-Caveat Lector- FROM: http://www.parascope.com/index.htm <A HREF="http://www.parascope.com/index.htm">ParaScope: Something Strange is Happening!</A> ----- The Media & the Supernatural Report on the Council for Media Integrity Conference [ Los Angeles, November 14, 1998 ] by Matt Nisbet and Tom Genoni Reprinted from Skeptical Inquirer Electronic Digest In the Information age, the media has emerged as perhaps the most powerful influence in society. Feeding what seems an insatiable public appetite for news and entertainment, the media in the form of television, film, radio, newspapers, magazines and the World Wide Web reaches billions worldwide. But in the media's fierce competition to win audiences, stories and reports are sometimes oversimplified, exaggerated, or slanted in ways that make it impossible to reliably sort the fact from fiction. For many scientists and skeptics, distortion of facts and information in media portrayals of pseudoscience and the paranormal has reached critical proportions. Too often, mysterious forces almost always eclipse rational explanations, if such explanations are even offered at all. But is there empirical evidence that portrayals of the paranormal really do have an influence on what people believe? Does the media have a responsibility to maintain balanced reporting? Why does the media hype the unexplained while casting science in a negative light? Is there any hope that the situation will change? These are a few of the questions raised at the recent conference "That's Entertainment! Hollywood, the Media and the Supernatural" hosted by CSICOP and the Council for Media Integrity on November 14, 1998. Held at the Renaissance Hotel in Los Angeles, the conference brought together academics and entertainment-industry insiders who in their own ways have sought to understand the driving forces behind the popularity of the paranormal. Insiders Blame the Business Side of Hollywood Author/entertainer and CSICOP fellow Steve Allen began the Saturday conference by speaking out against the loss of cultural standards in the media. The erudite inventor of the Tonight Show charges television and radio with succumbing to vulgarity, a trend he termed the "Howard Stern-ization" of entertainment. The loss of standards, Allen contends, encroaches on media treatment of science. "Why do so many bright people believe so many dumb things?" asked Allen as he stressed that part of the problem rests with Hollywood writers, who may want to produce intelligent stories using science, but lack the basic knowledge to do so. Allen's commentary on the current state of the American media can be found in the November 13 edition of the Wall Street Journal. Providing the twenty-something Hollywood insider view was Justin Gunn, entertainment reporter and former host of the Sci-Fi Channel's The Web. Gunn described himself as one of the few members of his generation who thought it was "hip to be rational" and offered himself as an example that "not everyone into science is a geek." Addressing Hollywood's need to sensationalize, Gunn said that television producers don't aim to give science short-shrift but are simply reacting to perceived viewer demand and response. In Gunn's view, the paranormal is treated uncritically because sensationalized presentations gain high ratings. Drawing on his experience as a former producer with the syndicated tabloid television show Inside Edition, Gunn described the quest for ratings as blurring the line between hard news and entertainment. He traces the genre of tabloid journalism shows like Inside Edition and A Current Affair back to the 1988 Hollywood writer's strike, when producers fell in love with easily packaged storylines and programming that streamlined cost and staff size. With ratings controlling content and few qualified editors available to review reports, the need to generate controversy is tantamount regardless of the actual events or facts of a story. Gunn told of one case where aggressive Inside Edition television promos touting new evidence of Bigfoot were aired before the story had even been written. The evidence never materialized but the sensational story ran anyway. Inside Edition's Bigfoot story may have never gained much interest, but the stomp of sensationalism hit audiences heavy in 1995 when the Fox network aired Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction? The highly rated special featured alleged autopsy footage of a space creature found near Roswell, New Mexico. Although many doubts were quickly raised about the film's authenticity, at least one well-respected Hollywood special effects artist gave the footage some credibility. Intrigued and moved to defend the reputation of his profession, Trey Stokes, a special effects artist and skeptic with a comedic flair, described to the delight of the CSICOP conference attendees how he quickly set up a web site to address the countless flaws and inconsistencies in the footage. Among several features on the site, Stokes polled the opinion of fellow effects artists on the authenticity of the footage. (He has yet to find any that support the alien body as genuine). Not surprisingly, Stokes reported that similar alien autopsy videos have since popped up in Canada, Europe and Argentina, bringing the total of "alien autopsy" films to eight. (A few were produced specifically to demonstrate special effects techniques and one even featured an "alien" available in The Sharper Image catalog.) His article "How to Make An Alien for Autopsy" appears in the January/February 1996 issue of Skeptical Inquirer. Many may remember Peter Bonerz from his role as Jerry on the television series The Bob Newhart Show, but few probably know of his successful behind-the-scenes career as a television director whose credits include