In some respects little has changed. In the 1990s research on embryo cloning, pregnant postmenopausal women, and genetically engineered pigs is drawing readers and selling magazines. And journalists play up the biggest collider, the newest techniques of bioengineering, the riskiest technologies. Indeed, the style of reporting has been remarkably consistent over time.

Today, news about science and technology is featured in front page articles- in stories abate discoveries, news about health, and reviews of economic trends and business affairs. Media attention focuses on technology-related policy issues such as environmental quality and public health. Controversies-over biotechnology, AIDS therapies, the patenting of new life forms, and incidents of fraud- have become newsworthy events.

Increasingly, in the 1990s, science appears in the coverage of such global issues as climate change, environmental disasters and international economic affairs. And scandals -from the radiation experiments on human subjects during the Cold War to the falsification of data for research on alternative breast cancer therapies -concentrate interest on the problems of science and call attention to the importance of timely and informative reporting.

For most people, the reality of science is what they read in the press. They understand science less through direct experience or past education than through the filter of journalistic language and imagery. The media are their only contact with what is going on in rapidly changing scientific and technical fields, as well as a major source of information about the implications of these changes for their lives. Good reporting can enhance the public’s ability to evaluate science policy issues and the individual’s ability to make rational personal choices; poor reporting can mislead and disempower a public that is increasingly affected by science and technology and by decisions determined by technical expertise.

At the community level, people are continually confronted with choices that require some understanding of scientific evidence: whether to allow the construction of a toxic waste disposal dump in their neighborhood, or how to respond to a child with AIDS in their school. Similar choices must be made at the personal level: whether to use estrogen replacement therapy, whether to eat high-fiber cereals or to reduce consumption of coffee, or how to act upon the results of a prenatal genetic test. Information and understanding are necessary if people are to think critically about the decisions they must make in their everyday lives.

What, then, is conveyed about science and technology in the press? In 1966 Frank Carey, a writer for the Associated Press, was asked this question. He listed the following news items that had been reported by science writers over the previous 20 years: "the explosion of a nuclear device in Red China...the launching of a flying doghouse by the Russians...the birth of quintuplets in South America...the sex-lure chemical by which the female German cockroach calls her boyfriend...the heartbeat of Olga, the whale...and such hot potatoes as fluoridation, Rachel Carson versus the bad guys...the radioactive fallout from nuclear bomb tests." Today, nearly thirty years later, science journalists continue to report on a remarkable range of subjects. Indeed, they sometimes call themselves the SMEERSHS: "We cover Science, Medicine, Energy, Environment, Research, and all sorts of other Shit."

Science appears in the coverage of dramatic crises, major discoveries, and the feats and foibles of science stars. The applications or implications of scientific knowledge, dramatic or unusual events, and technical disputes have the greatest media appeal. But science also appears in news articles on drugs, food additives, transplants and artificial organs, cancer, genetic diseases, and new bioengineered products. And technical information is integrated into the news of the day: From descriptions of artificial heart transplants we find out about human physiology; from stories on AIDS we read about epidemiology and immunology; from reports on technological hazards we read about research on toxic substances and radiation risk; and from news about earthquakes, we hear about geology and seismology.

But what do we actually learn about science and technology? Consider, for example, the history of news reporting on interferon, a protein manufactured in the body when a virus invades a cell. Interferon was discovered in 1953 as a natural therapeutic agent, a so-called "interfering protein" that inhibits infection. The possibility of isolating the protein raised hopes for developing a cancer cure, and this caught media attention at the time. However, the scarce supply of the agent limited progress and the subject faded from public view until 1975 when Mathilde Krim, a politically astute geneticist, organized a conference intended to publicize the potential of interferon and to win public support for research. Three years latter the American Cancer Society (ACS) financed clinical trials to test the effectiveness of the protein.

Krim´s efforts and the interest of the ACS brought a deluge of media coverage. The scientific press qualified the promises of interferon research, indicating the tentative nature of existing studies, the high cost of isolation the protein, and its therapeutic limits. In the popular press, however, interferon was a "magic bullet", a miracle cure for everything from cancer to the common cold.

In 1980 Biogen, a biotechnology firm, developed a DNA clone for the protein. The ability to synthesize interferon opened the possibility of producing large quantities of the product a low cost. Uncritically accepting promotional information from a Biogen press conference, journalists welcomed this new technological development as still another miracle. "Like the genie in a fairy tale," the Detroit Free Press told its readers, "science came up with the key to the magic potion, a way to produce interferon in bulk."

