Denis Dupuy spoke about the differences between the title of non scientific media publications and the real one which appears on the initial publication. He explained that mainstream media often have to simplify scientific research, findings, and conclusions in order to appeal to the public.
Therefore, they have to render these articles attractive and make their content both motivating and simple. This leads to the media making huge leaps or shortcuts that often lead to false statements. The spreading of information often starts with a single article or a single study, of which data that is not always verified. Moreover, there is an article selection where only articles that seem "revolutionary" (even after simplification) are published, which usually discredits science.

Mrs Estelle Dumas-Mallet, talked about “Why most of biomedical discoveries reported by the press are false?”

Arthur Rafié, presented Youtube and its involvement in scientific popularization. In order to understand science, articles have to set solid, scientific foundations, and thus be able to distinguish truth from exaggeration or forged information delivered by the media. These foundations require scientific background acquired through academic courses that everyone does not have. Nowadays, there are alternative ways to college studies in order to develop basis in one or more scientific field.
An example is collaborative online platforms. For example, on YouTube, a platform destined to share videos, anyone can post videos, presentations, and talks on more or less sophisticated subjects. This gives everyone the possibility to access free knowledge in multiple fields. A collective gathering was even created in order to bring together youtubers implicated in science popularization. Of course, this gives way to debates on the positive and negative aspects of these new knowledge platforms and makes us wonder if a limit to information dissemination should exist: what about the veracity of the information provided?

Mr Denis Dupuy, our team advisor introduce the links between science and media

Upon in-depth analysis of which scientific articles are published in some of the main public media references (ex. Nature journal), one notices only preliminary articles appear. These are usually the most “sensational” ones, which can lead to exaggerated and/or imaginary revolutionary perspectives. The works of Estelle Dumas-Mallet’s team shows that articles following a groundbreaking one are often not published, even if it confirms or invalidates the conclusions of the first article. This skews information.
A link is made between the truthfulness and honesty of the content of a press release and the title resulting from the published report in the media. A researcher wanting to attract fame on himself is prone to exaggerate their results and influence their choice of words. These words will later be used by the media, who will exaggerate them as well, resulting in a double distorsion of original findings. The media therefore reflect a statement’s veracity: honest content of the initial article or honest comments will appear as such in a press release. If the content is inaccurate or fake from the start, the media has no way of verifying this information and will spread wrong information. According to Mrs Estelle Mallet-DUMAS, this problem is due to a lack of ethic of communication between journalists and researchers.

Mr Arthur Rafie, head of the association Ca cogite