Friends, Murphy Brown, and Home Improvement. Throughout his conference presentation, Bonerz reflected on his experiences as a skeptic in Hollywood, and how his often cynical take on the changing paranormal fads of Southern California were not always appreciated. (As proof Bonerz cited the under-the-table kicks to his shins he often received from his wife while at dinner parties.) Bonerz described his first hand experience with the desire among producers to favor mystery over science. A few years ago, Bonerz met with a studio executive to pitch his idea for a movie involving con-artists and a UFO. But when the executive learned that the story involved a UFO landing that turned out to be a hoax, the idea was promptly turned down. Researchers Link Media to Scientific Illiteracy and Paranormal Belief Moving from entertainment industry members to scientists, Jere Lipps, Professor of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley, delivered a passionate indictment of the media for promotion of scientific illiteracy and superstition. An articulate and outspoken scientist who scuba dives off Antarctica and works with NASA on their exobiology project, Lipps cited National Research Council statistics that described 98% of Americans as scientifically illiterate. He condemned the media as a major cause. "You can tell when there is too much sex, too much violence on television, but can you tell when there is bad science? No. How could we, most of us are scientifically illiterate in the field. Television is allowed to run rampant over science." Though the media may lurk at the root of scientific illiteracy, Lipps also described the media as central to reinvigorating interest in science. Film and television chooses to ignore the beauty and excitement of science and scientists, turning a blind eye to a wealth of viable subject matters that Lipps described as "creative, inspiring, thrilling, intriguing, and fun." Similar to the success and influence of NBC's ER, Lipps believes that a drama with scientists as central characters, if properly conceived, could be just as dynamic, successful and entertaining while inspiring generations of Americans. Lipps contributes a chapter on the relation between the media and scientific illiteracy in the just released Evolution: Facts and Fallacies, edited by J.W. Schopf (Academic Press, 1998.) For an example of the potential for positive media images of science, visit the world famous and immensely popular UC-Berkeley paleontology web site at http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu. A network drama featuring scientists may be a great way to turn audiences on to science, but television and film, dating back to Frankenstein, has portrayed science and scientists as inhibiting progress, deranged and villainous. William Evans, Communications Professor at Georgia State University, studies the treatment of science in popular entertainment media and the effect on public understanding of science. Using video clips and slides to present his own research and that of others, Evans described positive portrayals of scientists as rare. He noted that with content analysis revealing scientists to be the occupational group in dramas most likely to kill or be killed, the men and women in lab coats have the most dangerous job on prime-time entertainment television. He also discussed other studies of film and television which reveal that scientists are usually depicted as physically peculiar, socially incompetent, neglectful of family and friends and unable to initiate or maintain romantic relationships. And according to Evans, science is not only portrayed as dangerous but as useless in solving problems. Skeptics and scientists are depicted as stubborn, dogmatic, or idiotic and only after they are "removed" from the action can the paranormal danger be eliminated. But more importantly, according to Evans, these negative presentations of science do appear to affect viewer opinions. For instance, he cited one study which found that habitual television viewers are more likely than infrequent viewers to believe that science is dangerous, that scientists are odd and peculiar people, and that a career in science is undesirable. Evans summarizes many of his findings in the Jan/Feb 1996 issue of Skeptical Inquirer. Visit his web site at http://www2.gsu.edu/~jouwee/evans.html. Ironically, most complaints from skeptics regarding the media's uncritical treatment of the paranormal and science are based on subjective opinion and anecdotal evidence. However, research presented at the conference by Purdue University Communications Professor Glenn Sparks offers preliminary empirical evidence that media portrayals of the paranormal can influence public belief. Sparks, who plans an upcoming book on the topic, began his research in graduate school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he studied children's reactions to frightening television shows and recognized the common theme of a "paranormal world" in many of the programs. As Sparks described at the conference, prompted in part by articles and mailings from Skeptical Inquirer condemning the media as the main culprit in the rise in public infatuation with the paranormal, he decided to conduct a literature search on the topic. To Sparks' surprise, he discovered that there had been no published studies on the link between the media and paranormal belief. Intrigued, he conducted a content analysis of three weeks of network programming and discovered that over 50% of television shows from network television mentioned paranormal themes at least once. Drawing on the notion in psychology of the "availability heuristic", that people will draw on information most readily available in their heads, Sparks surmised that increases in uncritical media