The Double-Edged Sword of Popularization

Abstract

The decision by Popsci.com editors to shut off public comments in 2013 surprised many scholars of science journalism—particularly since the decision was justified in large part by reference to science communication scholarship. This commentary engages in a rhetorical analysis of the events surrounding the decision—in particular, the popularization of Anderson et al. (2014), the editorial stance at Popsci.com, and the content of blog comments leading up to the shutoff—to better appreciate what led to the foreclosure of a significant forum for protodeliberation on science research and policy.

Keywords

rhetoric science journalism mass media online news

In September 2013, Popsci.com, the weblog for Popular Science magazine, announced its decision to shut off its comment function. In justifying the decision, online content director Suzanne LaBarre referred to an editorial digest of a science communication study Anderson et al. (2014) that had appeared in the New York Times’ “Gray Matter” section 6 months before. LaBarre’s (2013) reading of the Times digest was that the original study proved that “even a fractious minority wields enough power to skew a reader’s perception of a [science news] story” and that even “firmly worded (but not uncivil) disagreements between commenters affected readers’ perception of science.” LaBarre concluded,

If you carry out those results to their logical end—commenters shape public opinion; public opinion shapes public policy; public policy shapes how and whether and what research gets funded—you start to see why we feel compelled to hit the “off” switch.

LaBarre acknowledged that Popsci.com did sometimes provide a forum for “delightful, thought-provoking commenters”; however, after weighing this against a worrying “popular consensus” on evolution and climate change, she announced that Popsci.com would henceforth be shutting off comments on nearly all blog posts because “the cynical work of undermining bedrock scientific doctrine is now being done beneath our own stories, within a website devoted to championing science.”

I have quoted LaBarre’s commentary at some length because it raises at least three areas of concern for science communication scholars. First, what will happen to our work as it becomes popularized more frequently? Will it experience the same pressures toward generalization and sensationalism that scientific research does? Will it sometimes be misunderstood and misapplied as a result? Second, LaBarre’s comments raise the issue of the definition of effective science journalism: Is “championing science” merely presenting the findings of scientific studies so that lay audiences will understand them correctly and adequately? Or does it have a normative component, meaning that science media must ensure that their readers support science and scientists in a particular way? Third, do quasi-public spaces such as the Popsci.com comments section play an important role in the development of a healthy civic deliberation over science?

Science communication scholars have already laid extensive groundwork on the second and third questions. Friedman, Dunwoody, and Rogers (1986) and Weigold (2001), among others, have documented the dominant norms of effective science journalism, finding that the ideals of accuracy and comprehensiveness are consistently quoted against editorial pressures toward timeliness, sensationalism, human interest, and conflict/controversy. Meanwhile, scholars have demonstrated that media coverage influences public attitudes toward science, particularly negative attitudes and especially in risk communication situations (A. Anderson, Peterson, David, & Allan, 2005; A. A. Anderson et al., 2014; Cole, 1975; Slovic, 1992). Given this dynamic, some have suggested that “good” science journalism helps cultivate positive attitudes toward science and more “objective” social assessments of risk (Weigold, 2001; Ziman, 1992).

Science blogs, now numbering in the thousands (Batts, Anthis, & Smith, 2008; Zivkovic, 2012), have assumed a powerful role in the mass communication—and even in the deliberation—of science. Although they are only quasi-public forums (Habermas, 1992; Schickele, 1993), science blogs can nevertheless scaffold real-world political action on science-related issues (Barton, 2005; Cheng, Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, & Leskovec, 2014; Grabill & Pigg, 2012; Gurak & Antonijevic, 2009; Hardy & Scheufele, 2005; Manosevitch & Walker, 2009). Discussions among commenters on science blogs are thus perhaps best termed proto-deliberative.

In terms of popularization, we have known since the 1980s that as scientific findings reach broader and broader audiences, they undergo predictable rhetorical transformations—chief among them a strengthening/generalizing of research claims (Latour & Woolgar, 1986; Myers, 1985) and a shift from fact-based to value-based argumentation (Fahnestock, 1986; Hartnett, 2004; Nelkin, 1995). We do not yet know whether or not these same effects obtain in popularizations of science communication research.

The case of Popsci.com sheds an intriguing light on these three problems. In this commentary, I conduct a rhetorical analysis of the editors’ decision to shut off comments in order to better understand what precipitated the event and what role science communication research played in it. I apply a simple lens called the classical occasions, which distinguishes the kinds of arguments operating in an event by whether they concern past facts (forensic), present values (epideictic), or future plans and speculations (deliberative). An occasional analysis speaks directly to the problems raised above concerning popularization and the norms of science journalism.

