain degree. Neuroscientists perceive problems regarding the quality of coverage, risks related15 to public visibility and negative consequences of being distracted from research and scientific

publication because of the time demands of media interactions. The scientists discussed several

strategies to improve this perceived cost�benefit ratio.

KEYWORDS neuroscience; news production; science journalism; sources; source�media20 relations

Introduction

Scientific sources play an important role in journalistic practice, as science itself plays

a dominant role in many of today’s issues, from disease prevention to energy

conservation. This article addresses the journalist�source relationship from the point of25 view of scientific sources. The relationship between scientists and journalists and the use

of scientists as information sources in the mass media have never been part of mainstream

journalism research, but the widespread perception of a deficit in that relationship (e.g.

Hartz and Chappell 1997) has stimulated the interest of a number of scholars of science

journalism over the last four decades (e.g. Friedman, Dunwoody, and Rogers 1986; Willems30 1995; Peters et al. 2008b). While most of the previous research utilized perspectives of

mass communication and journalism research (an early exception being Boltanski and

Maldidier 1970), more recent studies have increasingly looked at the relationship of

science and the media from a ‘‘social studies of science’’ point of view (e.g. Nelkin 1987;

Rodder, Franzen, and Weingart 2012; Rodder 2012; Schafer 2007; Peters et al. 2008c).35 Weingart’s (2001, 2012) ‘‘medialization of science’’ framework has added significant

theoretical insights to the research area by, firstly, acknowledging the increased need for

scientists to seek public visibility*irrespective of scientists’ personal attitudes*in order to

enhance the perceived legitimization of their research and, secondly, pointing to the

possible repercussions on science of scientists’ increasing use of public visibility factors40 when making decisions about their research.

{RJOP}articles/RJOP802477/RJOP_A_802477_O.3d[x] Wednesday, 22nd May 2013 14:38:21

Journalism Practice, 2013Vol. 00, No. 00, 1�17, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2013.802477# 2013 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2013.802477

Weingart’s (2001, 2012) interest in the science�media relationship focuses on the

science side of this relationship and the change in that relationship in the last decades. He

claims that there is an increasingly tight ‘‘coupling’’ between science and the media

leading to the medialization of science:

45 (1) The orientation of science to mass media has grown intense; (2) This may create

tensions of different degrees of severity with science because the orientation to the

media is in conflict with rules and values prevailing in science; (3) These tensions

are expressed in the dilemma in which scientists find themselves because the

demand to communicate with the public has become part of their legitimating50 exercises in the context of mass democracies whose publics and political leaderships

no longer recognize and accept the professional elites’ privilege of virtual account-

ability. Differences exist over the reach and impact of media orientation on science.

(Weingart 2012, 24)

Since the earlier literature on scientist�journalist interactions often documented a55 relationship filled with ignorance on the part of each of the actors (although this

knowledge gap has always been more pronounced among scientists) about the norms

and goals of the other participant, encountering a greater understanding of journalism

among today’s scientists would be consonant with the ‘‘coupling’’ notion in the

medialization conceptualization and would represent a potentially significant shift in60 the ways in which scientists and journalists interact.

We focus on neuroscience in this study. It comprises a vast area of research that

has made rapid progress in recent decades, and the results of neuroscientific research

affect many spheres of society (Hennen 2008). Media interest in neuroscientific research

is substantial (e.g. Racine et al. 2010; O’Connell et al. 2011; O’Connor, Rees, and Joffe65 2012) and, likely, growing. Neuroscientists are being called increasingly to communicate

their findings and the implications of those findings to the public and to policy-makers

(e.g. Abi-Rached 2008) and may be building a particularly strong interdependency

with the media. In his study of the public communication of neuroscience, Heinemann

(2012) found evidence that, at least to some degree, researchers’ efforts to stimulate70 media interest in their work have affected choice of research topics and methodological

designs. The rapidly rising popularity of neuroscience as a media focus, as well as

Heinemann’s (2012) work, makes neuroscience a timely choice for a study of the

medialization process.

Most studies of the science�journalism relationship are based on standardized75 surveys of scientists (e.g. Dunwoody and Scott 1982; Kruger 1987; Peters et al. 2008a; The

Royal Society 2006) or, occasionally, on parallel surveys of scientists and journalists (e.g.

Weiss and Singer 1988; Peters 1995). In this study we look at the science�media

relationship from the scientists’ point of view, within the context of the routines of their

research, through the use of semi-structured interviews. Weingart argues that scientists80 are strongly motivated to gain public visibility through the media despite the problems

posed by the selectivity and working routines of journalism and by the challenges of

aligning media visibility with scientific norms (e.g. Nelkin 1989; Rodder 2012). We pose two

general research questions in this inquiry: (1) Do neuroscientists in fact perceive public

visibility as an important goal for themselves and for their research? And (2) how do these85 scientists manage the inevitable tensions that stem from the process of aiming for such

visibility within the cultural framework of science?

