Communicating information to the public is the most difficult when the scientific evidence is inconclusive. Popular Perception One unchangeable obstacle that scientists and journalists encounter is the fact that an individual's frame of reference will always affect the way the message is perceived. Once the public is aroused, you're dealing with people who are frightened, people who are angry. In part, this is because Americans have a modest level of scientific literacy. Yet the medium of transmission is also to blame.
People have to be smart media consumers.
How the current state of science communication is impacting the American public at large is still in question, mainly because it's difficult to assess. Some insist that the media continues to be too alarmist in its reports with doomsaying accounts on everything from global climate change to skin cancer. Others think science journalism wouldn't be so popular if the public thought it was being continually hoodwinked. The trend in the public has gone completely in the other direction toward a free market in terms of the environment, she says. Yet Begley maintains that overall many journalists still aren't getting it right on the environment.