Reader´s Digest talked about a "wonder therapy," Newsweek about "cancer weapons" and "the making of a miracle drug." Business journalists focused on interferon as a profitable commodity, calling attention to the dramatic increase in stock prices of biotechnology firms. Business Week described efforts to synthesize the substance as a "race" to capture the market: "We have just passed the quarter mile pole and all the horses are in a bunch."

Time wrote of the "gold mine for patients and for companies." The Saturday Evening Post claimed that "punters in Wall Street are already laying bets that interferon is a sure winner".

Throughout this period, New York Times science writer Harold Schmeck wrote cautious reports, suggesting that interferon was promising but that there was no definitive evidence of its effectiveness. And he reported on possible harmful effects, suggesting that "the seemingly ideal weapon" was less of a panacea than anticipated. In May 1980 he reported on interferon studies that "put cancer use in doubt," emphasizing the "modest, controversial, and even negative results of research." He observed that the promise of a scientific advance raised research money, but also false hopes. In response to this article, four scientists from the Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research wrote a letter to the New York Times, expressing concern that such qualified reporting could undermine public support of interferon research.

By 1982 other journalists began to report on the toxic side effects of interferon. Though aware of these effects since the mid-1970s, scientists had provided no public information for fear it would dampen popular enthusiasm and stall the interferon crusade. But the difficulties of using interferon as a therapeutic agent became public in 1982 when four patients treated with interferon in France died. Abruptly, the tone of reporting changed from exaggerated optimism to disillusionment: "From wonder drug to wall-flower." The drug was demoted from a magic bullet and disease fighter to a mere "research tool." Newspapers and magazine articles assessed the situation pessimistically: " Jury's out on interferon as a cancer cure"; "Studies cast doubt on cancer drug"; "It's a hard row to hoe." Research continued, but little more appeared in the press until a series of patent disputes turned media attention to the question of proprietary interests in commercially promising biotechnology products.

The popular accounts of interferon research demonstrate several striking features of science reporting that I will develop in subsequent chapters. First, imagery often replaces content. Little appeared in the press coverage of interferon about the actual nature of research; instead, most articles appealed to public concerns about cancer and hopes for a cure for this dread disease. While interferon's short-term usefulness as a therapeutic agent was problematic, the research did yield significant scientific understanding of basic biological concepts, such as the control of gene expression in a mammalian cells and the regulation of a immunity, that in the long term have affected the practice of medicine. But readers following the interferon story learned little about such developments. This style of reporting has continued in the recent coverage of human genome research where, as we will see in later chapters, imagery often replaces content. Conveyed are simple, condensed, and attention-seeking impressions-a "blueprint" of life, a "Book of Man," a "medical crystal ball"-images devoid of real meaning and useful information.

Second, the press covered interferon research as a series of dramatic events. Readers were treated to hyperbole, to promotional coverage designed to raise their expectations and whet their interest. When predictions about interferon's curative powers failed to materialize, however, unqualified optimism in the press quickly shifted to the opposite extreme. Similarly, many scientific events-possible AIDS therapies, potential new sources of energy, the discovery of genetic markers for disease-evoke premature enthusiasm and optimistic expectations. But then comes disillusionment when promises fail.

A third feature of science journalism revealed by the interferon reports is the focus on scientific and technological competition. Scientists and the firms developing interferon were in a "race" for breakthroughs, for solutions. The gradual accumulation of information inherent to the research process was not considered news.

Whether the goal is to discover a genetic marker or a new energy source, the media always focus on the competition in science, the race to be the first to get results.

Perhaps the most surprising feature illustrated by the interferon story is the role that scientists played in promoting interferon and in shaping the media coverage of the research. Far from being neutral sources of information, scientists themselves actively sought a favorable press, equating public interest with research support.

As research funds decline in the 1990s, scientists are increasingly using rhetorical strategies to attract attention. We read of chaos and quarks, big bangs and black holes, bucky balls and superstrings, master molecules and medical crystal balls. The assumption is that media interest will influence those who control the purse. "Scientists," said Neal Lane, director of the National Science Foundation in 1993, must "sell themselves to the public to ensure that science retains both public support and the funding that goes with it."