2 JOACHIM ALLGAIER ET AL.


https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249722816_The_Interaction_of_Journalists_and_Scientific_Experts_co-operation_and_conflict_between_two_professional_cultures?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-7633ddb2-c5d0-48dd-9b48-466c726e56f3&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIzNzIwMjM4MjtBUzoxMDM0NzA0NjgxNzM4MjZAMTQwMTY4MDY5MDIzMA==

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234671651_Scientists_as_Mass_Media_Sources?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-7633ddb2-c5d0-48dd-9b48-466c726e56f3&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIzNzIwMjM4MjtBUzoxMDM0NzA0NjgxNzM4MjZAMTQwMTY4MDY5MDIzMA==

Methodology

The results reported in this article are based on 30 semi-structured interviews with

neuroscientific researchers in Germany and the United States (14 interviews were90 conducted in Germany, 16 in the United States). The interviewees were purposely chosen

because of their involvement in basic research, applied medical research or applied non-

medical research. We chose to interview scientists from two countries because this

research team has been engaged systematically in cross-national studies and felt that the

global nature of science itself requires this type of cross-cultural exploration. Funding95 limits prevented us from expanding to more than two countries.

The interviews followed written guidelines and were structured into two main parts.

In the first part, the interviewees were asked in a non-directive way about how they design

and conduct research and which factors they consider when making research decisions,

for instance about funding sources, regulatory aspects and dissemination of research100 results. The second part of the interview focused on public communication and the media

and addressed various issues of public visibility and interactions with the media, for

instance experiences with journalists, consequences of media coverage, and the

regulation of media contacts by research institutions, superiors or public information

offices.105 The interviews took place between July 2011 and June 2012 and were usually

conducted by at least two members of the research team. Each lasted about an hour, on

average; all interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed using the qualitative data

analysis software MAXQDA. The interviews were conducted in either English or German

(quotes from the German interviews used in this article have been translated into English).110 To protect the anonymity of our interview partners, the quotes have been edited to

replace terms and names with unidentifiable placeholders.

Findings

Interactions with Journalists

All but one of the neuroscientists interviewed had a record of interactions with the115 media. In most cases, scientists reported that they are contacted by journalists and not

the other way around. However, interview requests are often stimulated by activities of

the public information offices in scientists’ home organizations. Most often, journalists

contacted these neuroscientists after a press release about the scientists’ research had

been issued. Journalists found the press release on a news wire, internet service or on the120 research institution’s homepages. In other cases journalists were looking for expert

opinions and comments on particular research or research policy issues. For example, a

German neuroscientist was asked for statements on the development of his field and also

on various events concerning changes in regulatory frameworks relevant to his field of

research in Germany and the European Union. Other neuroscientists reported that they125 had been contacted by freelancers who were looking for stories.

After being contacted, the neuroscientists said they expect journalists to introduce

themselves and to describe the purpose of the contact (for example, whether the reporter

expects the scientist to discuss her or his own research or comment on the research of

colleagues), as well as to provide some information about their own background and that130 of the media organization that employs them. Some of the interviewed scientists also said

NEUROSCIENTISTS’ REFLECTIONS ON THEIR ROLE AS JOURNALISTIC SOURCES 3


that they do quick background searches on the internet before they respond to journalists

in order to see what the journalists have produced in the past.

Typically, interactions with the media were stimulated by activities of the public

information units of scientists’ organizations. It was rarely the case that scientists135 themselves approached the media directly. Neuroscientists mostly said they expected

that important publications would be marketed by the public information departments of

their organizations through press releases. Sometimes, high-ranking journals also engage

in professional public relations work for articles they regard as particularly important, and

journal public information officers will often then cooperate with the public information140 units of the researchers’ organizations. The neuroscientists in our sample, therefore, often

dealt with professional media relations experts, especially if these researchers had already

achieved a high level of public visibility or managed to publish their results in high-ranking

scientific journals. Here we notice a division of labor: scientists do the research and publish

for a primarily specialist audience; university and other PR professionals, in contrast,145 disseminate results to non-specialist audiences via the mass media. This process often

starts with a publication in a high-impact journal such as Science, Nature or Neuron. If the

scientists consider the published research relevant to the public they will contact their

public information staff so that dissemination activities can be organized. Scientists usually

cooperated with the public information office in writing the press releases, as the150 following example illustrates:

For the non-scientific community, we have a public relations office. And with them we

write a press release. And we try to*or I try to*restrict the use of that to findings that

really have a large impact. . . You can sort of view [the studies we do in the lab] as filling

in pieces to a puzzle, and this is really important for sustaining a grant because it’s part of155 a large process of focusing on a question that you proposed . . . But then occasionally you

get something that’s really amazing. And so those are the results and those are the

papers that tend to get published in higher profile journals. And then we work with the

public relations to write a press release. (United States)

This quote illustrates the strategic use of information subsidies employed by160 neuroscientists, which has also been found in other groups of scientists (e.g. Felt and

Fochler 2012).

