Team:NYMU-Taipei/HP/Gold-Media Analysis
Assessment of Transfer Effectiveness of Gene-Tech Related Information
Introduction
In our project IOS-i-GEM, we try to diminish concerns over genetically-engineered entomogenous fungi both from building a plasmid construct, a functional prototype and a pest group size forecasting website. However, several worries arise when comes to the word ‘genetically-engineered’. But why?
Previous iGEM teams provides precious survey outcome about it:
Although 85% of our respondents said that they would support, or strongly support environmental remediation projects and initiatives, the number dropped to 60% when respondents were told that these projects would use genetically modified organisms. ──2014 iGEM York
In 2013 iGEM, BGU_Israel asked the question “In the sources you were exposed to, do you feel that the subject was covered in a positive or negative manner?” in their survey. 48% of their respondents feel positive, 28% of respondents consider neutral, and 14% think it negative.
In 2014, iGEM team Warwick asked” Do you believe Synthetic Biology is a dangerous tool, knowing that potentially dangerous organisms are being dealt with?” in their survey. 30% of respondents say yes, 45% give negative answer.
In investigating their survey design and outcome, we thought the iGEM community are getting a clearer image of how the general public percept gene-tech related information. We, as well as another iGEM team HSiTAIWAN, however, wondered more about how and why these perception is formed? When genetic-engineering related information, or more generally speaking, gene-technology related information is transferred, in what attitude is the story being reported? Does the report contain too much terminology that distant the audience with scientific outcome? Does the information sufficient enough to transfer correct and complete story to public? What about iGEM wiki? Are the stories in iGEM wikis being told in a hard way that can be challenging for science-laymen to realize? This year, we NYMU iGEM, as long as HSiTAIWAN collaboratively investigate into these questions.
Methodology
Data collection, Research approach and Research limit comprise this part.
Data collection
Perform a research like this, we have to decide what is our subject? HSiTAIWAN propose Newspaper first, and we thought that magazine and iGEM wiki can also be included. Thus, we choose 3 types of media as our material.
- Newspaper: We choose the top 3 most frequently read Newspaper in Taiwan. According to report in Newlens(https://www.thenewslens.com/article/20673), Liberty Times Net(自由時報), AppleDaily(蘋果日報) and United Daily News(聯合報) account for 46.6%, 46.6% and 29.3% market share. We go to the Newspaper website, copy and paste the past 6 months gene-tech related news to a file. The item “illustration or infographics” will be include newspaper.
- Magazine: We choose Science American(科學人), Common Health Magazine(康健雜誌), Newton(牛頓) and Business Weekly(商業週刊) as our subjects. Science American and Newton are two prestigious magazines in Taiwan. Common Health Magazine is famous for reporting health-related information. Business Weekly is the second popular magazine in Taiwan.
- iGEM wiki: We choose the best wiki and nominated for best wiki to analysis. We choose the “project description”, “at a glance”, “overview” part to analysis.
Research Approach
In examining the reporting practices, social scientists apply sufficiency and understandability to make the research a qualitative one[1][2].
Sufficiency is the most important part of science communication, no statement can be made without sufficient information, and only by presenting adequate information to the audience is the audience able to make rational decision and choice. On the other hand, article with low sufficiency of information is not what scientists, journalist and those engaged in science communication hope to compose. Science news often focus on latest research, and put less attention on presenting multiple viewpoints[3] which may resulting in impartial reports leading audience astray. In addition, attribution of responsibility is also important for helping the audience recognize and conceive an issue with different aspects, while many correspondents tend to display only one attribution. Though it may give the audience with quick access to an issue, it would help less to build the basis for further science communication. And as additional reading is given, those who are interested can search for more information right away, decreasing the difficulty and time consumption in out reaching. In the part of sufficiency, we would consider if multiple viewpoints and attribution of responsibility are presented and whether additional reading material is offered.
Understandability determines whether or not the encoding information can be decoding, that is, whether is in a form that they can comprehend.[4][5] High understandability allows educated layman and non-experts to access to information and knowledge transferred. Definition and explanation of technical term is strongly recommended by National Cancer Institute[6]. Moreover, since today’s reader is not tomorrow’s reader, we can’t expect the audience of carry-on learning. The assistance of illustration or infographics can enhance the audience’s comprehension of an issue[7]. For Newspaper and Journals in Taiwan, providing alternative language for technical terms can be important. Generic category label, or Schema, helps people activate proper and related structure of information. Offering terminology in more than one language can help people acquainted with different language and different knowledge level to reactivate the right structure and storing place of knowledge[8]. We would consider if terminology explanation, additional assistance and terminological translation are provided in the context.
Besides information sufficiency and understandability, we also want to know in what attitude is the information being transferred to the audience. In the sub-study of the attitude part, we perform consistency test on the analyzer and our instructor who are also a sociologist, Professor Tsai.
Research Limit
There are three main limit to our research:
1. The limit of transfer effectiveness access. Information sufficiency is highly related to the audience needs, thus it is challenging to define and measure whether or not the information presented is sufficient. In addition, in our research, we are not going to do any experiment and survey testing whether the 2 elements we investigating in would really affect the transfer effectiveness. All we could do is cite it from paper. Here are some cases we consider it helpful for iGEMers who are also interested in social research.
(1). In 2015 iGEM Oxford, the problem they want to tackle with is presented as below:
• Antibiotics have negative side effects and their resistance is a growing problem
•
UTIs are the most common hospital-acquired infection and the bacteria that cause them are frequently resistant to antibiotics
•
Antibiotic resistance in UTIs is caused by biofilms
•
Biofilms are currently estimated to be responsible for over 65% of all hospital-acquired infections
•
Current UTI treatments are ineffective and fail to prevent recurrent infections
It could be hard to tell if the sentence “Antibiotic resistance in UTIs is caused by biofilms” be categorized into providing 1 attribution of responsibility, since biofilm cannot be a cause if there is no antibiotic.
