Journalists and genetic engineering

Mass media coverage of genetic engineering is considered as an essential cause of the public image which this technology has. Because most people have only few experiences with this technology, the influence of journalists, who report on genetic engineering, seems to be obviously high. Which attitudes do these journalists have? How do they inform themselves? These and other questions are to be answered by a standardized survey among German journalists. For the first time the results of this study reveal the methods of investigation and source selection of 'genetic engineering journalists' and afford an insight into the journalistic climate of opinion on genetic engineering and its applications. There is clear evidence of an altogether positive global judgement of journalists reporting on this technology, which finds support in their immediate professional social environment.     

The Unbearable Lightness of Health Science Reporting: A Week Examining Italian Print Media

Background

Although being an important source of science news information to the public, print news media have often been criticized in their credibility. Health-related content of press media articles has been examined by many studies underlining that information about benefits, risks and costs are often incomplete or inadequate and financial conflicts of interest are rarely reported. However, these studies have focused their analysis on very selected science articles. The present research aimed at adopting a wider explorative approach, by analysing all types of health science information appearing on the Italian national press in one-week period. Moreover, we attempted to score the balance of the articles.

Methodology/Principal Findings

We collected 146 health science communication articles defined as articles aiming at improving the reader''s knowledge on health from a scientific perspective. Articles were evaluated by 3 independent physicians with respect to different divulgation parameters: benefits, costs, risks, sources of information, disclosure of financial conflicts of interest and balance. Balance was evaluated with regard to exaggerated or non correct claims. The selected articles appeared on 41 Italian national daily newspapers and 41 weekly magazines, representing 89% of national circulation copies: 97 articles (66%) covered common medical treatments or basic scientific research and 49 (34%) were about new medical treatments, procedures, tests or products. We found that only 6/49 (12%) articles on new treatments, procedures, tests or products mentioned costs or risks to patients. Moreover, benefits were always maximized and in 16/49 cases (33%) they were presented in relative rather than absolute terms. The majority of stories (133/146, 91%) did not report any financial conflict of interest. Among these, 15 were shown to underreport them (15/146, 9.5%), as we demonstrated that conflicts of interest did actually exist. Unbalanced articles were 27/146 (18%). Specifically, the probability of unbalanced reporting was significantly increased in stories about a new treatment, procedure, test or product (22/49, 45%), compared to stories covering common treatments or basic scientific research (5/97, 5%) (risk ratio, 8.72).

Conclusions/Significance

Consistent with prior research on health science communication in other countries, we report undisclosed costs and risks, emphasized benefits, unrevealed financial conflicts of interest and exaggerated claims in Italian print media. In addition, we show that the risk for a story about a new medical approach to be unbalanced is almost 9 times higher with respect to stories about any other kind of health science-related topics. These findings raise again the fundamental issue whether popular media is detrimental rather than useful to public health.     

Reporting research in medical journals and newspapers.

Newspapers are important sources of information about medical advances for many lay people and can influence those working in the health service. Medical journalists on newspapers routinely use general medical journals to obtain information on research. The Lancet and BMJ are both examined carefully by broadsheet journalists in Britain each week. These papers published an average of 1.25 stories from these journals every Friday. The stories focused on serious diseases, topical health problems, and new treatments rather than social problems. The newspaper stories were based on the full research article and not the journals'' press releases, although the press releases were valued as early information. Journalists relied heavily on the peer review processes of the journals in ensuring accuracy.     

Living Pictures,Reviving the Dead: Claiming Ritual and Identity through Posthumous Films

This text explores the construction and appreciation of posthumous films—filmed portraits of dead loved ones—in The Netherlands. The authors support the argument that, in this country, posthumous films function both as identity markers for the deceased and the bereaved, and as coping instruments. The study is based on interviews with the maker and commissioners of three posthumous films, and on an analysis of these films. We find posthumous films to be vehicles for bereaved people's emotions and thoughts that are closely intertwined with their everyday lives; as stimuli reviving people's memories of the dead; and as powerful media invoking individual agency in mourning.     

