Perils of Press-Release Journalism: NSF and Chronicle of Higher Education
David E. Wojick
dwojick at HUGHES.NET
Sun Mar 8 16:09:45 EDT 2009
Dear Loet,
I agree about the arrows, although I think being reported is more
like citation than publication. Also it is important to note that the
news system includes many channels within the scientific community
itself, about which we have little data. There are thousands of
listservs like Sigmetrics, which I suspect are far more important
than the public newspapers. Whether they are or not is the kind of
question I am referring to.
To wander a bit, citation itself is often a form of news. As I have
said before, the beginning part of a typical journal article is
devoted to explaining the problem addressed by the research. It is
therefore about (hence reporting) the work of others, which is why
most of the citations occur in this section. I often find myself
reading these overviews and citations even though the specific
research result in the paper does not interest me.
Your point about discourse is very important. How the reasoning of a
community is progressing is arguably far more important than who
learns what from whom. (Discourse analysis is my basic field. I even
claim to have discovered how sentences fit together to create
reasoned discourse, such as science.) In fact the concept of
knowledge diffusion is somewhat misleading here. It suggests that
knowledge circulates without changing, but almost everyone adds some
thinking along the way. To me the dynamics of science is the dynamics
of that reasoning.
Thanks for your interest,
David
Dear David,
I meant with the two arrows:
First, on the supply side, which research is being reported and
spreading, throughout the news system? This is akin to publication.
Second, who in the scientific community is reading about which
research?
In my opinion, it is helpful to distinguish between individuals and
how they collect and disseminate information versus how discourses
evolve (scientific discourses, political discourses, and the common
discourse in the media). The three are interconnected by people and
organizations.
Best, Loet
Loet Leydesdorff
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR),
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam.
Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681
<mailto:loet at leydesdorff.net>loet at leydesdorff.net ;
<http://www.leydesdorff.net/>http://www.leydesdorff.net/
From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
[mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] On Behalf Of David E. Wojick
Sent: Saturday, March 07, 2009 5:08 PM
To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] Perils of Press-Release Journalism: NSF and
Chronicle of Higher Education
Thank you Loet, but I am not talking about newspapers. That was
merely the example that Gene supplied. I am talking about all
significant forms of scientific communication, in the sense of all
the forms whereby scientists learn about new science.
For example, I get most of my initial information about
scientometrics papers from this listserv. In many cases I only read
the abstract. I get a great deal of knowledge about other topics that
I am involved in from the magazine part of Science, which I read
carefully each week. For particular topics I get a lot from Google,
Google Scholar, and the various OSTI products like Science.gov and
WorldWideScience.gov. In one case (climate change) I rely mostly on
blogs.
I am often led to journal articles but I read no specific journals
regularly, so journals are never my original awareness source. The
journal article typically shows up somewhere between steps 2 and 10,
although I may not get to an article in many cases.
Taken all together this is the diffusion system of science. Journals
play an essential role but from a transaction point of view it is
quite small. Yet this small subsystem, the journals, gets 99% of our
attention. We have very little idea what is going on in the rest of
the diffusion system, probably because we have very little data on
it. But it is there and it is important.
(Sorry but I did not use or mention arrows so I do not know what you
are referring to by the second of my arrows.)
All my best,
David
Dear David,
The non-ISI-sources for citations are available in the JCR. This
covers the second of your arrows. The first can be traced because
major newspapers have excellent search engines on their archives.
Alternatively, one can use Lexis Nexis. I do this regularly with
students from communication studies. We then distinguish among three
types of communication: scientific communication, public
communication (newspapers), and political communication
(parliamentary proceedings). The causality is very different in
different domains.
For example, in the case of obesitas scientific communications feed
into the other domains. In the case of issues like violence in
computer games, public concern is leading both scientific interest
and political debate. However, I would not overestimate the feedback
arrow in specific cases. I don't remember having read anything about
citation analysis in a newspaper which I did not already know from
the scientific communication.
Best wishes,
Loet
PS. Below is the citation impact environment of the Wall Street
Journal in 2006 using JCR data:
Picture deleted.
Loet Leydesdorff
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR),
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam.
Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681
<mailto:loet at leydesdorff.net>loet at leydesdorff.net ;
<http://www.leydesdorff.net/>http://www.leydesdorff.net/
From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
[mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] On Behalf Of David Wojick
Sent: Saturday, March 07, 2009 1:07 PM
To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] Perils of Press-Release Journalism: NSF and
Chronicle of Higher Education
Thank you Gene, this is indeed relevant and a good example of looking
at the role of news in the diffusion of science within science.
However, I do question their use of the term "disproportionate" in
their conclusion that "Articles in the Journal that were covered by
the Times received a disproportionate number of scientific citations
in each of the 10 years after the Journal articles appeared." The
term "significantly larger" is better because disproportionate sound
like a criticism.
In any case my point is that channels of communication other than
reading journal articles play a major role in the diffusion of ideas
within science. Not just news outlets, but channels like this
listserv are very important. My conjecture is that when it comes to
first awareness of a new result reading the journal is probably a
relative small part of the system of information transactions. That
is, most scientists learn about new results in other ways. The
structure of the magazine/journal Science is very revealing in this
context. The number of news-like articles about research results is
much higher than the number of actual articles, perhaps 20 times
higher.
What we need is to look at this non-journal diffusion as
systematically as we look at the systems of citation and
co-authorships. First awareness and citation or co-authorship are
opposite extremes in the system of transactions. The approach will
have to be different because the tracking of individual transactions
is impossible. A reading a story about B for example. This is more
like true diffusion analysis, in groundwater for example, than like
network analysis. I think the flow of new language, which always
characterizes the flow of new knowledge, will be an important
approach. It can also be in real time.
So far as I know this kind of diffusion research is not being done,
so the dynamics of new scientific thinking is not being seen, in an
important respect. That was my original point.
My best regards,
David
David Wojick, Ph.D.
<http://www.osti.gov/innovation/>http://www.osti.gov/innovation/
Mar 6, 2009 04:31:17 PM, SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU wrote:
Dear David and Christina: I don't know whether it is relevant to your
discussion, but the following reference from the 1991 NEJM sounds
like it should be.
IMPORTANCE OF THE LAY PRESS IN THE TRANSMISSION OF
MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE TO THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY
Author(s):
<http://apps.isiknowledge.com/DaisyOneClickSearch.do?product=WOS&search_mode=DaisyOneClickSearch&db_id=&SID=1A2NKmLJc29M9@G5LK2&name=PHILLIPS%20DP&ut=A1991GK53800030&pos=1>PHILLIPS
DP,
<http://apps.isiknowledge.com/DaisyOneClickSearch.do?product=WOS&search_mode=DaisyOneClickSearch&db_id=&SID=1A2NKmLJc29M9@G5LK2&name=KANTER%20EJ&ut=A1991GK53800030&pos=2>KANTER
EJ,
<http://apps.isiknowledge.com/DaisyOneClickSearch.do?product=WOS&search_mode=DaisyOneClickSearch&db_id=&SID=1A2NKmLJc29M9@G5LK2&name=BEDNARCZYK%20B&ut=A1991GK53800030&pos=3>BEDNARCZYK
B,
<http://apps.isiknowledge.com/DaisyOneClickSearch.do?product=WOS&search_mode=DaisyOneClickSearch&db_id=&SID=1A2NKmLJc29M9@G5LK2&name=TASTAD%20PL&ut=A1991GK53800030&pos=4>TASTAD
PL
Source: NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE Volume: 325 Issue:
16 Pages: 1180-1183 Published: OCT 17 1991
Times Cited:
<http://apps.isiknowledge.com/CitingArticles.do?product=WOS&search_mode=CitingArticles&SID=1A2NKmLJc29M9@G5LK2&db_id=WOS&parentQid=1&parentDoc=2&recid=77483183>105 References:
<http://apps.isiknowledge.com/CitedRefList.do?product=WOS&search_mode=CitedRefList&SID=1A2NKmLJc29M9@G5LK2&db_id=WOS&parentQid=1&parentDoc=2&recid=77483183>15 <http://javascript:void();>
Citation Map
Abstract: Background. Efficient, undistorted communication of
the results of medical research is important to physicians,
the scientific community, and the public. Information that
first appears in the scientific literature is frequently
retransmitted in the popular press. Does popular coverage of
medical research in turn amplify the effects of that research
on the scientific community?
