IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0241376.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Frequency distribution of journalistic attention for scientific studies and scientific sources: An input–output analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Markus Lehmkuhl
  • Nikolai Promies

Abstract

Based on the decision-theoretical conditions underlying the selection of events for news coverage in science journalism, this article uses a novel input-output analysis to investigate which of the more than eight million scientific study results published between August 2014 and July 2018 have been selected by global journalism to a relevant degree. We are interested in two different structures in the media coverage of scientific results. Firstly, the structure of sources that journalists use, i.e. scientific journals, and secondly, the congruence of the journalistic selection of single results. Previous research suggests that the selection of sources and results follows a certain heavy-tailed distribution, a power law. Mathematically, this distribution can be described with a function of the form C*x-α. We argue that the exponent of such power law distributions can potentially be an indicator to describe selectivity in journalism on a high aggregation level. In our input-output analysis, we look for such patterns in the coverage of all scientific results published in the database Scopus over four years. To get an estimate of the coverage of these results, we use data from the altmetrics provider Altmetric, more precisely their Mainstream-Media-Score (MSM-Score). Based on exploratory analyses, we define papers with a score of 50 or above as Social Impact Papers (SIPs). Over our study period, we identified 5,833 SIPs published in 1,236 journals. For both the distribution of the source selection and the distribution of the selection of single results, an exponentially truncated power law is a better fit than the power law, mostly because we find a steeper decline in the tail of the distributions.