Motivations and Incentives

The interviewed neuroscientists clearly saw the relevance of being included in media

accounts. Apart from one German neuroscientist, who did not regard being in the media165 as relevant because he felt media stories about neuroscientific research were misleading,

all interviewees acknowledged various rationales for media visibility. However, many of

them qualified this appreciation by emphasizing that such visibility is a byproduct of their

work, not their primary goal. Their main responsibility, they said, is to do good research,

publish results in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and comply with their teaching and170 supervision duties. ‘‘Impact’’ for them is primarily defined by high-ranking scientific

publications, not by media visibility. Most of the scientists said that media coverage should

occur only when rigorous research has been published in a prestigious scientific journal.

The argument most often used to justify their media contacts was that scientists have a

public responsibility to give something back to the public because their research is175 supported by public funds:



I think that’s very important because it is public money; it’s very important that the

public understands what scientists are doing. (United States)

The public responsibility argument is closely tied to the issue of securing public

support and funding. This goal is obvious in the US context, where the bulk of scientific180 funding is provided by federal agencies, but it was also relevant for the German

neuroscientists. Interviewees from both countries believed that a public unconvinced of

the value and usefulness of neuroscientific research might be less supportive of using

public funds for that work:

So I think to have people who are really doing science, and then can speak about185 it clearly, intelligently, and usefully to general audience, I think it’s very important

for the field. For us to support and sustain, say, support for funding things like

the NIH [National Institutes of Health] is also important, I think, for individuals

so that people know that there is real useful science, not just a waste of money.

(United States)

190 The target audience the neuroscientists had in mind when talking to journalists

was not just the ‘‘general public’’ but also policy-makers and other decision-makers,

who they assume monitor the mainstream media and interpret media coverage of

neuroscientific research as an indicator of relevance, as long as that coverage is neutral

or positive. In clinical neuroscience, another relevant audience consists of patients with195 neurological diseases and their relatives. A further target group is the funding bodies

that support neuroscientific research; media accounts might show these organizations

that the work they have funded has public impact and is relevant to actors outside the

science system. Garnering media coverage is, therefore, seen as helpful for legitimizing

the provision of money for research. Furthermore, the neuroscientists in this study200 perceived benefits in being acknowledged by superiors and management as

contributing to the success of the employing organization. Various scientists in both

countries mentioned that media visibility is highly valued by their organizations and

superiors:

If you want to establish yourself*let’s say at an institute*then it is a relevant issue if you205 are visible in public. For bosses it does play a role that there is somebody whose work is

received in public. And, therefore, you cannot say ‘‘no’’ [to media coverage], even though

it is getting [to be] too much at some point, for instance if a TV team shows up and that

is going to cost you a whole day and you still have to deal with your students and a lot of

other things. (Germany)210

I think it always reflects strongly on you if your research is sort of promoted by the School

of Medicine, to be released to the press in such a way. So you definitely would want to

cultivate any opportunity you have to work with the press in order to increase the

significance and impact of your research. (United States)

215 Neuroscientists felt that cooperating with public information staff was voluntary and

did not feel pressured or restricted in any way. In the United States, there seems to be

more active encouragement on the part of research organizations to interact with the

media or to engage in other outreach activities than is the case in Germany. That might

indicate that public visibility is more important for research institutions in the United220 States. From the point of view of the organizations, media coverage is beneficial in the



competition for attention and funding and*in the case of universities*also for making

them more attractive to (paying) students.

Among other reasons why media contacts were regarded as important were the

importance of educating the public about science and, thus, contributing to society and225 culture; the importance of researchers serving as the voices of science in public venues

rather than being represented by external actors; and the need for positive scientist role

models to recruit students and reproduce the science system itself. A US neuroscientist

said that he seeks to ‘‘influence the world’’ and, therefore, is very attentive to ‘‘getting the

word out’’ through the mass media.230 Despite the many reasons motivating researchers to interact with the media, several

neuroscientists pointed to the need to assess the cost�benefit balance of the investment

of time into interactions with the media. A recurring issue in the interviews was that such

interactions require time that could be used for doing research. Moreover, some of the

interviewees stated that they personally disliked being portrayed in the media. But even235 those with negative feelings about media interactions mostly felt obliged to grant

interviews by journalists if they were contacted, often because they thought they would

otherwise get ‘‘bad press.’’ It seems that interactions with the media have become part of

the routine work in (neuro)science independently of whether researchers personally

welcome such activity or not:

240 So for me, I actually don’t like media attention. I would prefer to not have any. I don’t

like. . . What I feel is . . . it’s a waste of my time. And then . . . Once your name is out there,

everybody knows and then calls you. Right? Or they email you. And also you’re

answering questions from the public. And that takes up a lot of time. And I’ve always

liked the idea of anonymity. . . However, over . . . my career I’ve learned that if the press or245 the media pick up on your story, it has very good repercussions for you in terms of your

power within the institution, your ability to get resources, compared to other people.

