Selected by expertise? Scientific experts in German news coverage of COVID-19 compared to other pandemics

Abstract

At the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientific expertise was and is more in demand than perhaps ever before. Scientific “experts” serve as an important source of information for journalists and for society. Our study analyzes, which experts get a chance to speak in German news coverage of COVID-19 compared to other pandemics, how diverse the spectrum of selected experts is and how their scientific expertise is to be assessed. Our findings show that the COVID-19 coverage is dominated by actors from the political executive and less than in previous pandemics by scientific experts. In addition, the coronavirus debate is characterized by a greater diversity of expert voices and the journalistic selection of scientific experts is biased in favor of those who have a high scientific expertise. On average, COVID-19 coverage seems to be biased more pronouncedly in favor of reputable scientific experts compared to previous debates on pandemics.

Keywords

coronavirus COVID-19 health communication media coverage SARS-CoV-2 science communication science experts science journalism

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Albæk

Christiansen

Togeby

(2003) Experts in the mass media: Researchers as sources in Danish daily newspapers, 1961–2001. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 80(4): 937–948.

Anter

(2021) Mein text, meine Meinung, meine Wissenschaftlerin? Eine qualitative Untersuchung zur Nutzung von Wissenschaftler*innen als opportune Zeugen [My text, my opinion, my scientist? A qualitative study on the use of scientists as opportune witnesses]. Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft 69(3): 397–415.

Aslam

Awan

Syed

Parveen

(2020) Sentiments and emotions evoked by news headlines of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 7(1): 31.

Ball- Rokeach

DeFleur

(1976) A dependency model of mass-media effects. Communication Research 3(1): 3–21.

Basch

Hillyer

Erwin

Mohlman

Cosgrove

Quinones

(2020) News coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic: Missed opportunities to promote health sustaining behaviors. Infection, Disease & Health 25(3): 205–209.

Boyce

(2006) Journalism and expertise. Journalism Studies 7(6): 889–906.

Boykoff

(2004) Balance as bias: Global warming and the US prestige press. Global Environmental Change 14(2): 125–136.

Boyle

(2001) Intermedia agenda setting in the 1996 presidential election. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 78: 26–44.

Breed

(1955) Social control in the newsroom: A functional analysis. Social Forces 33: 326–335.

10.

Brost

Pörksen

(2020) Angesteckt: Warum der Journalismus in der Corona-Krise besonders gebraucht wird—und vor welchen Problemen er steht [Infected: Why journalism is particularly needed in the Corona crisis—and what problems journalism is facing]. Die Zeit, 8 April. Available at: https://www.zeit.de/2020/16/coronavirus-berichterstattung-journalismus-information (accessed 3 March 2021).

11.

Carlson

(2009) Dueling, dancing, or dominating? Journalists and their sources. Sociology Compass 3(4): 526–542

12.

Chen

Lerman

Ferrara

(2020) Tracking social media discourse about the COVID-19 pandemic: Development of a public Coronavirus Twitter data set. JMIR Public Health and Surveillance 6(2): e19273.

13.

Chipidza

Akbaripourdibazar

Gwanzura

Gatto

(2021) Topic analysis of traditional and social media news coverage of the early COVID-19 pandemic and implications for public health communication. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. Epub ahead of print 3 March. DOI: 10.1017/dmp.2021.65.

14.

Collins

(2004) Interactional expertise as a third kind of knowledge. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 3(2): 125–143.

15.

Collins

Evans

(2002) The third wave of science studies. Social Studies of Science 32(2): 235–296.

16.

Conrad

(1999) Uses of expertise: Sources, quotes, and voice in the reporting of genetics in the news. Public Understanding of Science 8(4): 285–302.

17.

da Costa

Saivish

Santos

DER

de Lima Silva

Morelib

(2020) Comparative epidemiology between the 2009 H1N1 influenza and COVID-19 pandemics. Journal of Infection and Public Health 13(12): 1797–1804.

