Science, News and the Public

As the rate of scientific discoveries and developments accelerates, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand and relate these events to our everyday lives. The day-to-day activities of science now lie obscured behind an ever-thickening screen of corporate, civil and military secrecy, whilst the news media - the only major space left for public engagement in science development - represent it in a way that tends to drive people away from science rather than attract them to its issues and debates.

This book explores this shift in science news communication. It demonstrates that journalism needs to change the way it deals with science - altering its traditional mindsets and abandoning its much discredited techniques - if it is to maintain or regain its role as a principal force that encourages discussion and understanding of science in the public sphere.