Findings From the NUCOREpus
Genetics have become a part of our daily conversations, yet most Americans don't actually understand genetics.
Americans mainly get their information from mass media; so it is crucial that we look at these communications to understand how genetics is currently being communicated.
To do this, we built a database of such articles and analyzed them for different explanations. We found that the way media talks about genetics depends on the audience they are talking to.
Our research is aimed at discovering whether some ways of communicating are more effective than others.
The goal of this research is to help lift the barriers to science communications by examining existing articles
Method
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To build the database of articles, two researchers logged onto lab computers at the same time.
Then, using different search engines, they searched the same words, such as “DNA”.
Articles were chosen from the first two pages if they had the same link on both search engines.
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After a large database of articles across various topics had been created, my team and I began prepping them for analyses.
This process involved creating a coding document using Google Sheets. Each article was broken down by sentence, and each sentence was coded individually. All images and links were removed.
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The last step before analysis was coding each article that we had picked and cleaned.
This process was done in two parts:
1) each member of the team tagged each sentence for how many instances of intuitive language it contained (e.g.: explicit anthropomorphism, boundary intensification, etc.)
2) once a week, we got together as a team to discuss the tags and settle any disagreements
Following is the conference poster for this research:
