From Robots to Humans: Newspaper Coverage of Mars in the United States and the United Kingdom 2011–2016

Stories of Astrobiology, SETI, and UAPs: Science and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life in German News Media From 2009 to 2022

“…A few studies addressed space flight, space exploration, space technology, or national security (Byrnes, 1994;Clark & Illman, 2003;Kauffman, 1994;Neal, 2007). More recent publications have analyzed public perceptions or the coverage of Mars exploration (Dittmer, 2007;Mace & Schwalbe, 2020;Slobodian, 2015). If at all, SETL as a subject was of secondary interest, limited to aspects of Mars exploration, or surfaced in the findings by accident.…”

“…Mace and Schwalbe (2020) investigated the coverage of Mars exploration “in relation to scientific and cultural milestones” (p. 1914) in U.S. and U.K. news media between 2011 and 2016. They employed framing and tone analysis based on predefined frames that were derived from previous space-related studies.…”

“…The Life frame was the third most frequent and emerged mainly between 2012 and 2013. It “highlighted the possibility of past or present life on Mars” and was interpreted by the authors as overly optimistic and “sensationalizing the science” since life has not been found yet (Mace & Schwalbe, 2020, p. 1925).…”

“…Research on news media and journalism usually addressed space flight, space exploration, space technology, or national security, with SETL playing a minor role, if any (Byrnes, 1994;Clark & Illman, 2003;Kauffman, 1994;Neal, 2007). A few more recent publications have looked at public perceptions or the media coverage of Mars exploration in the United States or the United Kingdom with some reference to SETL (Dittmer, 2007;Mace & Schwalbe, 2020;Slobodian, 2015) which may be an outcome of NASA's and others' revitalization of astrobiological questions in those missions in the 2000s.…”

“…This is mainly due to the immense costs—the European Space Agency’s (ESA) budget for 2023 is 7.08 billion € (ESA, 2023)—as well as reputational problems that are believed to stem from the influence of non-scientific sources or conspiracy beliefs related to unidentified flying objects (UFO) (Bram, 2021; Shostak, 2004). While SETL, including the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), has been on the agenda of science, space exploration, as well as the mainstream media for a long time (Garber, 1999), more recent scientific observations and space exploration missions with explicit SETL goals have given the field new momentum including its public resonance (Mace & Schwalbe, 2020). Among them was the launch of the Kepler Space Telescope in 2009 which led to the discovery of most of the presently known planets outside of our solar system, called exoplanets, some of which are Earth-sized and orbit stars in the habitable zone (Lissauer et al, 2014).…”