And if they’re doing it and you’re competing with [other researchers], then you almost

have to do it. So for me, it’s kind of an unpleasant part of my job, like dealing with the

regulatory agencies. (United States)

250 Neuroscientists hold different views about the effects of mass media visibility. While

roughly one-fifth of the interviewees stated that they do not expect positive professional

outcomes of media coverage and felt that colleagues were not impressed by media

coverage, the majority of the scientists do anticipate positive impacts. Very few of our

interviewees also mentioned negative effects. Particularly in the US context, where255 neuroscientists have become more dependent on funds from private donors and

foundations in recent years than are scientists in Germany, neuroscientists readily

acknowledge the benefits of public visibility for fundraising, as the following example

strikingly demonstrates:

Yeah, well I definitely think the public exposure has affected me personally as well as my260 work in various ways. Certainly, it’s changed my relationship to private fundraising*

that’s for sure*in giving me more opportunities in those ways. Occasionally, there will

be someone who will approach me. . . after reading an article about our work and be

really interested and. . . I mean, there was once an article about our work in The New York

Times and some person from California called me and expressed interest, flew out on his265 private jet and, you know, spent two hours talking to me and gave me a check for a

quarter of a million dollars. (United States)



But even the provision of funding by public bodies*for example, NIH in the United

States and the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) or the German

Science Foundation (DFG) in Germany*seems to be affected by media visibility:

270 I think the real consequence is at the end: if you apply to the Deutsche Forschungsge-

meinschaft [DFG] and you are a rather famous person, then they have more difficulties to

reject because they fear the public in a way and this is the only thing. You see. . . in the

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft at the moment in the fields of neuroscience*I know

it pretty well*there are about, let’s say, 40 percent of the projects are rated on a high275 level. And from this 40 percent, only half can be funded. So there’s something called

Fachkollegiat: they sit together, colleagues, they sit together, senior scientists. And they

are depending on a gut feeling. It’s not really an objective criterion because they are all

rated good. So you need another feeling. . . So, if you have a good name, it’s more

difficult for them to reject it. So it [public visibility] helps a bit. (Germany)

280 The importance that funding bodies assign to media visibility is further confirmed by

the fact*mentioned by a German neuroscientist*that these bodies sometimes expect

the inclusion of a strategy for the public dissemination of results to be a part of the

research proposals. Besides enhancing the possibility that proposals may be funded,

media visibility seems to have positive implications for a scientist’s career within science285 and in the administrative context of science:

I wouldn’t have had that opportunity had I not that often been in the media. I wouldn’t

have had a major publisher for the book; I wouldn’t have had the attention given to the

book, right? (United States)

290 [Other researchers] seem to have seen all these stories that were written. And I have seen

that I have been invited to give much more talks, to give seminars, and now I’m starting

to be offered positions. I don’t know how much it is related to all this, but for sure to

have all this publicity, all this attention. . . I’m certain that it was positive. (United States)

295 . . . for any foreign scientist*and there are a lot of us*a press release with your name on

it is one of the things that the federal government recognizes as [indicating] an

outstanding researcher that merits getting your green card or visa. That is some of

the documentation that you can submit for [a green card]. So for a scientist even

just in terms of the ability for non-American scientists . . . it can impact just your300 ability to stay here and work here on a permanent visa instead of on temporary visas.

(United States)

A few neuroscientists in this study asserted that media coverage is not going to be

the decisive factor in a person’s career trajectory but that if two job candidates are equally

strong in terms of scientific publications, positive media coverage can be the decisive305 factor for one of them.

The interviewees mentioned a number of other beneficial effects of visibility. A

German neuroscientist said that media coverage helps to make his work known among

colleagues in other fields who would otherwise not have heard of the research. According

to him, this even led to inter- and trans-disciplinary collaborations in some cases.310 Finally, some interviewees acknowledged that public visibility can directly improve a

scientist’s research through such mechanisms as sharing research ideas in exchanges with



‘‘clever’’ media professionals or influencing the recruitment of research subjects from

specific groups:

Sometimes you get really good ideas if you talk to a smart editor or interviewing315 partners. They encourage you indirectly when they say that it is really exciting what I am

doing. And then you think: I should do a study about this. This is sort of a cross-

fertilization of ideas. That does not happen always, of course, but sometimes the ones

that are really interested. . . have very good ideas themselves. (Germany)

320 . . . we are currently doing a study about [neurological disorder] and there was a film on

TV about a special treatment where I also appeared. This TV film had an enormously

positive effect on us so that we could conduct this study successfully, because after the

film had been broadcast many patients called [to say that] they wanted to participate in

the therapy, and we could easily recruit them for our study. This was a very positive side-325 effect of this TV film. (Germany)

Perceptions and Evaluative Responses

The neuroscientists in this study perceive a strong public interest in neuroscience,

particularly in medical applications of neuroscience. Some neuroscientists assume,

furthermore, that topics related to everyday life will be of interest; a US researcher330 mentioned, for instance, public interest in the topic of how alcohol affects the brain. More

basic research on how the brain works is thought to be less interesting to the general

public:

Well, I think the public perceives it [neuroscientific research] as, you know, being very

disease-oriented. This is, I think, what the public cares about: the public health impact,335 right? I mean, a lot of scientists are in science because they love science. They love

making these basic research discoveries. But in the end, the general public, you know,

they don’t really care if I understand how. . . the brain works; they care if I understand

how you can fix it when it’s broken, right? (United States)

Asked about their perception of the quality of media coverage of neuroscience, the340 interviewed researchers were split. One group of neuroscientists seems generally unhappy

with the way neuroscience is represented in the media. These interviewees articulated a

number of reasons, including a perceived lack of accuracy in discussion of results, the

superficial character of the coverage and a misleading image of how research works.

