Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: A False Balance? Exemplars, Affect, and Media Coverage of Controversial Risk

Cornell University, Ithaca NY

Investigators

Abstract

A prominent journalistic norm is to provide balance when reporting on controversial risk issues, even when scientific evidence and support between two risk interpretations is significantly uneven. While journalists present two sides of a controversial topic, howeever, their use of affective exemplars (pictures with captions that provoke an emotional response) may be uneven, such as placing an exemplar to only one risk interpretation. To date, studies have found that affective reactions can inform on risk, lead to greater recall of risk-related information, as well as significantly bias peoples' perception of risk severity, frequency, and probability, such that their perceptions differ greatly from those of risk managers, scientists, and other experts. Such studies, however, have been done in the context of one-sided messages and stories unrelated to controversial risk. This proposal investigates the potential role news reporting plays in distorting people's risk perception surrounding controversial risk topics by surveying journalists and testing message strategies intended to improve readers' understanding. The researchers hypothesize that for risk controversies where the evidence supports only one side of a two-sided news article, uneven placement of a negative affect-inducing exemplar might lead people to primarily recall the side that is supported by little or no evidence. This is important because journalists who believe they are presenting a "balanced article" on a risk controversy might unknowingly influence their readers to largely process and recall only one side of a two-sided message. Moreover, the ease with which readers recall such information (i.e., the availability heuristic) might influence their risk perception to greatly differ from expert estimates. By examining potential sources of distortions in people's risk perception and testing message strategies to improve these perceptual distortions, the research provides empirically informed message strategies that not only aid risk managers and health officials but also open up important discussions on journalism practices that potentially misinform audiences on risk.