These features of science journalism include some curious contradictions. There is more science news in the media every year. Yet public understanding of science and technology is in many ways distorted. This is an age of science fantasy and scientistic cults. While scientific rationality is valued as the basis of our "knowledge society, science is invested with magic and mystique; we expect "magic bullets" and "miracle cures". People who demand sophisticated science-based medicine may also support the animal rights movement and its opposition to the experiments that allow the development of therapeutic techniques. While we welcome technology as the key to progress and the solution to problems, we are increasingly preoccupied with risk, fearing the very technologies we most depend upon.

A further irony lies in the ambivalence of scientists toward the press. Scientists employ increasingly sophisticated public relations techniques to assure that their interests are represented with maximum media appeal. Their efforts to attract media attention have increased during the past decade. This reflects the growth of large-scale, costly research tied closely to applications, the changing relationship between scientists and their traditional sources of funding, and the accountability demanded by a public concerned about the social implications of science and technology and inclined to question the credibility of scientific and technical institutions. Yet, despite their growing interest in media coverage, scientists mistrust journalists and criticize the reporting about their fields. They complain about inaccurate, sensational, and biased reporting and fear that the press encourages antiscience attitudes. Ironically, as media interest in science increases, so too do the tensions between scientists and journalists, for along with media attention comes greater public scrutiny and pressures for regulation.

Journalists themselves often criticize the way science is presented in the press. However, they tend to blame their sources -scientists and technical institutions – for providing misleading or inadequate information. Mutually dependent, the communities of science and journalism are wary collaborators in the business of science communication. Science writer William Burrows described their uneasy relationship: "Scientists think that whatever they tell a reporter is bound to come out wrong...Most ordinary reporters would practically cross the street to avoid running into an expert since they consider scientists to be unemotional, uncommunicative, unintelligible creatures who are apt to use differential equations and logarithms against them the way Yankee pitcher use inside fast balls and breaking curves.

This book attempts to explain these ironies by exploring what is going on behind the scenes of science journalism. As we read our magazines and newspapers, what do we find out about science and technology? And what messages emerge from the selective the selective news we receive? What characteristics of journalism affect the creation of science news? And how do the public relations efforts of scientists influence the coverage of science in the media?

The media are a diverse enterprise. Nationally distributed newspapers such as the NewYork Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal are influential not only because of their large readership, but because they serve as a point of reference, a bulletin board for government officials, for journalists who write for other newspapers, and for television reporting. In effect, they establish a tone and a set of standards for journalism. The myriad local and regional newspapers mostly belong to major chains such as Gannett or Knight-Ridder, each chain with circulations of over 3 million. Their staff reporting is mainly directed to local issues, and they rely on the wire services for national or specialized news. Science stories are picked up from Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI) and edited to reflect local interests. The large circulation weekly newsmagazines such as Time, Newsweek, and science magazines such as Discover are important sources of information about science, having the time (because of their weekly publication schedule) and space to expand on science news.

There are, of course, significant differences between local newspapers, which have few specialized reporters, and national papers, which employ a stable of experienced science writers who know the science terrain. Yet a surprising feature of science journalism is its homogeneity. While journalistic reports on science and technology vary from the 60-second sound bite to the investigative report, most articles on a given subject focus on the same issues, use the same sources, and interpret the material in similar terms.

Journalists are bound by similar cultural biases and professional constraints. Sharing common assumptions about science and technology, their writing on scientific issues and events takes place within what sociologist Todd Gitlin calls a frame; that is, "a persistent pattern of cognition, interpretation and presentation, of selection, emphasis, and exclusion." This frame organizes the word for journalists, helping them to process large amounts of information, to select what is news, and to present it in an efficient from. Their metaphors, descriptive devices, and catch phrases are expressions of this frame.

The journalistic approach to science reporting, however, has varied over time. The 1960s were a period of scientific and technological "breakthroughs" and "revolutions." Journalists covered the cosmic events of the space program and the dramatic discoveries in the physical sciences with wonder and elan. The frame changed in the late 1960s and the 1970s, when wonder gave way to concern about environmental and social risks. Journalists shifted their attention at this time from the conquests of science and technology to their consequences, from the celebration of progress to a more critical reflection about the problems brought about by technological change. In the 1980s technological enthusiasm of the 1960s was born again, though tempered by the continued fear of risk. The idea of progress was resurrected as innovation, and the celebration of technology turned to high-tech hype. The hype continues in the 1990s, though focused more on the biological than the physical sciences. The Human Genome Project has replaced the space program as the "new frontier." The goal is the discovery, not of outer space, but inner space- an idea especially appealing in this New Age. Today, however, the economic costs of big science projects and advanced medical technology, together with the ethical implications of biological research, are an important part of science news. So too are incidents of fraud. And in a more environmentally aware society, the media are reflecting on the global implications of technological change. There is today more critical, more negative, reporting about science and technology in the press.