Background

Popular Science was founded in 1872 by Edward L. Youmans, an activist in the New York lyceum movement. It was designed to explain scientific advances to lay enthusiasts, and it offered American audiences popular explanations of the theories of leading scientists, such as Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley. Popular Science embraced both the Progressive movement of the 1930s and the Big-Science ethos of the 1950s, and it weathered the cultural critique of science during the 1970s and 1980s by foregrounding technological and natural wonders.

In 1999, Popular Science went online with Popsci.com, which currently advertises 12.2 million monthly page views. The site consistently scores as a major Internet science news source with some sources ranking it in the top 10 (EBizMBA, 2014). These statistics raise the stakes of the site editors’ decision to shut off comments.

The Popularization of A. A. Anderson et al

The original study (A. A. Anderson et al., 2014) tested a multidimensional model of the relationship between the incivility of online blog comments and risk perception among 1,183 participants, where risk perception was treated as a sense of negative impact. The study implemented a pre- and postsurvey design around the reading of a blog post on nanotechnology whose comments’ civility had been manipulated. “Incivility” was operationalized as a lack of “polite language” and the presence of ad hominem attacks such as calling other commenters “idiots.”

The authors hypothesized that there would be a direct relationship overall between incivility and risk perception, an inverse relationship between familiarity with nanotechnology and risk perception, an inverse relationship between nanotechnology support and risk perception, and a direct relationship between religiosity and risk perception. Only two of these hypotheses, the third and fourth, were supported in the experiment. In the authors’ own words:

This study found that uncivil blog comments contribute to polarization of risk perception of an issue depending on an individual’s level of religiosity and support of that entity. Specifically, among individuals who do not support nanotechnology, those who are exposed to uncivil deliberation in blog comments are more likely to perceive the technology as risky than those who are exposed to civil comments. Similarly, highly religious individuals are more likely to perceive nanotechnology as risky when exposed to uncivil comments compared to less religious individuals exposed to uncivil comments. (A. A. Anderson et al., 2014, p. 381)

In addition, the study found that readers who indicated beforehand that they were strongly supportive of nanotechnology assessed it as even less risky after viewing uncivil comments; in other words, the negativity caused them to dig in their heels in support of nanotechnology. There was no overall relationship between incivility and risk perception, nor were there significant interactions for familiarity with nanotechnology or political ideology.

The claims in the original study were all forensic, reporting the procedures and results in a manner typical of the research article genre. However, the occasion—and thus the reader’s picture of the results themselves—changed significantly in the Times popularization, written by two of the study authors (Brossard & Scheufele, 2013):

The results were both surprising and disturbing. Uncivil comments not only polarized readers, but they often changed a participant’s interpretation of the news story itself. In the civil group, those who initially did or did not support the technology—whom we identified with preliminary survey questions—continued to feel the same way after reading the comments. Those exposed to rude comments, however, ended up with a much more polarized understanding of the risks connected with the technology. Simply including an ad hominem attack in a reader comment was enough to make study participants think the downside of the reported technology was greater than they’d previously thought.

It is clear in comparing this version to the original that the authors made some changes predicted by research on popularization. First, the authors evaluate their results as “surprising and disturbing,” a tone concordant with a digest titled “This Story Stinks,” but quite distinct from the forensic tenor of the original study. Second, we see in the Times piece a series of claim-strengthening and generalizing moves. The narrower domain of effect, “risk perception of an issue,” now stretches to encompass “interpretation of the news story itself.” And effects only significant for subgroups of highly religious and highly supportive/nonsupportive participants now apply to all study “participants” and “readers.” The original study did not confirm a direct, overall relationship between incivility and risk perception, much less an effect of incivility on “interpretation of the news story itself.” Brossard and Scheufele (2013), as they composed this article, were apparently not immune to popularization effects.

Given the noticeable shifts in tone and claim strength/range in the Times piece, the Popsci.com editors’ inferences seem less of a leap. The editors eagerly engaged the value-laden language of the digest; from there, it was a simple move to deploy the deficit model of science literacy and arrive at a justification for shutting off blog comments altogether on the grounds that they interfered with public support for scientific research (Ziman, 1992).

The Editorial Stance at Popsci.com

The Popsci.com mission statement could have been copied from a Technocracy pamphlet of the 1930s:

Popular Science is an ideal. We represent the best hopes for our planet, our lives, our children, our future. And we reveal those hopes by finding the individuals and innovations today that are going to lay the groundwork for a better tomorrow. (“Media Kit,” 2014)

This Progressive stance is offset to some degree by a commitment to accuracy expressed in the following slogan from the “Brand DNA” section of their media kit: “We present the future through facts, not fantasy.” At the same time, the editorial norms of sensationalism and human interest are preserved in the claims: “We simplify the complexities of the universe by making it fun to talk about” and “Our heroes are the ones crazy enough to make the world better—for you.”