depictions of the paranormal might lead to increases in paranormal belief. Over several studies, Sparks has conducted research to test the assumptions about how the "paranormal world" in television and print media can influence beliefs. In one study, Sparks edited an episode of 48 Hours so that one group of subjects would watch a one-sided report while a second group would watch a more balanced presentation. As expected, subjects viewing the pro-UFO version reported higher beliefs in UFOs while their counterparts reported a decrease. But Sparks was quick to point out that the results of these studies are sometimes counter-intuitive. For instance, in an experiment involving the use of disclaimers, Sparks found that belief decreased when viewers were told what they were watching was fiction, and increased when no disclaimer was shown. However, belief also decreased when viewers were told "the following story of paranormal activity is based on reported incidents." The presence of any type of disclaimer before a program may trigger a more critical reception from audiences. Although Sparks found other surprising results and cautioned that most were still tentative, he concluded that "media depictions of paranormal events do seem to influence the ways in which people think about paranormal claims." Sparks has published his research in the Journal of Communication, the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Communication Reports, Communication Research and Communication Quarterly. Summaries of his research can be found in articles he has published in the Summer 1994 and July/August 1998 issues of Skeptical Inquirer. Bringing Good Science to the Media Hollywood insiders Allen, Gunn, Stokes and Bonerz recommended writing letters of protest to publication editors and news producers when bad science or paranormal hype appears in the media. However, they hedged their advice with a dose of realism, commenting that industry profit motive may be little swayed by viewer outrage. Scientist Jere Lipps suggested several proactive approaches. He urged scientists to contact television reviewers or offer to write television reviews themselves, issue statements about bad science, provide science stories to television news and newspapers, petition the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences to institute a "Best Science" category, and for scientists to lecture and discuss with teachers the need for sound media presentations of science. Most of all, Lipps would like to see a television drama that features the work and lives of scientists. Several projects are in the works. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has spent $2 million on a program to encourage more thoughtful science programming, with $25,000 going to NYPD Blue producer David Milch to initiate a pilot episode based on a scientist-centered drama. The American Association for the Advancement of Science, lead by Nobel laureate and CSICOP fellow Leon Lederman, has been pitching the television networks on a drama series for the past several years. Communications Professor William Evans advocated a "strategic framing" of the science and media question into that of a consumer angle. He suggested that viewers watchdog the media for "bad" science. He also promoted the idea of "positive sensationalism" of science at every opportunity. Fellow Communications researcher Glenn Sparks emphasized that further research and publicity surrounding the link between media depictions and paranormal belief is necessary. He also highlighted the lack of research conducted on paranormal beliefs among children. Sparks described children's beliefs as less certain and thus more vulnerable to media promotion of the paranormal and bad science. As a beginning point on this topic, he recommended the recently published book Mommy, I'm Scared by Joanne Cantor. The Los Angeles conference is just a small part of the Council for Media Integrity's efforts to proactively work for balanced presentations of science in the media. This summer the Council launched a web site at http://www.csicop.org/cmi that compiles a schedule of upcoming programming, provides addresses and links for viewer response, archives reviews of past shows, and maintains a database of "media watchdogs" ready to respond to media claims via e-mail. The Council for Media Integrity has also started the Media Stock Fund, an effort to buy shares in large media conglomerates in order to have a voice at shareholder meetings. CSICOP and the Council continue to respond to the latest media claims with press releases, op-eds and news advisories. And recently, in an effort to reach out to universities, where students may be society's greatest consumers of media portrayals of the paranormal, CSICOP helps sponsor student skeptic groups and offers a lecture series that brings skeptic speakers to campuses. But the greatest challenge and the greatest opportunity rests with establishing television programming that features scientists and scientific exploration of the paranormal and pseudoscience. CSICOP continues to have ongoing discussions with entertainment industry producers, and promising results may soon be in the future. Stay tuned. Matt Nisbet is Public Relations Director for CSICOP and Coordinator for the Council for Media Integrity. Tom Genoni is CSICOP West Coast Bureau Chief. Originally published in Skeptical Inquirer Electronic Digest, the e-mail news update of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). For free Digest subscriptions, go to: http://www.csicop.org/list/index.html#subscribe. Enigma: Paranormal Phenomena The ParaStore: Paranormal Books Paranormal message board: Share your views ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. 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