Another criticism was that the media tend to overestimate the state of knowledge in the345 field, creating the image that scientific questions have been solved that are still open. In

the opinion of these neuroscientists, such coverage may raise unrealistic audience

expectations leading to disappointment. One US neuroscientist also mentioned that

media accounts sometimes portray researchers as ‘‘mad scientists’’ and that neuroscien-

tists in particular might face the risk of being portrayed as experimenting with and350 manipulating human brains.

Some neuroscientists complained that media coverage rarely deals with the research

that constitutes the routine work of many neuroscientists. They described journalism as

focusing, instead, on a few issues that tend to attract the attention of laypeople. Examples

mentioned were topics such as emotions, social interactions and sex/gender differences.355 Some neuroscientists also said that too much emphasis is given to psychological

studies and studies based on neuroimaging (particularly functional magnetic resonance



imaging*fMRI). Another criticism offered mainly by German neuroscientists reflected that a

controversy about whether neuroscientific experiments challenge the existence of a ‘‘free

will’’ was exaggerated and overblown. According to some respondents, this issue was360 reported as if it were a big debate in current neurosciences, when in fact only a few scientists

are engaged in research relevant to this issue. The journalistic tendency to privilege a subset

of topics and researchers frustrated some respondents:

I was a bit frustrated. . . they mainly write about studies from Psychology Today, where it

has sensationally been found out that women have more difficulties parking in reverse365 than men and other such nonsense. . . And it has been very frustrating to me to see that

it is always these Psychology Today or fMRI studies. There are some favorite groups. . . I

am not going to deny that this could be interesting. But not every week! The media

somehow have selected certain topics. (Germany)

Another group of interviewees, however, accepts that the modus operandi of the370 media is very different from the ways in which knowledge is communicated within

science. The neuroscientists in this group seemed to understand that research cannot be

represented in the mass media as it would be in scientific publications, since the audiences

differ and the media need to attract the interest of various sorts of people. These

interviewees had a more neutral or sometimes even positive attitude towards media375 representations of neuroscience, even if they thought that the research was not always

accurately represented. They mostly saw the value of the coverage for themselves and for

neuroscience in general and were prepared to accept some degree of scientific distortion

in media accounts of their work rather than receiving no coverage at all:

I am not disappointed, in general. I think that I, you know, again maybe because I’m so380 used to communicating with real people, that I know that the media usually talk to real

people. . . I can set my brain on a different standard, ’cause I know . . . I’m not

communicating my research in Nature or in Nature Neuroscience or whatever. . . So,

there you have to find a compromise between being scientifically correct and, at the

same time, use words and sentences that are accessible to the general public. So385 sometimes, obviously, they have to compromise a little bit on the sort of, you know,

cutting edge or absolute correctness of what they say. They have to use this best

approximation they have. Right? I don’t find that to be disturbing. I think as long as they

are not saying Dr. [name] has found, you know, the revolution and cure for cerebral palsy,

then that would make me go through the roof. (United States)

390 Experts who have an understanding of news routines and media time frames are more

like to receive coverage (e.g. Kruvand 2012). Most neuroscientists in this study felt media

coverage of neuroscience was dominated by a medical perspective and a focus on medical

applications, such as new therapies for neurodegenerative and other neurological diseases

and disorders. This posed a dilemma for some neuroscientists, especially those doing basic395 research. They assumed that the results of their research would not be interesting to a

general audience if those results could not be linked to medical applications. They assumed

that the public has a utilitarian view of science that scientists need to serve. Therefore, many

neuroscientists in our sample think that it increases the chances for getting public attention

if they mention the potential medical applicability of their research:

400 . . . it depends on the audience, but in press releases it [our research] is always, always

disease-relevant. (United States)



However, the medical framing of neuroscience could have unintended conse-

quences for researchers by raising unrealistic expectations about immediate medical

relevance that cannot be met. Several of the interviewed neuroscientists in both countries405 anticipated such an effect and were adamant that the short-term medical applications of

their research not be overstated in the media. Nevertheless, emails, letters and phone calls

from patients, potential patients and their relatives are an unintended byproduct of media

coverage that mentions medical or potential clinical applications of research. Scientists

regard these requests as restricting, time-consuming and difficult to answer. Such410 experiences may serve as self-correcting mechanisms for the exaggeration of results

and inflated promises about the medical benefits of research:

It’s very difficult to address this. I mean, of course, if you have a landmark paper you

publish and then you get coverage in big papers. I mean, that definitely leads to an

increase of letters coming from patients, for example, because they write you, or have415 read this and. . . you know, I have a relative and . . . so you definitely get an increase . . .

which is, you know, of course, to be expected. (Germany)

They think this is a huge breakthrough even though, of course, this is basic science. It’s

not clinical, right? But then these patients get excited. They email me: ‘‘How can I begin420 treatment? My mother is sick.’’ You know, this kind of stuff. So, how do you deal with

that? It’s obvious; just say: ‘‘Look, I’m very sorry, you know, I’m not a physician. This is all

basic science, very far from the clinic’’. . . What’s worse is the phone calls. I’ve gotten, like,

just people cold calling me and, you know, telling me ‘‘Oh, I had this episode.’’ I mean,

I’m not a physician, right? I have a PhD. So, I have the people basically thinking I’m a425 neurologist. It is basic science. (United States)

Overall, the scientists in this study assessed their experiences with journalists

positively or at least considered them tolerable. However, the interviewees noticed that

they are confronted with certain journalistic demands, among them the need for extreme

simplification, that might lead to an exaggeration of the certainty of conclusions or430 interpretations. A German clinical neuroscientist explains what he experienced in talks

with journalists:

I think fMRI is good news for neuroscience because it shows how human brains could

work. And decision-making is also very interesting. You see there are yellow pictures in

the brain here; it’s like a bulb going on in certain regions and somebody is explaining it.435 But in the end nobody, I think, wants to understand, really, the details. So nobody really

wants to hear we don’t understand this. We think this could be. . . how it works, but

understanding? We’re far away from this. And this. . . nobody wants to hear. They want to

have an easy take-home message. (Germany)

This quote suggests that it is the fault of journalists rather than scientists if scientific440 knowledge is exaggerated in news coverage. This is certainly not always the case. A study

by Gonon, Bezard, and Boraud (2011) in the field of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

(ADHD), for instance, found that over-interpretation of data leading to distorted and

exaggerated media stories is already present in some abstracts and conclusions of articles

in neuroscientific journals.445 Only three of the 30 interviewed neuroscientists explicitly stated that they have had

bad media experiences. A neuroscientist in Germany judged a TV report in which he



appeared to be sheer entertainment and not as educational as he had expected. After

having made an effort to say ‘‘something reasonable,’’ he found that only two short,

‘‘superficial and uncouth’’ statements made it into the TV report. A US researcher reported450 a similar experience. And a clinical neuroscientist in the United States described the

problem of bad editing:

Well, I’ve been interviewed, you know, both on camera and off camera, and the editing of

it is abysmal. They put things together that you didn’t put together, as if it’s a running

commentary. And so, my advice for people has been ‘‘don’t talk to the press’’ because455 they can make you sound like an idiot sometimes, because they misquote you on things.

(United States)

Particularly bad experiences such as this one might be assumed to influence a

scientist’s willingness to engage in further interactions with journalists. However, in the

lousy editing case above, the reaction of the neuroscientist was different. She said that she460 would like to have further media contacts but ideally have some sort of communication

training beforehand, in order to learn how to convey her message successfully. Various

scientific institutions in both countries do offer media training for scientists. A number of

the scientists in our sample were aware of this type of training, but only one interviewee

said that he had completed such a course.465 The interviewed neuroscientists were sensitive to reactions of peers to their

media visibility. Mostly they argued that visibility in reputable media, characterized

as occasionally speaking about one’s area of expertise, is not a problem for scientific

colleagues. However, they felt that appearing in the media too often, providing an

exaggerated characterization of their results or making unsubstantiated claims could easily470 result in a loss of reputation among colleagues.

Controlling Coverage

The majority of the interviewed neuroscientists discussed their interactions with

journalists in ways that suggested that they do not naively respond to media requests but,

rather, subject such requests to some analysis in order to make strategic decisions about475 with whom, how and under what conditions they are prepared to interact. For example,

they distinguished among journalists who are working for print media, radio or TV, and

several mentioned that contacts with television reporters require the highest investment

in terms of time and work disturbance. Since TV teams often want to film in the labs or

clinics of the neuroscientists, research work or clinical routines are sometimes disrupted480 during those visits. Researchers lamented that sometimes an entire day of research*not

only for the contacted researcher him- or herself but often also for colleagues and

students*must be sacrificed for only a short TV or film appearance:

[The] only thing that has made me reluctant about interacting with media is just, you

know, we get more and more requests for television coverage and. . . when a TV crew485 comes, when a film crew comes in here, it just takes an enormous amount of time.

And. . . often they will be here for hours and it ends up being, you know, if you get

90 seconds, that’s big. So, you have to really think about how beneficial it is, I mean in a

ratio of the costs to the benefit. (United States)

When journalists film or photograph, situations often need to be ‘‘staged’’; for490 instance, colleagues may have to act as patients, since the anonymity of real patients must



be protected. A clinical researcher in Germany said that his department offers

professionally produced stock images of clinical and research situations where all

personality rights have already been cleared and that journalists have proved willing to

use such resources. Interacting with journalists working for print media or radio is less495 disturbing and less time consuming than working with TV reporters, and short interviews

or comments can often also be handled on the phone.

Researchers are aware of differences among media channels and, not surprisingly,

prefer to interact with journalists from prestigious, influential and serious media:

A scientific journal has to be high impact; the media have to be high impact. And, you500 know, there are certain media outlets which are clearly known to be much more

impactful than others. (United States)

Apart from these channels’ ability to reach large audiences, the neuroscientists in

this study also expected ‘‘high-impact’’ media to be more professional in dealing with

sources and to employ science journalists with sufficient background knowledge to505 facilitate interviews. National media are generally valued more than local media, and

science correspondents with specialized knowledge are more welcomed than general

news reporters. Many scientists assume that if the journalist does not understand the

science, the narrative outcome is at such a risk that it will take too much of the scientist’s

time to ‘‘educate’’ the journalist. Scientists, furthermore, prefer journalists whom they510 believe will write positively about the scientist’s work. Some neuroscientists are quite

selective in their choice of journalists with whom to interact:

I look carefully with whom. . . if you work with somebody who is not good, and in the

end, you know, you have to essentially redo the piece. . . then it’s major loss of time . . . I

mean it’s just not efficient. And even worse if somebody really writes against you or. . .515 you know, it’s not balanced, then again it doesn’t make a lot of sense. And I think you get

a sense with time who is doing high-quality work and, you know, if somebody comes up

here, and has never heard about [research topic], I mean you can stop the interview after

two sentences. I don’t have the time to educate somebody from ground zero. I expect. . .

somebody’s coming from a major news agency newspaper, at least. . . some level of520 preparation. . . I mean just look at the website and . . . yeah, we try; I try to work with

colleagues experienced in the field. (Germany)

Neuroscientists, particularly in Germany, indicated that they want to avoid dealing

with the ‘‘yellow press’’ and tabloid newspapers such as Bild because they fear that their

research will be inaccurately represented or will be sensationalized. Another condition525 mentioned by some of the interviewees is that they will not speak to journalists until the

research of interest has been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Following the

so-called Ingelfinger rule (e.g. Kiernan 1997), some prestigious scientific journals reserve

the right to refuse to publish results that have already been substantially covered by the

mass media.530 Several of the neuroscientists in the study said that they demand that journalists let

them check stories before they are published or broadcasted so that the scientists can

catch misconceptions or errors. Scientists can occasionally negotiate such conditions with

journalists; for example, specialist correspondents who are eager to establish long-term

relationships with their sources may comply (Hansen 1994). However, all the neuroscien-535 tists mentioning this issue also stated that journalists will ‘‘not very often’’ or ‘‘not always’’



comply with this demand. Most researchers seemed tolerant of journalists’ refusals to

share stories before publication, but one US neuroscientist asserted that such prepublica-

tion review is a condition for his agreeing to talk to a journalist:

I refuse to discuss my work [with journalists] unless they agree ahead of time to give me540 a copy of what they are going to publish. If they won’t agree to that*and most reporters

won’t; they believe it is their copy, this is their work*and unless they will I say I am sorry,

we are not going to have a conversation. (United States)

As noted above, neuroscientists in both countries expect various positive effects of

public visibility. However, some also pointed to negative consequences. A particularly545 sensitive area is research with animals. Many researchers using animals fear that they

might become targets of animal rights activists as a result of media visibility. Interviewees

from both countries mentioned that they have either been affected themselves or know

colleagues who ended up in the crosshairs of animal extremists and suffered personal

consequences. Some scientists mentioned that they are particularly cautious about talking550 publicly about their animal research; others said that they negotiate with journalists to

make sure that animals are not shown or that animal research is not mentioned in the

coverage. US neuroscientists assumed that some colleagues working with animals refuse

media contacts. Interestingly, a German interviewee reported that the journalists

themselves did not want to show animals on TV because they were afraid of negative555 public reactions.

Public information professionals play an important role in the media relations of

researchers. Our interviews showed that it is usually the scientists who contact the public

information office of their organization if they think they have something that is relevant

for public dissemination, not the other way around. One of the main tasks of the media560 relations experts is to determine what might be relevant for the public while meeting

journalistic news values. Routine work in science typically does not lead to press releases,

but publications in high-ranking journals or related to particular events are used as

catalysts for public information efforts. The public information officers serve as

communication output filters of scientific organizations. In many cases, they control565 what is communicated across the boundaries of their organization, e.g. in the form of

press releases. A few interviewed neuroscientists in the United States said that public

information departments also sometimes filter media requests, giving only important

media organizations access to top-level scientists. In most cases, however, journalists

contact scientists directly after press releases about their work have been issued.