Methods. To test the hypothesis that researchers are more likely
to cite papers that have been publicized in the popular press, we
compared the number of references in the Science Citation Index to
articles in the New England Journal of Medicine that were covered by
The New York Times with the number of references to similar articles
that were not covered by the Times. We also performed the comparison
during a three-month period when the Times was on strike but
continued to prepare an "edition of record" that was not
distributed; doing so enabled us to address the possibility
that coverage in the Times was simply a marker of the most
important articles, which would therefore be cited more
frequently, even without coverage in the popular press.
Results. Articles in the Journal that were covered by the Times
received a disproportionate number of scientific citations in each
of the 10 years after the Journal articles appeared. The
effect was strongest in the first year after publication, when
Journal articles publicized by the Times received 72.8 percent
more scientific citations than control articles. This effect
was not present for articles published during the strike;
articles covered by the Times during this period were no more
likely to be cited than those not covered. Conclusions.
Coverage of medical research in the popular press amplifies
the transmission of medical information from the scientific
literature to the research community.
The PDF for this article was sent to me by Barbara Gastel. If you
don't have access to the full text let me know. I presume you can
access the list of 100 plus citing papers. If not let me know. Best
wishes. Gene Garfield
From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
[mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] On Behalf Of David Wojick
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2009 6:28 AM
To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] Perils of Press-Release Journalism: NSF and
Chronicle of Higher Education
Thanks Christina, I will follow up on these leads.
However, what I am looking for is something more global, analogous to
citation analysis but in two steps. First, on the supply side, which
research is being reported and spreading, throughout the news system?
This is akin to publication. Second, who in the scientific community
is reading about which research? This is analogous to citation. This
writing-reading transaction system is much harder to track than
citations, but it might be just as important, if not more so. In fact
how to track it is the biggest research challenge. The write-read
news system is bigger, faster, more turbulent and much less tangible,
especially the reading part.
Plus there is the significant difference that in the news system many
publications are about topics rather than specific results. The
negative impact of biofuel production for example. Yet this too is
the spread of scientific ideas among scientists.
My conjecture is that the news system is far more important than
scholarly publication when it comes to generating first awareness of
research results and new ideas within the scientific community.
Scholarly publication probably plays an intermediate role, that is it
is something one reads after becoming interested as a result of news,
and before one contacts the author. If so then the role of scholarly
publication may be misunderstood, but this is presently just a guess.
My best regards,
David
David Wojick, Ph.D.
Senoir consultant for innovation
<http://www.osti.gov>http://www.osti.gov
Feb 26, 2009 09:52:56 AM, SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu wrote:
Certainly there has been research on how press releases figure into
the diffusion of scientific information. For example, there have
been bibliometric studies that included press release coverage in a
regression equations regarding citedness. There have also been STS
and public understanding of science (I refuse to use the unpleasant
abbreviation) papers about this in general as well as the particular
case surrounding cold fusion. There are also studies in scholarly
communication that discuss the Ingelfinger rule and the like.
Actually, an editorial in today's Nature is about this issue with
blogs, pre-prints, and press embargos:
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7233/full/4571058a.html>http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7233/full/4571058a.html
Based on conversations with PLOS and Nature editors, it seems likely
that they will both add more information to article pages regarding
web commentary on blogs and other social computing technologies.
Their goal is to provide a more 360 view of article/author impact
than journal article citations do alone.
As far as how to study, I think there have even been some relevant
questions on the GSS as well as smaller surveys,
qualitative/ethnographic studies, critical/historical studies, etc.
I'm not saying it's a done deal, but it certainly has been addressed.
Christina K. Pikas, MLS
R.E. Gibson Library & Information Center
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Voice 240.228.4812 (Washington), 443.778.4812 (Baltimore)
Fax 443.778.5353
From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
[mailto:SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu] On Behalf Of David Wojick
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2009 6:53 AM
To: SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu
Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] Perils of Press-Release Journalism: NSF and
Chronicle of Higher Education
Steve raises an important scientometric issue, quite apart from the
issue of what Evans did or found. This is the role of press releases,
and the news articles they engender, in the diffusion of scientific
infromation. The question is how to observe and measure such
diffusion? The number of information transactions, or A reading about
B's results, via news is several orders of magnitude greater than via
journal articles. I don't think we even know how many orders of
magnitude. Yet this is in some respects the most important mode of
scientific knowledge diffusion.