The tensions observed here between forensic and epideictic arguments, objective and Progressive stances, scientific and journalistic norms are borne out in the content of Popsci.com. Coverage follows mass media norms of emphasizing biomedical research, with natural science (particularly environmental issues but also geologic hazards and astronomical discoveries) and technology rounding out the “big three” coverage subjects (Pellechia, 1997). Headlines and leads are often vividly epideictic, full of the value-laden “wonder” language characteristic of science journalism (Nelkin, 1995) and only amplified by the pressure on Internet news providers to generate page views for advertisers. Take, for illustration, two headlines from the week prior to the comment shutoff: “A Campaign to Save the World’s Ugliest Endangered Animals: The Pig-Nosed Frog Deserves Your Love (and Cash for Conservation), Too” and “A Darth Vader Tank and Other Amazing Images From This Week: Plus a Combination Lamp/Pillow, Super Mario Parkour, and More.” Content in the blog archive follows suit, ranging from fact-based reportage to value-based editorializing—even to deliberative arguments, including proposals to name natural disasters after famous climate change deniers. This wide-ranging profile is unsurprising given research on science blog content (Blanchard, 2011; Colson, 2011; Jarreau, 2014; Myers, 2010; Shanahan, 2011), and it supports the progressive stance laid out in the media kit.

When “wonder” strays into click bait, however, Popsci.com risks undercutting their Progressive goals for applied science and science policy. Headlines and leads in the archive frequently exaggerate claims and amplify controversy in order to get readers to click into articles and thus view additional advertising. The most egregious example of click bait in the archive, “Which Organs Can I Live Without, and How Much Cash Can I Get for Them?” provoked 145 comments, nearly 13 times the per-article average; 114 of these, however, were illegal offers to sell kidneys. The other most commented articles, discounting spam, were the natural-disaster-naming proposal, an article on how to argue with anticonservationists, an antiveganism polemic, and “Trapped in a Bear Trap and Shot in the Body: The Story of a Minnesota Wolf: A Wolf—Maybe—Has Bitten a Teenaged Camper in Minnesota, in What Could Be the First Wolf Attack Ever Recorded in the Lower 48 states.” Unsurprisingly, these articles also provoked the most uncivil comments. It is difficult to reconcile this click-bait program with LaBarre’s contentions in September 2013 that Popsci.com was reporting straight science news and that commenters were solely responsible for the “cynical undermining” of their mission.

Analysis of Blog Comments

Comments in the week prior to the shutoff revealed forensic, epideictic, and deliberative arguments, as predicted by (Kouper, 2010). While uncivil comments were certainly present, they accounted for only 4% of arguments. At the same time, proto-deliberative arguments appeared in roughly one in four comments—including dialogue, recruitment of outside evidence/sources, and a few instances of compromise/consensus building. For context, here are illustrative examples of forensic, epideictic, and deliberative arguments from the archive:

Forensic: “@uldissprogis Disorganized Schizophrenia, Paranoid Schizophrenia, Residual Schizophrenia and Undifferentiated Schizophrenia are all defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and nowhere else” (Ragnar_darude, September 1, 2013, “Why Do U.S. Behavioral Researchers Keep Skewing Their Results”)

Epideictic: “Brilliant and funny” (rainbowmaker, August 29, 2013, “Idea: Let’s Name Storms After Climate Change Deniers”

Deliberative: “Roughly you might guess a direction, but specifically I believe you will never know” (Starz, August 30, 2013, “Why Are Hurricanes so Hard to Predict?”)

Overall, 42% of arguments in the archive were epideictic, followed by forensic arguments at 32%; deliberative arguments made up just over a quarter of the archive (Table 1). These results appear to confirm that commenters were using Popsci.com as an occasion to evaluate scientific news according to their own paradigms of risk, value, feasibility, and so on and that 26% of the time, commenters went on to deliberate the political implications of these evaluations.

Table 1.

Occasional Analysis of Popsci.com Comments From August 27 to September 2, 2013.