(2). We confront another situation in deciding how many attribution of responsibilities are provided, see 2013 igem TU-Munich:
Antibiotics, hormones and various noxious substances threaten environmental health and are not effectively removed by conventional waste water treatment.
They provide three attributions to the issue in a sentence, we finally decided they fulfill the item of providing more than three attribution of responsibility.
In more case, iGEM teams wrote down sentences in a straight-forward, affirmative voice, leaving no room for more consideration and thinking. In other words, though there may be many factors contribute to one phenomenon, for many time we hesitate if we should consider an article as “there is no attribution of responsibility provided” or “There is one attribution of responsibility provided.”
2. The exclusion of school education. In this research, we won’t and are unable to investigate the effectiveness of school education, though it is the most important part of laying down the scientific knowledge basis for our society.
3. The limit to audience. In this research, we assume that the information is transferred and translated to general public with basic knowledge about science, the so-called educated layman. Besides, the target audience of newspaper, journal and iGEM wiki diverse form each other, making the comparison invalid to get important information form analysis.
For iGEMers who are interested in social research, here are some dilemma we encounter:
i. Hard to consider the difficulty of a technical term
A. Gene technology-related term:
Understanding of a term may vary.
Take CRISPR/Cas9 for example, many college students may have heard of it, but to what degree do they know about CRISPR/Cas9? When we consider restriction enzyme as high school level gene technology-related term, some, or to say, many high school students may not actually understand how this protein works. And to know how restriction enzyme works is beyond what undergraduate have to know.
B. Not gene technology-related term:
Take 2013 iGEM Colombia Uniandes wiki for example:
It is widely accepted that exposure to stressors increases secretion of glucocorticoids, cortisol, and corticosterone in a wide variety of gnathostome vertebrates (Stephens, 1980) (Greenberg et al, 1987). Research in animals, have demonstrated that allostatic overload of this hormones and other mediators, resulting from chronic stress, causes atrophy of neurons in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex; brain regions involved in memory, selective attention and executive function; likewise, it causes hypertrophy of neurons in the amygdala, the brain region involved in fear and anxiety as well as aggression (McEwen, 2004).
We say understandability is highly related to difficulty of terminology. In this project, we look into gene tech related terminology which is an important part in accessing the understandability of a team’s wiki. However, when reading the paragraph above, several vocabularies, such as: glucocorticoids, cortisol, corticosterone, gnathostome vertebrates, allostatic overload lead to low understandability in their background.
ii. What is the definition of terminology explanation?
At first, we thought the definition of terminology explanation is clear, meaning an article provides deliberation on a technical term. We found the definition is clear and successfully wade through the field of magazines. But we got stranded when we saw 2013 iGEM SDU-Denmark. SDU-Denmark is so thoughtful that they offer clear information when the mouse hovers a term. As we were astonished at these considerate design, we discovered the information displayed may not be useful for general public:
We may agree at ‘natural rubber’ is helpful to realize the word ‘isoprene chain’. But it doesn’t look so when it comes to other cases. In real work, since this design really offer several useful explanations, we consider it as offering more than 3 terminology explanation.
Result and Discussion
We discover that Newspaper shares the highest negative transfer attitude (10%). When we investigate into the contribution of each field. we found that when it comes to social issue and the field of economics, the negative rate goes to 31% in social issue and 23% in economics, market and industry. It is the technology and development that contribute most to positive rate.
Data Description—Newspaper
Data Description—Magazine
Data description—iGEM wiki
Sufficiency—Points of view provided
iGEM wiki are less likely to make an argument, in comparison to Newspaper and Magazine. We mentioned several situations confronted in assessing iGEM wiki, we discover that iGEM wiki is more likely to state a truth or recite what is in a paper, and then share their ideas.
Sufficiency—Attribution of responsibility
Generally speaking, Magazine demonstrate more attribution of responsibility, the Newspaper often present less than two attributions of responsivity. We discover that it is magazine that is able to investigate into a topic in detail and more carefully, making the article complete. We also discover that iGEM wiki shows little retribution of responsibility, we thought GEM wiki are less likely to make an argument, in comparison to Newspaper and Magazine. We mentioned several situations confronted in assessing iGEM wiki, we discover that iGEM wiki is more likely to state a truth or recite what is in a paper, and then share their ideas.
Sufficiency—Additional reading
We discover that Magazine provide much more additional reading, enabling the audience to search for more interesting information. Newspaper and iGEM wiki both provide little additional reading.
Understandability—Illustration or infographics
We discover that both media perform well in this part.
Understandability—Definition of technical terms
Newspaper provide less definition of technical terms, since most of the gene-related words are easy to understand. As for iGEM wiki and Magazine, more technical terms appeared and they are more likely to come up with definition or explanation,
Understandability—Alternative language for technical terms
In this section, nearly all technical terms are appeared with an alternative language (mostly English). And the rate is quite high
Attitude analysis
In this section, we discover that nearly all iGEM teams are written their description and overview in a neutral tone. Newspaper and magazine perform equally well. It is worth noted that the rate of negative attitude in newspaper is twice the rate in magazine.
Attitude—Newspaper
We discover that Newspaper shares the highest negative transfer attitude (10%). When we investigate into the contribution of each field. we found that when it comes to social issue and the field of economics, the negative rate goes to 31% in social issue and 23% in economics, market and industry. It is the technology and development that contribute most to positive rate.
Reference
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