How this news based diffusion affects the dynamics of science is
likewise unknown. Is anyone studying this formally? I am doing so
informally. The web is providing some new approaches, such a blog
tracking and the occurrence of embedded URLs. The spread of
characteristic language is also a likely avenue. This is much more
like true diffusion analysis than is citation and co-author network
analysis, in that it goes beyond tracking large, discrete
transactions to looking at a vague spreading cloud of information.
Steve also raises the issue of the spread of misinformation via
diffusion of news. This has been studied in the context of general
social thought, especially rumors. It is certainly significant in the
realm of science and public policy, where the Evans case lies. I
study this phenomenon in the climate change debate and in energy
policy. Whether it is important in science per se I do not know. It
is not even clear how one would approach it, but it seems like an
important research topic. Perhaps it should be approached as the
diffusion and dynamics of controversy or disagreement.
Cheers,
David
David Wojick, Ph.D.
<http://www.osti.gov>http://www.osti.gov
Feb 25, 2009 06:40:34 PM, SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu wrote:
my <http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/535-guid.html>critique of
his <http://chronicle.com/news/article/6026/fee-based-journals-get-better-results-study-in-fee-based-journal-reports?commented=1#c033840>Chronicle
of Higher Education posting on Evans and Reimer's
(2009) <http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/323/5917/1025>Science
article (which I
likewise <http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/533-guid.html>critiqued,
though much more mildly), I got an email from Paul Basken asking me
to explain what, if anything he had got wrong, since his posting was
based entirely on
a <http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=114225>press release
from NSF. Sure enough, the silly spin originated from the NSF Press
release (though the buck stops with E & R's vague and somewhat
tendentious description and interpretation of some of their
findings). Here is the NSF Press Release, enhanced with my comments,
for your delectation and verdict:
If you offer something of value to people for free while someone else
charges a hefty sum of money for the same type of product, one would
logically assume that most people would choose the free option.
According to new research in today's edition of the journal Science,
if the product in question is access to scholarly papers and
research, that logic might just be wrong. These findings provide new
insight into the nature of scholarly discourse and the future of
the open source publication movement[sic, emphasis added].
(1) If you offer something valuable for free, people will choose the
free option unless they've already paid for the paid option
(especially if they needed -- and could afford -- it earlier).
(2) Free access after an embargo of a year is not the same
"something" as immediate free access. Its "value" for a potential
user is lower. (That's one of the reasons institutions keep paying
for subscription/license access to journals.)
(3) Hence it is not in the least surprising that immediate
print-on-paper access + (paid) online access (IP + IO) generates more
citations than immediate (paid) print-on-paper access (IP) alone.
(4) Nor is it surprising that immediate (paid) print-on-paper access
+ online access + delayed free online access (IP +IO + DF) generates
more citations than just immediate (paid) print-on-paper + online
access (IO + IP) alone -- even if the free access is provided a year
later than the paid access.
(5) Why on earth would anyone conclude that the fact that the
increase in citations from IP to IP + IO is 12% and the increase in
citations from IP + IO to IP + IO + DF is a further 8% implies
anything whatsoever about people's preference for paid access over
free access? Especially when the free access is not even immediate
(IF) but delayed (DF)?
Most research is published in scientific journals and reviews, and
subscriptions to these outlets have traditionally cost money--in some
cases a great deal of money. Publishers must cover the costs of
producing peer-reviewed publications and in most cases also try to
turn a profit. To access these publications, other scholars and
researchers must either be able to afford subscriptions or work at
institutions that can provide access.
In recent years, as the Internet has helped lower the cost of
publishing, more and more scientists have begun publishing their
research in open source outlets online. Since these publications are
free to anyone with an Internet connection, the belief has been that
more interested readers will find them and potentially cite them.
Earlier studies had postulated that being in an open source format
could more than double the number of times a journal article is used
by other researchers.