Suggested Citation

  • Markus Lehmkuhl & Nikolai Promies, 2020. "Frequency distribution of journalistic attention for scientific studies and scientific sources: An input–output analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-20, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0241376
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0241376
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0241376
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0241376&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0241376?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Estelle Dumas-Mallet & Andy Smith & Thomas Boraud & François Gonon, 2017. "Poor replication validity of biomedical association studies reported by newspapers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(2), pages 1-15, February.
    2. Unknown, 2003. "Die Lage der Weltwirtschaft und der deutschen Wirtschaft im Fruhjahr 2003," Report Series 26058, Hamburg Institute of International Economics.
    3. Jeff Alstott & Ed Bullmore & Dietmar Plenz, 2014. "powerlaw: A Python Package for Analysis of Heavy-Tailed Distributions," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(1), pages 1-11, January.
    4. Gillespie, Colin S., 2015. "Fitting Heavy Tailed Distributions: The poweRlaw Package," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 64(i02).
    5. van Trigt, Anke M. & de Jong-van den Berg, Lolkje T. W. & Haaijer-Ruskamp, Flora M. & Willems, Jaap & Tromp, Theo F. J., 1994. "Journalists and their sources of ideas and information on medicines," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 637-643, February.
    6. Lutz Bornmann & Rüdiger Mutz, 2015. "Growth rates of modern science: A bibliometric analysis based on the number of publications and cited references," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(11), pages 2215-2222, November.
    7. Leonard P Freedman & Iain M Cockburn & Timothy S Simcoe, 2015. "The Economics of Reproducibility in Preclinical Research," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(6), pages 1-9, June.
    8. Constance Holman & Sophie K Piper & Ulrike Grittner & Andreas Antonios Diamantaras & Jonathan Kimmelman & Bob Siegerink & Ulrich Dirnagl, 2016. "Where Have All the Rodents Gone? The Effects of Attrition in Experimental Research on Cancer and Stroke," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, January.
    9. Amélie Yavchitz & Isabelle Boutron & Aida Bafeta & Ibrahim Marroun & Pierre Charles & Jean Mantz & Philippe Ravaud, 2012. "Misrepresentation of Randomized Controlled Trials in Press Releases and News Coverage: A Cohort Study," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(9), pages 1-11, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alice Fleerackers & Lise Nehring & Lauren A. Maggio & Asura Enkhbayar & Laura Moorhead & Juan Pablo Alperin, 2022. "Identifying science in the news: An assessment of the precision and recall of Altmetric.com news mention data," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(11), pages 6109-6123, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Katahira, Kei & Chen, Yu & Akiyama, Eizo, 2021. "Self-organized Speculation Game for the spontaneous emergence of financial stylized facts," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 582(C).
    2. Mueller-Langer, Frank & Fecher, Benedikt & Harhoff, Dietmar & Wagner, Gert G., 2019. "Replication studies in economics—How many and which papers are chosen for replication, and why?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 62-83.
    3. Matthias Steinfath & Silvia Vogl & Norman Violet & Franziska Schwarz & Hans Mielke & Thomas Selhorst & Matthias Greiner & Gilbert Schönfelder, 2018. "Simple changes of individual studies can improve the reproducibility of the biomedical scientific process as a whole," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(9), pages 1-20, September.
    4. Stavroula Kousta & Christine Ferguson & Emma Ganley, 2016. "Meta-Research: Broadening the Scope of PLOS Biology," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(1), pages 1-2, January.
    5. Montebruno, Piero & Bennett, Robert J. & van Lieshout, Carry & Smith, Harry, 2019. "A tale of two tails: Do Power Law and Lognormal models fit firm-size distributions in the mid-Victorian era?," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 523(C), pages 858-875.
    6. Melika Mosleh & Saeed Roshani & Mario Coccia, 2022. "Scientific laws of research funding to support citations and diffusion of knowledge in life science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(4), pages 1931-1951, April.
    7. Rashidisabet, Homa & Ajilore, Olusola & Leow, Alex & Demos, Alexander P., 2022. "Revisiting power-law estimation with applications to real-world human typing dynamics," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 599(C).
    8. Estelle Dumas-Mallet & Andy Smith & Thomas Boraud & François Gonon, 2017. "Poor replication validity of biomedical association studies reported by newspapers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(2), pages 1-15, February.
    9. Saeed Roshani & Mohammad-Reza Bagherylooieh & Melika Mosleh & Mario Coccia, 2021. "What is the relationship between research funding and citation-based performance? A comparative analysis between critical disciplines," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(9), pages 7859-7874, September.
    10. Truger, Achim & Hein, Eckhard, 2004. "Macroeconomic co-ordination as an economic policy concept : opportunities and obstacles in the EMU," WSI Working Papers 125, The Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), Hans Böckler Foundation.
    11. Dean A Fergusson & Marc T Avey & Carly C Barron & Mathew Bocock & Kristen E Biefer & Sylvain Boet & Stephane L Bourque & Isidora Conic & Kai Chen & Yuan Yi Dong & Grace M Fox & Ronald B George & Neil , 2019. "Reporting preclinical anesthesia study (REPEAT): Evaluating the quality of reporting in the preclinical anesthesiology literature," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-15, May.
    12. Lyócsa, Štefan & Výrost, Tomáš, 2018. "Scale-free distribution of firm-size distribution in emerging economies," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 508(C), pages 501-505.
    13. Sumeet Kumar & Binxuan Huang & Ramon Alfonso Villa Cox & Kathleen M. Carley, 2021. "An anatomical comparison of fake-news and trusted-news sharing pattern on Twitter," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 109-133, June.
    14. Doose, Anna Maria & Elixmann, Dieter & Schwab, Rolf, 2010. "Das VNB-Geschäftsmodell in einer sich wandelnden Marktumgebung: Herausforderungen und Chancen," WIK Discussion Papers 340, WIK Wissenschaftliches Institut für Infrastruktur und Kommunikationsdienste GmbH.
    15. Ramona Weinrich, 2019. "Opportunities for the Adoption of Health-Based Sustainable Dietary Patterns: A Review on Consumer Research of Meat Substitutes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(15), pages 1-15, July.
    16. Piers Steel & Sjoerd Beugelsdijk & Herman Aguinis, 2021. "The anatomy of an award-winning meta-analysis: Recommendations for authors, reviewers, and readers of meta-analytic reviews," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 52(1), pages 23-44, February.
    17. Dunaiski, Marcel & Geldenhuys, Jaco & Visser, Willem, 2019. "On the interplay between normalisation, bias, and performance of paper impact metrics," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 270-290.
    18. Rutten, Philip & Lees, Michael H. & Klous, Sander & Sloot, Peter M.A., 2021. "Intermittent and persistent movement patterns of dance event visitors in large sporting venues," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 563(C).
    19. Jovanovic, Franck & Schinckus, Christophe, 2016. "Breaking down the barriers between econophysics and financial economics," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 256-266.
    20. Musa, Hussam & Krištofík, Peter & Medzihorský, Juraj & Klieštik, Tomáš, 2024. "The development of firm size distribution – Evidence from four Central European countries," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 98-110.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0241376. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.