On the media pressures front, the factors which seem to me to lead to
misleading reportage are:
1. poor, over-claiming, over hyped media releases
2. poor, confusing, badly written and ambiguous original source material
3. news stories written by non specialist (science, technology,
engineering, medical, health) reporters
4. researchers who, when interviewed, fall to be clear, or are ambiguous,
in their responses to journalistic questions
5. general failures to be able to understand and interpret statictics.
Just two ther quick points:
1. we really have to understand that the media is not in the education
business
2. I was always told that teaching by negative example led to negative
outcomes (fun though it might be).
Cheers
Stephen White
British Psychological Society
pspgln
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Sent by: Subject: Critical media reading
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Please respond to
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Hi everyone,
I am writing a couple of lectures for 1st year psychology students designed
to
help them read or view media accounts of research more critically. It
occurs
to me that other people must have given some lectures and will be able to
recommend some readings or perhaps supply some particularly horrendous
examples. I also want to help them understand the kind of media pressures
that cause people to report research in a way that is misleading.
Lesley Newson
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