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Humans learn about the world by collectively acquiring information, filtering it, and sharing what we know. Misinformation undermines this process. The repercussions are extensive. Without reliable and accurate sources of information, we cannot hope to halt climate change, make reasoned democratic decisions, or control a global pandemic. Most analyses of misinformation focus on popular and social media, but the scientific enterprise faces a parallel set of problems—from hype and hyperbole to publication bias and citation misdirection, predatory publishing, and filter bubbles. In this perspective, we highlight these parallels and discuss future research directions and interventions.

Since the 2016 US presidential election, the deliberate spread of misinformation online, and on social media in particular, has generated extraordinary concern, in large part because of its potential effects on public opinion, political polarization, and ultimately democratic decision making. Recently, however, a handful of papers have argued that both the prevalence and consumption of “fake news” per se is extremely low compared with other types of news and news-relevant content. Although neither prevalence nor consumption is a direct measure of influence, this work suggests that proper understanding of misinformation and its effects requires a much broader view of the problem, encompassing biased and misleading—but not necessarily factually incorrect—information that is routinely produced or amplified by mainstream news organizations. In this paper, we propose an ambitious collective research agenda to measure the origins, nature, and prevalence of misinformation, broadly construed, as well as its impact on democracy. We also sketch out some illustrative examples of completed, ongoing, or planned research projects that contribute to this agenda.

Abstract Background LGBT populations use tobacco at disparately higher rates nationwide, compared to national averages. The tobacco industry has a history targeting LGBT with marketing efforts, likely contributing to this disparity. This study explores whether exposure to tobacco content on traditional and social media is associated with tobacco use among LGBT and non-LGBT. Methods This study reports results from LGBT (N = 1092) and non-LGBT (N = 16430) respondents to a 2013 nationally representative cross-sectional online survey of US adults (N = 17522). Frequency and weighted prevalence were estimated and adjusted logistic regression analyses were conducted. Results LGBT reported significantly higher rates of past 30-day tobacco media exposure compared to non-LGBT, this effect was strongest among LGBT who were smokers (p < .05). LGBT more frequently reported exposure to, searching for, or sharing messages related to tobacco couponing, e-cigarettes, and anti-tobacco on new or social media (eg, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) than did non-LGBT (p < .05). Non-LGBT reported more exposure from traditional media sources such as television, most notably anti-tobacco messages (p = .0088). LGBT had higher odds of past 30-day use of cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and cigars compared to non-LGBT, adjusting for past 30-day media exposure and covariates (p ≤ .0001). Conclusions LGBT (particularly LGBT smokers) are more likely to be exposed to and interact with tobacco-related messages on new and social media than their non-LGBT counterparts. Higher levels of tobacco media exposure were significantly associated with higher likelihood of tobacco use. This suggests tobacco control must work toward reaching LGBT across a variety of media platforms, particularly new and social media outlets. Implications This study provides important information about LGBT communities tobacco-related disparities in increased exposure to pro-tobacco messages via social media, where the tobacco industry has moved since the MSA. Further, LGBT when assessed as a single population appear to identify having decreased exposure to anti-tobacco messages via traditional media, where we know a large portion of tobacco control and prevention messages are placed. The study points to the need for targeted and tailored approaches by tobacco control to market to LGBT using on-line resources and tools in order to help reduce LGBT tobacco-related health disparities. Although there have been localized campaigns, only just recently have such LGBT-tailored national campaigns been developed by the CDC, FDA, and Legacy, assessment of the content, effectiveness, and reach of both local and national campaigns will be important next steps.

The gap between discovery of public health knowledge and application in practice settings and policy development is due in part to ineffective dissemination. This article describes (1) lessons related to dissemination from related disciplines (eg, communication, agriculture, social marketing, political science), (2) current practices among researchers, (3) key audience characteristics, (4) available tools for dissemination, and (5) measures of impact. Dissemination efforts need to take into account the message, source, audience, and channel. Practitioners and policy makers can be more effectively reached via news media, social media, issue or policy briefs, one-on-one meetings, and workshops and seminars. Numerous “upstream” and “midstream” indicators of impact include changes in public perception or awareness, greater use of evidence-based interventions, and changes in policy. By employing ideas outlined in this article, scientific discoveries are more likely to be applied in public health agencies and policy-making bodies.

The United States is engaged in ongoing dialogue around mental illness. To assess trends in this national discourse, we studied the volume and content of a random sample of 400 news stories about mental illness from the period 1995-2014. Compared to news stories in the first decade of the study period, those in the second decade were more likely to mention mass shootings by people with mental illnesses. The most frequently mentioned topic across the study period was violence (55 percent overall) divided into categories of interpersonal violence or self-directed (suicide) violence, followed by stories about any type of treatment for mental illness (47 percent). Fewer news stories, only 14 percent, described successful treatment for or recovery from mental illness. The news media's continued emphasis on interpersonal violence is highly disproportionate to actual rates of violence among those with mental illnesses. Research suggests that this focus may exacerbate social stigma and decrease support for public policies that benefit people with mental illnesses.