What on earth is an "open source outlet"? ("Open source" is a
software matter.) Let's assume what's meant is "open access"; but
then is this referring to (i) publishing in an open access journal,
to (ii) publishing in a subscription journal but also self-archiving
the published article to make it open access, or to (iii)
self-archiving an unpublished paper?
What (many) <http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html>previous
studies had measured (not "postulated") was that (ii) publishing in a
subscription journal (IP + IO) and also self-archiving the published
article to make it Open Access (IP + IO + OA) could more than double
the citations, compared to IP + IO alone.
To test this theory, James A. Evans, an assistant professor of
sociology at the University of Chicago, and Jacob Reimer, a student
of neurobiology also at the University of Chicago, analyzed millions
of articles available online, including those from open source
publications and those that required payment to access.
No, they did nothing of the sort; and no "theory" was tested.
Evans & Reimer (E & R) only analyzed articles from subscription
access journals before and after they became accessible online (to
paid subscribers only) (i.e., IP vs IP + IO) as well as before and
after the online version was made accessible free for all (after a
paid-access-only embargo of up to a year or more: i.e., IP +IO vs IP
+ IO + DF). Their methodology was based on comparing citation counts
for articles within the same journals before and after being made
free online at various intervals.
The results were surprising. On average, when a given publication was
made available online after being in print for a year, being
published in an open source format increased the use of that article
by about 8 percent. When articles are made available online in a
commercial format a year after publication, however, usage increases
by about 12 percent.
In other words, the citation count increase from just (paid) IP to
(paid) IP + IO was 12% and the citation count increase from just
(paid) IP + IO to (paid) IP + IO + DF was 8%. Not in the least
surprising: Making paid-access articles accessible online increases
their citations, and making them free online (even if only after a
delay of a year) increases them still more.
What is surprising is the rather absurd spin that this press release
appears to be trying to put on this unsurprising finding.
"Across the scientific community," Evans said in an interview, "it
turns out that open access does have a positive impact on the
attention that's given to the journal articles, but it's a small
impact."
We already knew that OA increased citations, as
the <http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html>many prior
published studies have shown. Most of those studies, however, were
based on immediate OA (i.e., IF), not embargoed OA. What E & R do
show, interestingly, is that even delaying OA for a year still
increases citations, though not nearly as much as immediate OA (IF).
Yet Evans and Reimer's research also points to one very positive
impact of the open source movement that is sometimes overlooked in
the debate about scholarly publications. Researchers in the
developing world, where research funding and libraries are not as
robust as they are in wealthier countries, were far more likely to
read and cite open source articles.
A large portion of the citation increase from (delayed) OA turns out
to come from Developing Countries
(refuting <http://www.hprints.org/hprints-00328270/en/>Frandsen's
recent report to the contrary). (A similar comparison, within the US,
of citations from the Have-Not Universities (with the smaller journal
subscription budgets) compared to the Harvards may well reveal the
same effect closer to home, though probably at a smaller scale.)
The University of Chicago team concludes that outside the developed
world, the open source movement "widens the global circle of those
who can participate in science and benefit from it."
And it will be interesting to test for the same effect comparing the
Harvards and the Have-Nots in the US -- but a more realistic estimate
might come from looking at immediate OA (IF) rather than just
embargoed OA (DF).
So while some scientists and scholars may chose to pay for scientific
publications even when free publications are available, their
colleagues in other parts of the world may find that going with open
source works is the only choice they have.
It would be interesting to hear the authors of this NSF press release
-- or E & R, for that matter -- explain how this paradoxical
"preference" for paid access over free access was tested during the
access embargo period...
<http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/>Stevan Harnad
<http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html>American
Scientist Open Access Forum
--
"David E. Wojick, Ph.D., PE" <WojickD at osti.gov>
Senior Consultant for Innovation
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
US Department of Energy
http://www.osti.gov/innovation/
391 Flickertail Lane, Star Tannery, VA 22654 USA
http://www.bydesign.com/powervision/resume.html provides my bio and
past client list.
http://www.bydesign.com/powervision/Mathematics_Philosophy_Science/
presents some of my own research on information structure and
dynamics.
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