Reproductive CRISPR does not cure disease

Given recent advancements in CRISPR‐Cas9 powered genetic modification of gametes and embryos, both popular media and scientific articles are hailing CRISPR’s life‐saving, curative potential for people with serious monogenic diseases. But claims that CRISPR modification of gametes or embryos, a form of germline engineering, has therapeutic value are deeply mistaken. This article explains why reproductive uses of CRISPR, and germline engineering more generally, do not treat or save lives that would otherwise have a genetic disease. Reproductive uses of CRISPR create healthy people whose existence is not inevitable in the first place. Creating healthy lives has distinct and lesser moral value from saving or curing lives that would otherwise have genetic disease. The real value in reproductive uses of CRISPR is in helping a very limited population of people have healthy, genetically related children. This diminished value cannot compete with the concerns in opposition to germline engineering, nor is it worth the investment of research money.     

Pikisi kwaiyai! (pictures tonight!): The screening and reception of ethnographic film in the Trobriand Islands,Papua New Guinea

Ethnographic films hold great historical value for the communities in which they were filmed, yet people in source communities often lack access to them. Visitors engaging in ‘visual repatriation’ of ethnographic film can enrich both sides of the ethnographic exchange. I review my experiences screening ethnographic films with Trobriand Islanders, their reactions, and the various ways in which local communities regain ownership of these films, including re‐narration and renaming. My findings reiterate how source communities' reception of, and uses for, ethnographic film can sharply differ from the filmmakers' original agenda.     

Critical review of articles regarding pregnancy exposures in popular magazines

To determine the scope of teratogen information available to the public through the media, a survey of 15 popular magazines was conducted. All 1985 issues of the selected magazines were reviewed for articles addressing pregnancy exposure concerns, yielding 56 articles from 10 magazines. The remaining 5 publications provided no pertinent articles. Two health professionals, both experienced teratology counselors, independently rated each article for accuracy of content and quality of presentation based on standardized evaluation criteria. The findings were compared and agreement for all criteria in each article was reached by the 2 reviewers. Regarding the quality of the information in the 56 articles, 31 (55.4%) were scored as misleading or inaccurate. On examination of overall presentation, 26 (46.4%) were rated as alarming and 8 (14.3%) presented a false sense of security; 22 (39.3%) provided a balanced presentation. A review of the types of articles rated revealed 19 (33.9%) general overviews of pregnancy issues, 18 (32.1%) news stories, 17 (30.4%) question-and-answer columns, and 2 (3.6%) feature stories. Of the reviewed papers, 7 (12.5%) included a citation from which the primary data could be obtained and only 14 of the articles (25%) suggested that the reader contact her/his healthcare provider regarding the issues. We conclude that the information available in popular magazines regarding exposures in pregnancy is frequently misleading, alarming, and unsupported by the scientific literature.     

Occupational Therapists and Therapeutic Riding

Abstract

There are several contexts in which it is desirable to know how individuals perceive animals. However, most people describe these feelings with little precision. Several scales are useful for assessing attitudes toward individual animals of people who currently own or have owned pets. These usually include items about the role of the pet in the family, habitual means of interacting with the pet, and so on. The Animal Thematic Apperception Test (ATAT) was designed to assess attitudes toward animals independent of pet-ownership status by means of semantic differential scale ratings of line drawings. Preliminary evaluation of this test was completed on a sample of 68 white undergraduate students. The current study was designed to examine further the validity and reliability of the scale and the effect of the presence of animals in various scenes on individuals' perceptions of both the scenes and the people in them. Students (N=213) examined three separate scenes, two with and one without animals, and rated each scene and each person in it according to a semantic differential scale. The order in which the scenes were shown and the presence or not of animals within specific scenes were varied randomly. Validity of one scale for the scenes and two scales for the people in them were tested via factor analysis and Cronbach's alphas. Split half analyses established the reliability of these scales, and analyses of variance examined the effect of the presence of animals on scores on the three subscales. Animals did have an effect on perceptions of scenes and people in them as measured with the ATAT, and these effects were scene specific. The ATAT was thus judged to be useful for evaluating individuals' perceptions of animals, differences in perceptions of animals between groups, and changes in perceptions of animals. Applications are discussed.     