Understanding the effect of media on disease spread can help improve epidemic forecasting and uncover preventive measures to slow the spread of disease. Most previously introduced models have approximated media effect through disease incidence, making media influence dependent on the size of epidemic. We propose an alternative approach, which relies on real data about disease coverage in the news, allowing us to model low incidence/high interest diseases, such as SARS, Ebola or H1N1. We introduce a network-based model, in which disease is transmitted through local interactions between individuals and the probability of transmission is affected by media coverage. We assume that media attention increases self-protection (e.g. hand washing and compliance with social distancing), which, in turn, decreases disease model. We apply the model to the case of H1N1 transmission in Mexico City in 2009 and show how media influence-measured by the time series of the weekly count of news articles published on the outbreak-helps to explain the observed transmission dynamics. We show that incorporating the media attention based on the observed media coverage of the outbreak better estimates the disease dynamics from what would be predicted by using media function that approximate the media impact using the number of cases and rate of spread. Finally, we apply the model to a typical influenza season in Washington, DC and estimate how the transmission pattern would have changed given different levels of media coverage.

Several past studies have found that media reports of suicides and homicides appear to subsequently increase the incidence of similar events in the community, apparently due to the coverage planting the seeds of ideation in at-risk individuals to commit similar acts. Here we explore whether or not contagion is evident in more high-profile incidents, such as school shootings and mass killings (incidents with four or more people killed). We fit a contagion model to recent data sets related to such incidents in the US, with terms that take into account the fact that a school shooting or mass murder may temporarily increase the probability of a similar event in the immediate future, by assuming an exponential decay in contagiousness after an event. We find significant evidence that mass killings involving firearms are incented by similar events in the immediate past. On average, this temporary increase in probability lasts 13 days, and each incident incites at least 0.30 new incidents (p = 0.0015). We also find significant evidence of contagion in school shootings, for which an incident is contagious for an average of 13 days, and incites an average of at least 0.22 new incidents (p = 0.0001). All p-values are assessed based on a likelihood ratio test comparing the likelihood of a contagion model to that of a null model with no contagion. On average, mass killings involving firearms occur approximately every two weeks in the US, while school shootings occur on average monthly. We find that state prevalence of firearm ownership is significantly associated with the state incidence of mass killings with firearms, school shootings, and mass shootings.

In many countries the public's main source of information about science and technology is the mass media. Unfortunately, in recent years traditional journalism has experienced a collapse, and science journalism has been a major casualty. One potential remedy is to encourage scientists to write for news media about science. On these general news platforms, scientists' stories would have to compete for attention with other news stories on hard (e.g. politics) and entertaining (e.g. celebrity news) topics written by professional writers. Do they stand a chance? This study aimed to quantitatively characterize audience interactions as an indicator of interest in science news stories authored by early career scientists (henceforth 'scientists') trained to function as science reporters, as compared to news items written by reporters and published in the same news outlets. To measure users' behavior, we collected data on the number of clicks, likes, comments and average time spent on page. The sample was composed of 150 science items written by 50 scientists trained to contribute popular science stories in the Davidson Institute of Science Education reporters' program and published on two major Israeli news websites-Mako and Ynet between July 2015 to January 2018. Each science item was paired with another item written by the website's organic reporter, and published on the same channel as the science story (e.g., tourism, health) and the same close time. Overall significant differences were not found in the public's engagement with the different items. Although, on one website there was a significant difference on two out of four engagement types, the second website did not have any difference, e.g., people did not click, like or comment more on items written by organic reporters than on the stories written by scientists. This creates an optimistic starting point for filling the science news void by scientists as science reporters.

Although widespread declines in insect biomass and diversity are increasing concerns within the scientific community, it remains unclear whether attention to pollinator declines has also increased within information sources serving the general public. Examining patterns of journalistic attention to the pollinator population crisis can also inform efforts to raise awareness about the importance of declines of insect species providing ecosystem services beyond pollination. We used the Global News Index developed by the Cline Center for Advanced Social Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign to track news attention to pollinator topics in nearly 25 million news items published by two American national newspapers and four international wire services over the past four decades. We found vanishingly low levels of attention to pollinator population topics relative to coverage of climate change, which we use as a comparison topic. In the most recent subset of ∼10 million stories published from 2007 to 2019, 1.39% (137,086 stories) refer to climate change/global warming while only 0.02% (1,780) refer to pollinator populations in all contexts, and just 0.007% (679) refer to pollinator declines. Substantial increases in news attention were detectable only in US national newspapers. We also find that, while climate change stories appear primarily in newspaper “front sections,” pollinator population stories remain largely marginalized in “science” and “back section” reports. At the same time, news reports about pollinator populations increasingly link the issue to climate change, which might ultimately help raise public awareness to effect needed policy changes.

Scientific debates in modern societies often blur the lines between the science that is being debated and the political, moral, and legal implications that come with its societal applications. This manuscript traces the origins of this phenomenon to professional norms within the scientific discipline and to the nature and complexities of modern science and offers an expanded model of science communication that takes into account the political contexts in which science communication takes place. In a second step, it explores what we know from empirical work in political communication, public opinion research, and communication research about the dynamics that determine how issues are debated and attitudes are formed in political environments. Finally, it discusses how and why it will be increasingly important for science communicators to draw from these different literatures to ensure that the voice of the scientific community is heard in the broader societal debates surrounding science.