These cyclical trends are apparent in the metaphors journalists use to describe science and technology. Although experienced science writers are more self-conscious about language and more restrained than the general reporter ("We never use the word `breakthrough´ anymore," science writers

Tell me), most science reporting shares a style, an imagery, and a particular word view.

Metaphors, a prevalent and important vehicle of public communication in all areas, are especially important in science reporting. Explaining and popularizing unfamiliar, complex, and frequently technical material can often be done most effectively through analogy and imagery. But metaphors are more than an aid to explanation; they are, as literary critic Kenneth Burke commented, "strategies...designed to organize and command the army of one's thoughts and images and so to organize them."

Similarly, linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson insist that a metaphor is not just a rhetorical flourish, but a basic property of language used to define experience and to evoke shared meanings. Metaphors affect the ways we perceive, think, and act, for they structure our understanding of events, convey emotions and attitudes, and allow us to construct elaborate concepts about public issues.

By their choice of words and metaphors, journalists convey certain beliefs about the nature of science and technology, investing them with social meaning and shaping public conceptions of limits and possibilities. Was Chernobyl a "disaster" or an "event"? Is dioxin a "doomsday chemical" or a "potential risk"? Is embryo research a means to "enhance" fertility or a way to "manipulate" persons? Is genetic engineering a "boon" to agriculture or "tampering" with genes? Is Prozac a "therapeutic medication" or a "mind-altering drug"? Are incidents of scientific fraud "inevitable" or "aberrant"? Selective use of adjectives can trivialize an event or render it important; marginalize some groups, empower others; define an issue as a problem or reduce it to routine.

Nor are words and metaphors the only way in which journalists convey values. By selecting their stories out of an endless stream of events and issues, they define certain subjects and not others as newsworthy. By their choice of headlines and leads, they legitimize or criticize public policies. By their selection of details they equip readers to think about science and technology in specific ways.

I approach the study of science journalism from the assumption that public communication is shaped by cooperation and conflict among several communities, each operating in terms of its own needs, motivations, and constraints. Journalists, their editors, and scientists themselves all influence the presentation of science in the press. The images of science and technology conveyed to the public reflect the characteristics of journalistic profession, the judgments of editors about what the public will buy, and, above all, the controls exercised by the scientific community.

Scientists communicate to one another through specialized journals, but they must rely on the media if they want to reach a wider public. Conversely, the press relies on scientists as a source of information about complex but newsworthy aspects of health energy, and environmental affairs. This mutual reliance plays a particularly critical role in shaping science news. Thus in the chapters that follow I will suggest how science writing reflects the characteristics of both science and journalism as these two professions seek to control the agenda of public communication.

Chapters 2 through 4 explore the interests and assumptions shaping the recurring images used by journalists to describe the work of scientists, the effects of technology, and the problems of risk. In Chapter 5,I turn to the question of how media messages are received and what impact they are likely to have on the reader and on policy choices. Chapters 6 and 7 address the characteristics of journalism that help to perpetuate certain overarching themes and images, and the professional constraints, cultural biases, and editorial pressures that shape the selection of science news. These characteristics of journalism converge with the complexity of many areas of science and technology to reinforce the tendency or journalists to look scientists as neutral sources of authority. Thus, I explore in Chapters 8 and 9 the influence of scientists themselves on science journalism as they seek to control the language and content of science and technology in the press. Finally, Chapter 10 explains some fundamental differences between the interdependent communities of science and journalism to suggest both the limits and the possibilities of improving science communication.

Control over the information and images, the values and views, the signs and symbols conveyed to public is obviously and extremely sensitive issue in today's society. Industries, political institutions, professional associations, special interest groups, and aspiring individuals all want to manage the messages that enter the cultural arena through education, entertainment, and above all, the media. Scientists are no exception. Analyzing their relationship with the press is thus a means of shedding light on problems that are of concern to scientists in their quest for improved public understanding of science and greater public support, to journalists in their difficult and important profession, and to those of us who want to be fairly and accurately informed about complex technical matters that affect our lives.