Characteristics of Medical Research News Reported on Front Pages of Newspapers

Background

The placement of medical research news on a newspaper''s front page is intended to gain the public''s attention, so it is important to understand the source of the news in terms of research maturity and evidence level.

Methodology/Principal Findings

We searched LexisNexis to identify medical research reported on front pages of major newspapers published from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2002. We used MEDLINE and Google Scholar to find journal articles corresponding to the research, and determined their evidence level.Of 734 front-page medical research stories identified, 417 (57%) referred to mature research published in peer-reviewed journals. The remaining 317 stories referred to preliminary findings presented at scientific or press meetings; 144 (45%) of those stories mentioned studies that later matured (i.e. were published in journals within 3 years after news coverage). The evidence-level distribution of the 515 journal articles quoted in news stories reporting on mature research (3% level I, 21% level II, 42% level III, 4% level IV, and 31% level V) differed from that of the 170 reports of preliminary research that later matured (1%, 19%, 35%, 12%, and 33%, respectively; chi-square test, P = .0009). No news stories indicated evidence level. Fewer than 1 in 5 news stories reporting preliminary findings acknowledged the preliminary nature of their content.

Conclusions/Significance

Only 57% of front-page stories reporting on medical research are based on mature research, which tends to have a higher evidence level than research with preliminary findings. Medical research news should be clearly referenced and state the evidence level and limitations to inform the public of the maturity and quality of the source.     

Implicit Racial Attitudes Influence Perceived Emotional Intensity on Other-Race Faces

An ability to accurately perceive and evaluate out-group members'' emotions plays a critical role in intergroup interactions. Here we showed that Chinese participants'' implicit attitudes toward White people bias their perception and judgment of emotional intensity of White people''s facial expressions such as anger, fear and sadness. We found that Chinese participants held pro-Chinese/anti-White implicit biases that were assessed in an evaluative implicit association test (IAT). Moreover, their implicit biases positively predicted the perceived intensity of White people''s angry, fearful and sad facial expressions but not for happy expressions. This study demonstrates that implicit racial attitudes can influence perception and judgment of a range of emotional expressions. Implications for intergroup interactions were discussed.     

Introduction: Public understanding of genetic engineering

From the 1980s to the late 1990s, Germany was among the forerunners for the critical debate on biotechnology and genetic engineering. In 1995, co-ordinated by the Centre of Technology in Baden-Württemberg, a joint venture research project was established. The project followed an interdisciplinary perspective and included research on attitudes, the social and cognitive embedding of attitudes, and argumentation patterns as well as studies on the communication of genetic engineering in the media. The structure and rationale of this joint research project is described in the first article.     

The Media's Response to Animal Rights Activism

ABSTRACT

Two recently published projects documented a peak in print coverage of animal-related topics in the late 1980s with a subsequent decline in coverage. One of the studies specifically tracked media coverage of activism on behalf of animals and documented a similar trend in the number of stories on the subject. Those observations are confirmed by the findings of a study, reported in this paper, that tracked print coverage of three annual animal rights events in the USA over a period of 13 years. In addition to charting trends in coverage, the study attempted to compare the level of media coverage with the level of activist participation. Differences are also noted between media attention to protest and nonprotest events. This is the third in a series of articles on the role of the media in animal protection; the fourth and final paper will discuss the use of advertising to promote animal protection.     

