科學公關稿在知識轉譯中的角色——以國內五所大學為例

科學新聞是大眾離開學校教育之後，接收科學新知的重要來源，而媒體如何報導科學新聞，特別是與健康相關的內容，則容易影響讀者對於科學的想像，甚至影響到讀者的判斷及行為決策。科學家往往責備記者在處理科學新聞時，容易將科學研究成果誇大，進而誤導視聽。然而，近期研究發現，由科研組織所發布的「公關稿」則有可能是導致科學新聞資訊錯誤的其中一個原因。為此，本研究旨在了解科學知識從科學界到大眾是如何被形塑與轉譯，其中包含科學研究類公關稿對於主題的偏好；科學知識從研究發表、公關稿，最後到科學新聞的過程中各是如何被框架，並且比較這些框架的異同。以量化內容分析為主，分析比較學術文章、公關稿和科學新聞共204篇。研究結果顯示公關稿在科學主題的選擇上沒有特別的偏好。公關稿在知識轉譯上扮演關鍵的角色，將學術文章中較為前沿的知識，轉譯為能讓人在生活中初步應用的中游知識，並且相當程度地影響科學新聞報導的內容與觀點，顯示公關稿與科學新聞的高度重疊性。對於台灣長期以來媒體報導品質低落，民眾對媒體信任度不足的情況，公關稿的內容，特別是在關於科學研究方面，透過科學新聞對於公關稿的依賴性，可能可以彌補國內對於科學報導不足之處。未來研究建議可擴大至大學以外的科學公關稿，以及以「科學新聞」為起點進行取樣，分析同一個時間範圍內，不同科研組織所發布的公關稿數量比較分析，或能對於公關或者公關稿在知識轉譯上的角色有更深入的洞見。

關鍵字

公共關係；科學新聞；科學公關稿；知識轉譯；內容分析

並列摘要

Media coverage of science is an important information source for the general public and keeps the public up to the latest scientific knowledge. Science stories in the media, in particular those about health issues, could have impacts on the public’s beliefs and decisions. Scientists sometimes blame journalists for misleading the public with exaggerated or oversimplified scientific results. However, recent studies suggest that press releases from scientific organizations may also shape the media coverage of the same issues. To address this issue, this study aims to understand how scientific knowledge is transferring from scientific community to the public and asks questions such as what kinds of scientific issues will be selected by the public relation department in the scientific organizations and further picked up by journalists, how science is framed in a scientific paper, a press release and media coverage and furthermore, whether and how the framing differ from each other. Quantitative content analysis will be conducted, analyzing and comparing scientific paper, press release, and media coverage in a total of 204 articles. Results show that press releases have no particular preference in the choice of scientific issues. Press releases play a key role in knowledge transferring, transferring the cutting-edge knowledge in scientific paper into knowledge that can be applied in life, and affect the content and opinions of media coverage to a considerable extent, showing media coverage highly overlap with press releases. Regarding long-standing low quality of media coverage and the lack of public trust in the media in Taiwan, the content of press releases, especially on scientific research, may be able to make up for the shortcomings of scientific media coverage through the dependence of science news on press releases. Future research suggestions are scientific press release can be extended to outside the university, and take samples from "media coverage " as a starting point to analyze the number of press releases issued by different scientific research organizations within the same time frame. Perhaps they can have a deeper insight into the role of public relations or press release in knowledge transferring.