18.

D’Inka

(2020) Sind alle Journalisten Versager? [Are all journalists losers?] Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 18 April. Available at: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/wie-medienforschung-sich-laecherlich-macht-16729555.html (accessed 18 April 2020).

19.

Donsbach

(1987) Journalismusforschung in der Bundesrepublik: Offene Fragen trotz Forschungsboom [Journalism research in the German Federal Republic: Unanswered questions despite research boom]. In: Wilke

(ed.) Zwischenbilanz der Journalistenausbildung [Interim balance of journalism training]. München: Ölschläger, pp. 105–142.

20.

Dunwoody

Ryan

(1987) The credible scientific source. Journalism Quarterly 64(1): 21–27.

21.

Eisenegger

(2005) Reputation in der Mediengesellschaft [Reputation in the media society]. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

22.

Eisenegger

Oehmer

Udris

, et al. (2020) Die Qualität der Medienberichterstattung zur Corona-Pandemie [The quality of media coverage of the coronavirus pandemic]. Available at: https://www.foeg.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:b87084ac-5b5b-4f76-aba7-2e6fe2703e81/200731_Studie%20Leitmedien%20Corona.pdf (accessed 3 May 2022).

23.

Engelmann

(2012) Nachrichtenfaktoren und die organisationsspezifische Nachrichtenselektion: Eine Erweiterung der Nachrichtenwerttheorie um die Meso-Ebene journalistischer Organisationen [News factors and organization-specific news selection: An extension of news value theory to include the meso level of journalistic organizations]. Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft 60(1): 41–63.

24.

Esser

(1998) Die Kräfte hinter den Schlagzeilen: Englischer und deutscher Journalismus im Vergleich [The forces behind the headlines: English and German journalism in comparison]. Freiburg im Breisgau; München: Alber.

25.

Gehrau

Blöbaum

Fujarski

, et al. (2021) Informationsrepertoires in Krisenzeiten: Was Informationsrepertoires zum Verständnis der Diffusion und Wirkungen wissenschaftlicher Informationen beitragen [Information repertoires in times of crisis: What information repertoires contribute to understand the diffusion and effects of scientific information]. In: 5th annual conference of the DGPuK professional group of science communication Göttingen, Germany, 5 Februrary 2021.

26.

Goddiksen

(2014) Clarifying interactional and contributory expertise. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 47: 111–117.

27.

Golan

(2006) Inter-media agenda setting and global news coverage: Assessing the influence of the New York Times on three network television evening news programs. Journalism Studies 7: 323–333.

28.

Goodell

(1977) The Visible Scientists. Boston, MA; Toronto, ON, Canada: Little, Brown & Co.

29.

Hart

Chinn

Soroka

(2020) Politicization and polarization in COVID-19 news coverage. Science Communication 42(5): 679–697.

30.

Huber

(2014) Öffentliche Experten: Über die Medienpräsenz von Fachleuten [Public experts: About the media presence of professionals]. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.

31.

Ioannidis

Tezel

Jagsi

(2021) Overall and COVID-19-specific citation impact of highly visible COVID-19 media experts: bibliometric analysis. BMJ Open 11(10): e052856.

32.

Jarren

(2020) Im Krisenmodus: Das öffentlich-rechtliche Fernsehen in Zeiten von Corona [In crisis mode: public television in times of Corona]. epd Medien 13: 3–6. Available at: https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/186723/1/jarren_corona.pdf (accessed 3 May 2022).

33.

Krawczyk

Chelkowski

Laydon

Mishra

Xifara

Gibert

, et al. (2021) Quantifying online news media coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic: Text mining study and resource. Journal of Medical Internet Research 23(6): e28253.

34.

Kropp

(2020) Corona-Krise: Wie wichtig ist Expertenwissen in der Politik? [Corona crisis: How important is expert knowledge in politics?] Available at: https://www.bpb.de/politik/innenpolitik/coronavirus/310712/expertenwissen (accessed 23 November 2021).

