Science and technology in the British press - 1946 to 1986

Abstract

Longitudinal content analyses of Science coverage in the media are expensive, laborious and therefore rare. None of the existing studies covers the entire post-war period. We are constructing a cultural indicator for Science in Post-War Britain. The newly established Media Monitor Archive at the Science Museum, London, will contain around 10'000 press articles on science news in daily newspapers. The collection is systematically drawn from a crosssection of the British national press between 1946 and 1986. Articles are coded on 70 variables. Variables refer to formal characteristics (e.g. size, illustrations, headline, citations, news section, and ratings on personalization or story tone) and to the structure of the news narrative: Who is the author? Who is the main agent? What is the event, and where (research involved, time horizon, locality)? What is the context? what are the consequences for whom? What is the moral of the story? These indices will allow us to create time-series data to characterize a) the cyclical nature of science coverage; b) the changing structure of science news stories; c) the differences between quality and popular newspapers in various aspects; d) the varied ways in which different areas of science and technology are covered. Initial results show the cyclical nature of science coverage and differences in that cycle between quality and popular newspapers over 40 years in British daily and national press.

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