Sunday, March 31, 2013

Assignment 9

A question I have always struggled with is does a person reflect the news program that they watch or does a news program in some way reflect the individual? In some way, it's both.
I have worked for a widowed octogenarian for about 4 years now just doing her housework and gardening. We are very close and she is a good friend of mine, but she watches Fox News. It is a clear and unspoken rule that we leave political conversation light and agreeable because we know that we won't agree on a single major issue. Sometimes we break this rule and when she starts spouting her opinion I hear Fox News in her words. Clearly, a media outlet like Fox is influencing her ideas just like NPR influences what I say.
But then there is other side of the coin. If I didn't possess many of the same biases as my particular news outlet, then would I listen to what they say? The answer is, "probably not." I try to balance myself out sometimes by mixing conservative talk radio in with my NPR... It's infuriating. I yell and scream and shout at the radio. "HOW? HOW? HOW can you BELIEVE that?" or "WHY? Why on Earth did you treat that caller with such disrespect? That's not fair." or simply "sigh..."
There is a positive feedback loop. The news tries to draw in a niche audience because attempting to appeal to all viewers would be incredibly difficult. If a news outlet creates an image that a certain type of person feels comfortable with then that person will follow that news source. In return the news outlet feeds listeners the biases they want to hear.
So, to pin the blame entirely on the media outlet is unfair. While the expectation of a media outlet is to be unbiased, anyone you ask will tell you that there is no such thing as an unbiased news source. Yes, a media outlet has an agenda: to keep their viewership and increase their influence, but a news outlet's desire to really report on news for increasing knowledge or informing the public is secondary to the reality of increasing profit margins and market share.
The answer to this question, "How might the goals of a media outlet affect their audience's knowledge?" is a complicated one. News media wants to keep its viewers so it must stay true to its perceived code if it wishes to do this. At the same time viewers crave media that they feel most aligns with their ideals. It's a complicated mixture of what the providers and consumers expect to receive from media.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Assignment 8

I think presenting balance in scientific writing can easily be compared to how we present data in science. In science we find results and we create a confidence limit, which means we take a set of random data and we say the 95% of the data closest to the average are accepted and the radical data, or outliers, are left out. Sometimes the outliers may deserve mention, but often times they do not.
The same can be said for writing about science for the public. If 95% of the scientists say that global warming exists (I actually think it's more like 99%, but I am not sure) then is it really worth it to include the 5% that are the outliers? No. This 95% is an overwhelming majority. If there was a 50-50 split in the scientific community or even an 80-20 split, I think it would be important to present the other side. But 5% is such a samll minority.
That is not to say those 95% agree on every aspect of global warming. The mechanics of climate changes is still very much up for debate. We need to accept their predictions on the average. The average says that global warming is real and it is a considerable threat. We can ignore the outliers in this instance, i.e. the doomsday-types that say we will all be dead tomorrow and the deniers that reject the theory of global warming outright.
But the issue that keeps nagging at the back of my head is this: what if they are right? Copernicus was a radical. He was an outlier when he said the Earth revolved around the Sun, but his ideas turned out to be right. What if that's true of the global warming nay-sayers and or the people that say HIV doesn't cause AIDS? What if those folks are correct? My idea is that if they are correct then that will become clear through the continuation of good science. In other words, it's acceptable losses. I will believe the 95% for now. This is why we test and retest and try new experiments. If our theories are wrong then that will become clear with time. If we follow the wrong path for now then the best we can say down the road is that we tried. It's a risk. But not a very big risk. For the handful of times that the outliers have been correct there have been thousands of times that they haven't. Like I said before: acceptable losses.
So when debating if we should present the other side in a story it is important to look at how big that other side is. Is it one wing-nut shouting from a street corner or is a respectably-sized group of independent research teams coming to a similar conclusion? Stick with the 95% when presenting science. If there is no 95% then that is when you present both sides of the argument.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Assignment 7

Drawings of scientists
My Drawing
Gender: Male
Age: 60s
Facial expression: poker faced
Clothing: Lab coat over button down shirt and dress pants
Grooming: Silver hair slicked to the side like a stone-cold silver fox. Clean shaven.
Height: Medium stature
Skin color: White
Eye color: Brown
Build: Thin, but not scrawny

My Friend's Drawing
Gender: Male
Age: 60s
Facial expression: sinister or frustrated?
Clothing: Lab coat buttoned up
Grooming: Bald. Moustache.
Height: Medium stature
Skin color: White
Eye color: N/A
Build: Scrawny

When I look at these drawings and think about the scientists I interact with daily I find them to be quite similar. First, and most strikingly obvious, is their skin color. In the chemistry department every professor is white with one exception of a Latina professor. My experience in the biology department has been with all white professors although I have only had a few bio classes. My two math teachers have been white.The list goes on like that. Not just in the sciences, but in all of higher education. We are used to being taught by white people, especially men (although the gender trend is shifting, I believe, more quickly then the racial trend).
Both my friend's drawing and mine were of males. I thought about drawing a woman when I first got the assignment to draw a scientist, but I thought that would be odd for me to do that as a male. I am not sure why that is. Maybe I somehow expect that as a male I should aspire to follow male scientists as role models, which may speak to a deep-rooted expectation of gender roles in my life.
Age was another striking thing. I am used to looking up to older white, males as my science teachers. In high school my two favorite science teachers were older white men and the same can be said for my two favorite science teachers here, as well.
Neither my friend and I drew the "wacky scientist" though. This makes sense since we are both science people. While I know many eccentric scientists I do not know many with the Einstein hair and badly-matched clothing. My friend's drawing did have a sinister expression, but I think he was trying to make him appear as if he was thinking hard. Neither he or I are particularly good artists.
Finally, the lab coat is important. I have only seen one professor on campus in a lab coat so I don't know where this idea really comes from. I guess it is more of an identifier for the person viewing the drawing. Once you see a lab coat it becomes obvious what the artist is trying to convey about the identity and role of that person even if many scientists don't actually wear a lab coat.

As a science writer, the stereotypes represented by these drawings can make our view of interviewees more narrow then it should be. When seeking out experts we are looking for someone who looks like an expert. I expect a sagacious, aged man in a lab coat to sit me down and tell me all I need to know about some complex subject. But this is a prejudice I (and other people) need to rid myself of. Scientists come in all colors, genders, and ages. Some of the brightest professors on this campus are extremely young (only 10 or 15 years older than me). One of our most qualified chemistry professors (she graduated from Oxford) is a young woman. Why I assume intelligence comes with age is an old idea that must be thrown out. I cannot carry a bias when listening to an expert opinion just because a person is in their 30's rather than their 50's, or is a woman rather than a man.

I think an notable prejudice that people carry when considering what scientists are like cannot be easily conveyed in a drawing. Scientists are typically thought of as eccentric, impersonal people with few friends and an obsession for their work. While science certainly attracts a good deal of eccentrics and socially-awkward people there are many great scientists who are just normal people. Scientists are thought to only advance their work without considerations of the ethical implications, but the scientists I know are people with families and homes and lives. They are people who put family and community first. They constantly question the ethical dilemmas that science brings with it and encourage their students to do the same. I hope that as a science writer I can come to recognize every person as a potential science expert because physical characteristics do not make the expert; it's about what they know that counts.