Conflicting stories about public scientific controversies: Effects of news convergence and divergence on scientists’ credibility

Jensen, Jakob D.; Hurley, Ryan J.

doi:10.1177/0963662510387759

Cited by 86 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…For example, Arora and Arora (2006) examined the effects of two-sided health booklets and demonstrated that these non-news sources enhanced attitudes toward the advocated health behaviors. Jensen and Hurley (2012) explored responses to news articles with conflicting views about dioxin regulation and wolf reintroduction policies; when reading two articles with conflicting views as opposed to a single one-sided article, people expressed greater uncertainty. For an environmental issue, Corbett and Durfee (2004) showed that participants exposed to news with conflicting perspectives, within a broader context, generated significantly higher certainty ratings than those without.…”

Section: Audience Responses To Two-sided Media Coveragementioning

confidence: 99%

Men's and Women's Responses to Two-Sided Health News Coverage: A Moderated Mediation Model

Chang

2013

Journal of Health Communication

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This study explores how audiences respond to news coverage of food and nutrition topics when that coverage provides either 2-sided (positive and negative) information or 1-sided, unanimously positive information. A moderated mediation model helps clarify the different impacts of 2- and 1-sided news coverage and the psychological processes they elicit. Specifically, gender moderates the relative effects of 1- and 2-sided news stories; ambivalent feelings play a mediating role in the process. The findings confirm the model predictions: When reading 2-sided as opposed to 1-sided news, men experience more ambivalent feelings, less favorable attitudes toward the health issues, and lower intentions to adopt the advocated behaviors, whereas women do not exhibit such differences. Moreover, the ambivalent feelings mediate the interaction between gender and news presentation (i.e., 1- or 2-sided) on attitudes toward health issues and behavioral intentions to adopt advocated health behaviors.

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Section: Audience Responses To Two-sided Media Coveragementioning

confidence: 99%

Men's and Women's Responses to Two-Sided Health News Coverage: A Moderated Mediation Model

Chang

2013

Journal of Health Communication

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“…Participants were randomly assigned either to a no-blog control or two-blog treatment (one positive and one negative blog featuring opposing views about the vaccine). Similarly, Jensen and Hurley (2012), in a study on the effects of news coverage of two scientific controversies, dioxin regulation and wolf reintroduction, randomly assigned participants to view either two news stories that were consistent with one another on the issue (convergent condition), two stories that conflicted (divergent condition), or one story plus a filler article (control condition). They found that exposure to conflicting stories had effects on perceived uncertainty and scientists’ perceived credibility, but the pattern of effects varied by controversial issue.…”

Section: Contradictory Information: Conceptualizations and Evidence Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Both quantitative and qualitative studies have found that people perceive conflict about these and other topics (Carpenter, Elstad, Blalock, & DeVellis, 2014; Vardeman & Aldoory, 2008), which may drive them to seek more information (Weeks, Friedenberg, Southwell, & Slater, 2012) and influence their behavior decisions (Gibson et al, 2015). Yet few studies have explicitly assessed media exposure to contradictory information (Nagler, 2014; Nagler & Hornik, 2012; Tan, Lee, & Bigman, 2015), and research examining the effects of such exposure is limited (Chang, 2013, 2015; Dixon & Clarke, 2012; Jensen & Hurley, 2012; Nan & Daily, 2015). Health and scientific controversies are increasingly prominent in the media.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Source-specific Exposure to Contradictory Nutrition Information: Documenting Prevalence and Effects on Adverse Cognitive and Behavioral Outcomes

Lee

Nagler

Wang

2017

Health Communication

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Communication scholars have raised concerns that the media present contradictory or conflicting information on health, science, and political issues, speculating that such information may have adverse effects on public cognitions, affect, and behaviors. However, the evidence base for the effects of contradictory messages remains thin. Using nutrition as a case example, this study builds upon this nascent literature by employing a three-wave panel dataset from a survey with a nationally representative sample of American adults. We found that exposure to contradictory nutrition messages from television increases nutrition confusion, whereas exposure from print media decreases confusion. Moreover, nutrition confusion was positively associated with nutrition backlash, and nutrition backlash decreased engagement in fruit and vegetable consumption. Implications for campaigns and other communication interventions are discussed.

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“…Paradoxically, there is a general perception among the experts that the more information society has, the more misinformed people are. In recent years, there has been a clear increase of theories, thoughts and ideologies which are based on falsehoods and can be considered potentially dangerous to public health: pseudosciences (Jensen & Hurley, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The choice of pseudoscientific therapies as an alternative to scientific medicine

Rovira¹,

Raffio²

2017

Eur. j. interdiscip. stud.

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During the last decades, there has been an increasing interest in the analysis of a potentially dangerous phenomenon for the public health: pseudoscience. It can be defined as the set of false knowledge that attempts to resemble science even though it is not. Nowadays there are many who opt for these therapies not scientifically endorsed to solve their health problems. This situation is increased for risk patients or chronic diseases, who come to this type of therapies as a last resort. In these cases, the choice between science and pseudoscience can become a matter of life or death. Through qualitative and quantitative research techniques, we analyze the reasons why patients choose pseudoscience instead of conventional and scientific medicine. The data obtained from this research reveal that in extreme situations patients value most the human contact with the therapist that the validity of the therapy itself. This factor, coupled with the precariousness of the health system, generates a dynamic in which pseudosciences gain ground over scientific medicine. According to the experts interviewed, this phenomenon is increasing and may represent a danger to public health. This research reveals the possible causes and consequences of this phenomenon from the point of view of more than 60 professionals of the Spanish scientific community and 30 patients who have used both disciplines. The results obtained indicate that this situation is intensified due to the inaction of the competent institutions and the lack of regulation.

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Conflicting stories about public scientific controversies: Effects of news convergence and divergence on scientists’ credibility

Cited by 86 publications

References 48 publications

Men's and Women's Responses to Two-Sided Health News Coverage: A Moderated Mediation Model

Men's and Women's Responses to Two-Sided Health News Coverage: A Moderated Mediation Model

Source-specific Exposure to Contradictory Nutrition Information: Documenting Prevalence and Effects on Adverse Cognitive and Behavioral Outcomes

The choice of pseudoscientific therapies as an alternative to scientific medicine

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