The association between exaggeration in health-related science news and academic press releases: a replication study

Wellcome Open Research

article

Luke Bratton¹  Rachel C. Adams¹  Aimée Challenger¹  Jacky Boivin¹  Lewis Bott¹  Christopher D. Chambers¹  Petroc Sumner¹ 

[1] School of Psychology, Cardiff University;Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre ,(CUBRIC), School of Psychology, Cardiff University

关键词: hype;    media;    science communication;   

DOI  :  10.12688/wellcomeopenres.15486.2

学科分类：内科医学

来源: Wellcome

【 摘 要 】

Background: Exaggerations in health news were previously found to strongly associate with similar exaggerations in press releases. Moreover, such press release exaggerations did not appear to attract more news.Methods: Here we tested the replicability of these findings in a new cohort of news and press releases based on research in UK universities in 2014 and 2015. Press releases and news were compared to their associated peer-reviewed articles to define exaggeration in advice, causal claims and human inference from non-human studies.Results: We found that the association between news and press releases did not replicate for advice exaggeration, while this association did replicate for causal claims and human inference from non-human studies. There was no evidence for higher news uptake for exaggerated press releases, consistent with previous results. Base exaggeration rates were lower for human inference from non-human studies, possibly reflecting the Concordat on Openness on Animal Research in the UK.Conclusions: Overall, the picture remains that the strength of news statements is normally associated with the strength of press release statements, and without evidence that exaggerated statements get significantly more news.

【 授权许可】

CC BY