35.

Kruvand

(2009) Bioethicists as expert sources in science/medical reporting. Newspaper Research Journal 30(3): 26–41.

36.

Kruvand

(2012) “Dr. Soundbite”: the making of an expert source in science and medical stories. Science Communication 34(5): 566–591.

37.

Lehmkuhl

(2021) Covid-19 und der Journalismus: Problemzonen im Verhältnis zwischen Wissenschaft und Öffentlichkeit [COVID-19 and journalism: problem areas in the relationship between science and the public]. In: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (ed.) Corona: Pandemie und Krise. Bonn: bpb, pp. 266–276.

38.

Lehmkuhl

Leidecker-Sandmann

(2019) “Visible scientists revisited”: Zum Zusammenhang von wissenschaftlicher Reputation und der Präsenz wissenschaftlicher Experten in der Medienberichterstattung über Infektionskrankheiten [“Visible scientists revisited”: on the relationship between scientific reputation and the public presence of scientific experts in mass media coverage of infectious diseases]. Publizistik 64(4): 479–502.

39.

Lewis

Williams

Franklin

(2008) A compromised fourth estate? UK news journalism, public relations and news sources. Journalism Studies 9(1): 1–20.

40.

Marschall

(2020) Parlamente in der Krise? Der deutsche Parlamentarismus und die Corona-Pandemie [Parliaments in crisis? German Parliamentarism and the coronavirus pandemic]. Apuz 38: 11–17.

41.

Meier

Wyss

(2020) Journalismus in der Krise: die fünf Defizite der Corona-Berichterstattung [Journalism in crisis: the five deficits in corona coverage]. Available at: https://meedia.de/2020/04/09/journalismus-in-der-krise-die-fuenf-defizite-der-corona-berichterstattung/ (accessed 3 March 2021).

42.

Meyen

(2020) Die Expertokratie: Wo die Medizin regiert, gibt es keine parlamentarischen und auch sonst keine Debatten mehr [The expertocracy: where medicine reigns, there are no parliamentary and otherwise no more debates]. Available at: https://www.rubikon.news/artikel/die-expertokratie (accessed 3 March 2021).

43.

Milhahn

Boklage

Lehmkuhl

(2018) PubMedAuthorEvaluation. Available at: https://github.com/ymilhahn/PubMedAuthorEvaluation (accessed 16 September 2019).

44.

Nölleke

(2009) Die Konstruktion von Expertentum im Journalismus [The construction of expertise in journalism]. In: Dernbach

Quandt

(eds) Spezialisierung im Journalismus [Specialization in journalism]. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 97–110.

45.

Pearman

Boykoff

Osborne-Gowey

Aoyagi

Ballantyne

Chandler

, et al. (2021) COVID-19 media coverage decreasing despite deepening crisis. The Lancet Planetary Health 5(1): e6–e7.

46.

Peters

(1994) Wissenschaftliche Experten in der öffentlichen Kommunikation über Technik, Umwelt und Risiken [Scientific experts in public communication about technology, environment, and risks]. In: Neidhardt

(ed.) Öffentlichkeit, öffentliche Meinung, soziale Bewegungen [Public sphere, public opinion, social movements]. Opladen: Springer, pp. 162–190.

47.

Peters

(2014) Scientists as public experts. In: Bucchi

Trench

(eds) Routledge Handbook of Public Communication of Science and Technology. London: Routledge, pp. 70–82.

48.

Quandt

Boberg

Schatto-Eckrodt

Frischlich

(2020) Pandemic news: Facebook pages of mainstream news media and the Coronavirus crisis: A computational content analysis. Available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.13290

49.

Reese

(2001) Understanding the global journalist: A hierarchy-of-influences approach. Journalism Studies 2: 173–187.

50.