Occasion of claim	N (% of 923 substantive arguments)
Forensic	290 (32)
Epideictic	390 (42)
Deliberative	243 (26)

Proto-deliberative argumentation definitely took place during the week. Dialogic arguments (deliberative questions or proposals directed to other commenters) made up 11% of the comment archive. In one striking instance, contributor mjsd555 recreated a complete Socratic dialogue in which a denier of anthropogenic warming is compelled to acknowledge the inconsistency of his/her position. Meanwhile, links to outside evidence or sources appeared in 4% of arguments. Online dialogue and the recruitment/networking of outside resources (particularly performances of real-world identity) are behaviors that have been linked, directly or indirectly, to real-world deliberation and political action (Barton, 2005; Grabill & Pigg, 2012; Hardy & Scheufele, 2005; Kouper, 2010).

Uncivil epideictic comments—identified using A. A. Anderson et al.’s (2014) own definition—made up 4% of the sample. While this is quite a small percentage, the study authors were undoubtedly right that the negativity had a disproportionate effect—it certainly seemed to in the editors’ eyes. However, it is important to counterpoise that negativity against evidence from the archive that, at least sometimes, commenters who initially disagreed with each other were able to reach common ground or compromise. In the week’s sample, this happened at least three times. The first instance occurred in the debate over the anticonservationist article, between commenters SmokeyMcRib and stoprequiredlogin, who after initial disagreement and incivility did come to consensus on the need to conserve all keystone species. In the second instance, in response to a story about an MMR outbreak at an antivaccine church, D49 insisted, “I have had my mind changed on here, about a subject, more than once and I like that.” The third time two adversaries in the wolf shooting article settled a forensic question about wolf-dog rabies transmission while continuing to fiercely debate other epideictic and deliberative points.

We would not want to confuse these fleeting moments of compromise and consensus with their fuller counterparts in the political sphere. But when put in context with the rest of the occasional analysis, these arguments do not support Popsci.com’s contention that “bedrock scientific doctrine” was being “cynical[ly] . . . undermin[ed]” by uncivil commentary on their site. The overwhelming majority of commentary, civil or not, did not question the facts being reported but was instead absorbed in (a) evaluating those facts against diverse value systems and (b) engaging in proto-deliberation over policies that might follow from those evaluations.

Conclusions

Occasional analysis of the Popsci.com comment shutoff event yields the following conclusions: First, the pressures of popularization appeared to encourage Brossard and Scheufele (2013) to broaden and generalize the claims of their original research article in the Times digest; these claims were then reinterpreted by Popsci.com to justify shutting off comments on the grounds that comments interfered with the proper comprehension of scientific facts.

Second, Popsci.com clearly embraces a Progressive definition of effective science journalism. It remains an open question to what extent they undercut their own mission by presenting click-bait headlines that played up contentious and sensational applications of scientific findings. It seems likely that this editorial program invited at least some of the agonistic and uncivil comments the editors condemned. In any event, by shutting off all comments, the editors also jettisoned a significant percentage of proto-deliberative comments that might have helped them work toward their progressive goals.

In the weeks following the decision, commenters weighed in via the channels left open to them—namely, e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter. LaBarre and writer Rose Pastore published a selection of these responses on the blog on September 26, 2013. While the majority of the selection was unsurprisingly approving of the decision, a few echoed some of the concerns expressed above. Steve Thorson protested via e-mail: “On many occasions, Popsci commenters have helped me understand articles that were over my head. I need them.” Gary Doyens expressed a concern that Popsci.com was “reverting to the time when the media was a one way conversation . . .” And Nick Anglewicz immediately noted the irony of trying to deliberate under the new paradigm, quipping, “I think you’ve made the right decision, thanks for the explanation. Now if only I could state my opinion on your post publicly on the website” (Pastore & LaBarre, 2013).

Science communication scholars can sympathize in many ways with Popsci.com’s decision to shut off comments: After all, spam is an enormous challenge to online deliberation, and negative comments have disproportionate effects (Cheng et al., 2014); furthermore, there certainly exist other and perhaps better ways to scaffold online deliberation, as some Popsci.com commenters pointed out after the fact. Nevertheless, two dynamics surrounding the decision should raise an alarm: namely, the unacknowledged role that Popsci.com’s editorial program may have played in fomenting the very incivility the editors later condemned, and the way in which science communication research results were manipulated to support the editors’ nuclear solution to the problem. This combination of factors puts us on notice that our work may be leveraged to foreclose on additional quasi-public forums for discussing science—on the strength of dubious equations forged between particular editorial programs and notions of civility.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biography

Lynda Walsh is an associate professor of English at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her research centers on the public reception of science. Her most recent book, Scientists as Prophets: A Rhetorical Genealogy (Oxford University Press, 2013), traces a dominant strand in the public character of the science adviser back to its roots in Ancient Mediterranean prophecy.

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