Unreliable science: Unravelling the impact of mainstream media misrepresentation

This session dives into a project by the University of Turku, funded by the European Media and Information Fund, tackling the pressing problem of unreliable scientific information permeating mainstream media, impacting public perception on crucial matters like public health, environmental policies, and emerging technologies. The project aims to gauge the prevalence of academic mis- and disinformation in mainstream media by scrutinizing representations of unreliable scientific information. By assessing public awareness and exploring potential legal or regulatory remedies, we aim to empower policymakers, journalists, educators, and the public to navigate and critique scientific reporting accurately.

Our panellists also discuss findings from an analysis of mainstream and new media that discussed retracted scientific studies. The analysis explore whether the media reports acknowledged the scientific retractions, and if so, whether they discussed them in a critical way. The retracted scientific studies were identified by using Altmetric.com data to select those attracting the highest levels of attention.

Lastly, we investigate whether ChatGPT is aware that academic articles have been retracted. The answer is based on two experiments: asking ChatGPT to evaluate a set of retracted articles, and asking if a retracted fact from them is true. For both experiments, high-profile retracted articles were selected to give ChatGPT the best chance of knowing about the retractions. These were identified by using Altmetric data to report the social media attention to all retracted articles and selecting those with the most attention.

Key topics:

Unravelling the impact of mainstream media misrepresentation
How do mainstream and new media talk about retracted science?
Does ChatGPT believe claims in high-profile retracted academic journal articles?

Panelists:

Kim Holmberg, Senior Research Fellow, Economic Sociology, University of Turku
Dr Irini Katsirea, Reader in International Media Law, University of Sheffield
Professor Mike Thelwall, Professor of Data Science, University of Sheffield