Institutions and Cultural Diversity: Effects of Democratic and Propaganda Processes on Local Convergence and Global Diversity

In a connected world where people influence each other, what can cause a globalized monoculture, and which measures help to preserve the coexistence of cultures? Previous research has shown that factors such as homophily, population size, geography, mass media, and type of social influence play important roles. In the present paper, we investigate for the first time the impact that institutions have on cultural diversity. In our first three studies, we extend existing agent-based models and explore the effects of institutional influence and agent loyalty. We find that higher institutional influence increases cultural diversity, while individuals'' loyalty to their institutions has a small, preserving effect. In three further studies, we test how bottom-up and top-down processes of institutional influence impact our model. We find that bottom-up democratic practices, such as referenda, tend to produce convergence towards homogeneity, while top-down information dissemination practices, such as propaganda, further increase diversity. In our last model—an integration of bottom-up and top-down processes into a feedback loop of information—we find that when democratic processes are rare, the effects of propaganda are amplified, i.e., more diversity emerges; however, when democratic processes are common, they are able to neutralize or reverse this propaganda effect. Importantly, our models allow for control over the full spectrum of diversity, so that a manipulation of our parameters can result in preferred levels of diversity, which will be useful for the study of other factors in the future. We discuss possible mechanisms behind our results, applications, and implications for political and social sciences.     

Gendered fitness interests: A method partitioning the effects of family composition on socio-political attitudes and behaviors

Whereas most people are biologically either male or female, their genetic interests are almost never aligned with just their own sex. Drawing on the evolutionary theory of inclusive fitness gained through relatives, we partition the effects of kin on fitness into those that derive from female versus male relatives. We argue that the balance of these female- and male-derived effects, which we call ‘Gendered Fitness Interests’ (GFI), might influence human behavior, especially the adoption of socio-political attitudes that have a gendered dimension. Our proposal builds on observations that an individual's socio-political views covary with the sex of their children or the numbers of relatives of each sex. Further, it is consistent with the relatively small average differences between women's and men's socio-political positions. We outline a method for partitioning GFI, and use simulation models to explore some of its properties. We then show that (1) the GFI component of women's and men's socio-political attitudes will converge, on average, with age. (2) The contributions of both descendent and non-descendent kin lead to considerable variation in GFI. (3) When men have longer average reproductive lifespans than women, GFI can show small male-biases. (4) Paternity uncertainty reduces the variation in GFI between individuals, and (5) Large family sizes are associated with more variation among individuals in GFI. Our proposal provides a framework for the study of the effects of kin on traits and attitudes with a gendered dimension. In this respect, it may prove generally useful in resolving the complex origins of gendered behavior.     

Public Knowledge of,and Attitudes to,Frogs in Colombia

ABSTRACT

People's response to the decline of biodiversity and their support for conservation measures depends on their knowledge of biodiversity and their attitudes to local species. This study is one of the first to investigate public knowledge of, and attitudes to, frogs in South America. We chose two study regions, the semi-urban region of Pensilvania and the rural region of Florencia. In spring 2011, 565 individuals completed a written questionnaire and a subsequent picture test. Overall, the public's attitudes to, and knowledge of frogs, were rather poor. Direct experiences and community elders were the major source of knowledge of frogs for participants in Florencia, whereas electronic media was the main source of knowledge in Pensilvania. Most participants felt that frogs are of high conservation value and important for medical and ecological purposes. The more strongly participants agreed that frogs are useful, of medicinal value, and beautiful, the more strongly they agreed that they should be conserved. Our results indicate that conservation education activities in schools and elsewhere are needed to improve people's knowledge of, and attitudes to, frogs. More positive attitudes toward local amphibian species might lead to an appreciation of their value and willingness to conserve them.     

The Interaction of Economic Rewards and Moral Convictions in Predicting Attitudes toward Resource Use

When people are morally convicted regarding a specific issue, these convictions exert a powerful influence on their attitudes and behavior. In the current research we examined whether there are boundary conditions to the influence of this effect. Specifically, whether in the context of salient economic rewards, moral convictions may become weaker predictors of attitudes regarding resource use. Focusing on the issue of mining we gathered large-scale samples across three different continents (Australia, Chile, and China). We found that moral convictions against mining were related to a reduced acceptance of mining in each country, while perceived economic rewards from mining increased acceptance. These two motivations interacted, however, such that when perceived economic benefit from mining was high, the influence of moral conviction was weaker. The results highlight the importance of understanding the roles of both moral conviction and financial gain in motivating attitudes towards resource use.     