570 Discussion

The neuroscientists interviewed for this study clearly see the relevance of public

visibility and the value of having their research reported by the media. This answers our

first research question about the role that public visibility plays for neuroscientists. They

also acknowledge public interest in their field. Most scientists expect some kind of benefit575 from their interactions with journalists, such as improved organizational status or the

perception of the increased legitimacy of their research by funders and other actors in the

social environment of science. The list of such benefits mentioned in the interviews*whether experienced or anticipated*is impressively long. For most neuroscientists in this

study, these benefits outweigh potential negative effects. Most neuroscientists also



580 acknowledge a moral obligation to communicate with the public. Even those researchers

who reacted negatively to the media considered interactions both necessary and

inevitable.

There was little evidence of strong conflicts between scientists and journalists from

these interviews. This result is in accordance with findings from representative surveys that585 show more satisfaction than dissatisfaction with scientists’ own media experiences (e.g.

Peters et al. 2008a, 2008b).

However, as is the case for other life science disciplines (cf. Rodder 2012; Felt and

Fochler 2012) and assumed in our second research question regarding the tensions in the

science�media relationship, neuroscientists did mention a number of problems that lead590 to an ambivalent assessment of the media. The first category of perceived problems

concerns the quality of the coverage: its accuracy, its source and topic selectivity leading

to a biased account of the neuroscientific research field; its tendency to exaggerate and

sensationalize; the utilitarian image of science it conveys with an emphasis on medical

applications; and the possibility of raising false hopes in patients. The second category of595 problems is related to perceived risks: coverage critical of a scientists’ work or coverage

that invites reactions of animal rights activists, for example. The third category of problems

results from scientists’ perception of the ‘‘investments’’ of time needed and the disruption

of routines that can accompany media contacts. Even if neuroscientists acknowledge the

necessity of media contacts and recognize their benefits, public communication has a600 lower priority than research and scientific publications. Disruptions of those primary tasks

by media requests are, therefore, perceived as a problem. Finally, but less importantly, the

possibility of criticism by peers was mentioned as a negative side-effect of media visibility.

Neuroscientists respond to the dilemma of being strongly motivated to seek public

visibility in the face of a number of possible problems in two ways: (1) accepting the605 problems with resignation (or even cynicism) as unavoidable nuisances, and/or (2) actively

employing strategies to try to maximize the benefits and minimize the problems. Among

these strategies are proactive public information efforts (e.g. distributing press releases),

usually in cooperation with the public information personnel of their organization. This

strategy helps scientists to control topics and timing of media interest in their work. While610 public information offices have their own agenda of advancing organizational interests,

the visibility goals of the scientists and of the organization mostly seem to coincide.

Scientists made few mentions of conflicts between individual researchers and public

information units in our interviews.

A second control strategy is to be selective of the media or the journalists with615 whom one works. In most cases, neuroscientists are contacted by journalists, not the other

way round (Albæk 2011), although one has to keep in mind that many of the contacts by

journalists are stimulated by public relations activities initiated by the scientists and their

organizations. Often, scientists cannot avoid interacting with journalists they do not like or

talking about topics they would prefer to avoid. But they can certainly respond more or620 less enthusiastically to media requests, thus encouraging or discouraging journalists and

making interviews and coverage more or less likely. The preferences expressed by the

interviewed neuroscientists were quite clear: they prefer to interact with qualified science

journalists who work for influential and serious media outlets. And they prefer to talk

about published work of significance and to avoid sensitive matters such as the use of625 animals in research.



Finally, negotiation with journalists is a third strategy to control the outcome of

interactions. As several interviewees indicated, they ask journalists to show them the draft

of the media report before publication. Other subjects of negotiation may concern the

locations used for filming or avoiding pictures of sensitive topics, such as research animals.630 Negotiation will not always be successful for scientists, but this is true for all kinds of

control strategies. Scientific sources do have some influence on how science is covered,

but rarely maintain complete control. They are not without power in the journalist�source

relationship, and they will try to use their expert status to their advantage if there is an

opportunity to do so.635 So has the medialization process changed scientist�journalist interactions in the

twenty-first century? There is some evidence from our interviews that these neuroscien-

tists know more about the norms and processes of journalism than did scientists in an

earlier era. However, unlike Heinemann (2012), we could find little evidence to support the

argument that neuroscientists’ media orientations directly influence their selection of640 research topics or methodological designs. The general impression from these interviews

is not that scientists feel constrained or somehow guided in their research by public

visibility but that they use their media knowledge instrumentally to advance their

competitiveness*perhaps not so much in the scientific community but within their

organizations and in the social/political environment where important decisions about the645 distribution of resources are made.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The research reported in this article is part of the project ‘‘Normative Expectations in

Media Coverage of Research as a Form of Informal Science Governance (MediGov),’’

funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the650 initiative ‘‘Research on the Relationship Between Science, Politics and Society: New

Science Governance.’’ The research protocol was approved by the Social & Behavioral

Sciences Institutional Review Board of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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Sharon Dunwoody, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of

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