THE MEDIA AND SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
The news satire programme by John Oliver is an explanation of how media outlets manipulate scientific researches. He values the importance of science and the complexities of the work they do. He depicts several clear examples on this. All the ridiculous information given by the media can make you wonder is science spreading blunder. For example some researches say that drinking a glass of red vine is equivalent to hour of gym time.
Scientists are under constant pressure to publish their findings. They want to meet the trouble they face with the money to explore their researches especially with their sponsors. Scientists know that nobody is going to publish and accept their studies unless they are made in a way attractive to the people. John gives the example of the website fivethirtyeight in the case of p-hacking. Scientific researches are not factualized by a second person. There is no reward for being the second person to find out something. Nobody is there to do fact checking. And if they do not get an apt result for their efforts they manipulate their experiments in order to get more engagement in their articles. Therefore all the facts are not clarified. Thus people are easily misled. For example a news study says drinking champagne three times a week is good for health. The study was done on rats which is a limitation of the application of this on humans. Sometimes research themselves simplify science, not only the media.
The other side is the fact that media outlets constantly keep changing their ideas. This is to match their agendas. The impact of misreporting on our faith in science is huge. We should not rely on the study on the basis of our own views. Science is by nature imperfect, but it is highly important. Often media creates their own manipulations to match their columns.
The fact is that we should be able to filter out the fake news from the real ones. We should never share or forward news that has no proper guaranteed source. John Oliver gives a description on how intensively is this manipulations affecting people's concepts and views on their lives, how sensationalism can change people materialistic and greed indeed.
Submitted By: Stephy Kurian
1 BA PJCE
Reg. No: 20PJ048A
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