Notes about the impact of human seasonal migration on malaria spreading in rural Venezuela

This paper considers the effect of social and cultural factors on malaria spreading in rural Venezuela. It argues that standard vertical malaria control programs are inclined to ignore local workplace and living conditions instead of recruiting traditional practices into the planning scenario for more effective malaria control. An epidemiological survey on people migrating from malaria endemic areas to non-endemic region studied by blood films and a Plasmodium falciparum in vivo test. The results of the survey on people migrating from malaria endemic areas to non endemic regions revealed that 138 (118 males and 20 females) (23.3%) had fever (38.2-39 degrees C), malarial parasites were detected in the blood films of 49 (35.5%) from 138 febrile (parasitaemic) patients, and 45 (91.8%) of the parasitaemic cases were infected with P. falciparum; other four cases carried P. vivax only. Differences in prevalence, parasites load and the density of infection were observed between the three age groups. The asexual parasite load and the density of parasites (asexual and sexual forms) were appreciably higher in older children than in the other two age-groups (P < 0.001 for each). In the Plasmodium falciparum in vivo test, nine (22.5%) patients presented resistance grade III. People with transient jobs in malaria endemic areas could transport the parasites to non-endemic areas establishing a new malaria focus during seasonal migration activities.     

Media Coverage of Medical Journals: Do the Best Articles Make the News?

Background

News coverage of medical research is followed closely by many Americans and affects the practice of medicine and influence of scientific research. Prior work has examined the quality of media coverage, but no investigation has characterized the choice of stories covered in a controlled manner. We examined whether the media systematically covers stories of weaker study design.

Methods

We compared study characteristics of 75 clinically-oriented journal articles that received coverage in the top five newspapers by circulation against 75 clinically-oriented journal articles that appeared in the top five medical journals by impact factor over a similar timespan. Subgroup analysis was performed to determine whether differences between investigations from both sources varied by study type (randomized controlled trial [RCT] or observational study).

Results

Investigations receiving coverage from newspapers were less likely to be RCTs (17% vs. 35%, p = 0.016) and more likely to be observational studies (75% vs. 47%, p<0.001). No difference was observed in number of people studied (median: 1034 vs. 1901, p = 0.14) or length of follow-up (median: 1.80 vs. 1.00 years, p = 0.22). In subgroup analysis, observational studies from the media used smaller sample sizes (median: 1984 vs. 21136, p = 0.029) and were more likely to be cross-sectional (71% vs. 31%, p<0.001), while no differences were observed for RCTs.

Conclusions

Newspapers were more likely to cover observational studies and less likely to cover RCTs than high impact journals. Additionally, when the media does cover observational studies, they select articles of inferior quality. Newspapers preferentially cover medical research with weaker methodology.     

What determines attitude of local people towards tiger and leopard in Nepal?

Understanding attitude of local people towards big cats is vital for conservation interventions to succeed. Taking tigers and leopards as focal species, we investigated local peoples' attitude towards four subjects—tiger, tiger conservation, leopard, and leopard conservation—considering demographic and socio-economic factors as well as past experience with such predators in Nepal's first national park and a world heritage site, Chitwan National Park. The data were collected from 414 local people using structured questionnaires and their attitude towards the four subjects determined. We performed ordinal logistic regression analysis to identify the best fitted model and significant variables affecting attitudes. While majority of the people (51%) strongly liked tigers, fewer people (38%) had similar view while it came to leopard. However, a greater proportion of people strongly agreed that the conservation of tigers (61%) and leopards (53%) is important. About 12% people had negative attitude towards both big cats. We found women and low income respondents to likely have negative attitudes and higher caste Hindus to have positive attitudes towards both big cats and their conservation. Better educated persons and the owners to larger herds of livestock only agreed on conservation of tiger but not leopard. Past experience with the predator negatively affected attitude towards tiger but not leopard. We suggest the identified cohort of people with negative attitudes be more targeted in conservation initiatives. The reasons behind the similarities and differences in peoples’ attitudes are discussed and designation of species-specific programmes for both cats is recommended.