Contested science communication: representations of scientists and their science in newspaper articles and the associated comment sections

This qualitative study uses inductive thematic analysis to investigate how journalists and their readers perceive scientists and their science. The data-driven approach was applied to 84 articles (reporting on the contested science issues of climate change, vaccines, or GMOs) and their associated comment sections. Two dominant groups were observed: The pro-science group (consisting of commentators and journalists) and the contra-science group (nearly exclusively commentators). The identified themes show that both groups represent scientists and their science in a particular and similar way across the three contested science topics. These representations are used to justify both support and opposition (e.g., each group refers to scientists’ motives; however, they express this theme differently by either describing scientists’ actions as born out of a desire to help or out of arrogance). Understanding how non-experts perceive scientists could help improve science communication, which may be the first step toward decreasing societal polarization over contested science.