Reinemann

(2008) Journalism: Group dynamics. In: Donsbach

(ed.) The International Encyclopedia of Communication. Malden, MA; Oxford; Carlton, VIC, Australia: Blackwell, pp. 2573–2579.

51.

Rothman

(1990) Journalists, broadcasters, scientific experts and public opinion. Minerva 28(2): 117–133.

52.

Russ-Mohl

(2020) Corona in der Medienberichterstattung und in der Medienforschung: Ein Dossier—zusammengestellt von Stephan Russ-Mohl [Corona in media coverage and in media research: A dossier—compiled by Stephan Russ-Mohl]. Available at: https://de.ejo-online.eu/wp-content/uploads/Corona-in-der-Medienberichterstattung-und-Medienforschung.pdf (accessed 3 May 2022).

53.

Schäfer

(2017) Medienhype ‘Hirndoping’? Die Rolle der Journalisten in der gesellschaftlichen Debatte um Neuroenhancement [Media hype ‘brain doping’? The role of journalists in the social debate on neuroenhancement]. Baden-Baden: Nomos.

54.

Schäfer

(2020) “Letztendlich nur für Auflage?”: Corona und die Verantwortung der Medien [“Ultimately only for circulation?”: The coronavirus and the responsibility of the media]. Communicatio Socialis 53(3): 308–323.

55.

Schimank

(2010) Reputation statt Wahrheit: Verdrängt der Nebencode den Code? [Reputation instead of truth: does the secondary code replace the code?] Soziale Systeme 16(2): 233–242.

56.

Schütz-Ierace

(2010) Von geheimen Politikmachern und wissenschaftlichen Hoflieferanten: Wissenschaftliches Wissen in der Politikberichterstattung [From secret politicians and scientific royal warrants: scientific knowledge in media coverage of politics]. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

57.

Shepherd

(1981) Selectivity of sources: Reporting the marijuana controversy. Journal of Communication 31(2): 129–137.

58.

Soley

(1994) Pundits in print: “Experts” and their use in newspaper stories. Newspaper Research Journal 15(2): 65–75.

59.

Tejedor

Cervi

Tusa

Zabotina

(2020) Information on the COVID-19 pandemic in daily newspapers’ front pages: Case study of Spain and Italy. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17: 6330.

60.

van Aelst

Toth

Castro

de Vreese

Aalberg

Cardonel

, et al. (2021) Does a crisis change news habits? A comparative study of the effects of COVID-19 on news media use in 17 European countries. Digital Journalism 29(2): 1–31.

61.

Viehmann

Ziegele

Quiring

(2020) Gut informiert durch die Pandemie? Nutzung unterschiedlicher Informationsquellen in der Corona-Krise [Well informed by the pandemic? Use of different sources of information during the Corona crisis]. Media Perspektiven 10–11: 556–577.

62.

Vonbun-Feldbauer

Dogruel

(2021) Regional newspapers’ sourcing strategies: Changes in media-citation and self-citation from a longitudinal perspective. Journalism 22(6): 1503–1521.

63.

Weingart

(2001) Die Stunde der Wahrheit? Zum Verhältnis der Wissenschaft zu Politik, Wirtschaft und Medien in der Wissensgesellschaft [The hour of truth? On the relationship between science and politics, economics and media in the knowledge society]. Weilerswist: Velbrück Wiss.

64.

Weischenberg

(1992) Journalistik: Theorie und Praxis aktueller Medienkommunikation [Journalism: Theory and practice of current media communication]. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.

65.

Wissenschaftim im Dialog (2020) Wissenschaftsbarometer Corona Spezial [Science barometer coronavirus special]. Available at: https://www.wissenschaft-im-dialog.de/projekte/wissenschaftsbarometer/wissenschaftsbarometer-corona-spezial/ (accessed 3 March 2021).

66.

Wormer

(2020) German media and coronavirus: Exceptional communication—Or just a catalyst for existing tendencies? Media and Communication 8(2): 467–470.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.03 MB