Science and media: relationship and influence

Science and Media

Public policy in the U.S. is and will hopefully forever remain an evolving body. The concepts that are appropriate today and the policies that surround them may not have been important just a few years ago. With regard to how the media and science impact public policy there is no real question. The question is what role these two social schemas should play in the development of public policy. The influence that science and the media have on public policy should be present, as each entity offers the prospect of real change in public need and even public safety but they should also both be kept at arm's length to some degree with regard to policy influence as each also has the potential to alter public policy in negative ways.

With regard to the media there are several issues at stake, one being which media are we talking about, the popular media that dictates social norms and standards or the so called neutral media that is engaged in informing the public of issues and current events. Both forms of media have the potential to inform public policy and to some degree should do so. Yet, there should also be limits. I can think of examples for both types of media as they have affected public policy and ways that these influences should be limited to some degree. In the case of popular media such as the internet and specifically social media networking the example that comes to mind is the massive expansion of need for public policy to respond to the millions of ways that social media could be used to harm those who participate in it.

Laws, regulations and standards for mitigating totally new crimes like cyber stalking, identity theft and fraud and probably most importantly the potential for social media to impact children negatively through live meetings of unknown individuals who have bad intentions. (Buskirk NP) Buskirk, rightfully points out that with regard to control social media and other forms of popular media are not in a position to completely police themselves and regardless of good intentions sometimes bad things happen and sometimes bad people use their services to commit crime and act in amoral ways. (NP) This is not to say that public policy should necessarily be influenced to act as censors of anything that might not be deemed illegal or potentially harmful, hence there should be a line drawn in the sand regarding censorship or identity or activity monitoring by public entities.

Second the so called neutral media that is charged with informing the public of issues and current events. This form of media has a serious balancing act to uphold as more and more of it seems to be associated with ratings and seeking to expose and illuminate events which are potentially harmful for the development of public policy. One example I can think of is probably one of the worst examples available to date and that is the fact that the "neutral" informative media chooses to disproportionately represent crime and especially violent crime because it is newsworthy. When the public or policy makers view this material, assuming it is from a credible neutral source it can and has in the past created fear and policy change associated with the tough on crime stance. So, even though the U.S. was experiencing a marked drop in real crime, laws and policies were changed in the 1980s and 1990s that created extreme growth in incarceration rates, to such a degree that it is not sustainable in the short or long-term and will have to be addressed as a serious social and economic problem likely for long into the future. (Krajicek 4-5)

A second example from the news media is the marked desire by some within it to inform individuals about issues surrounding the Iraqi war and other international current events. This exposure to the public is paramount to understanding as these events are taking place thousands of miles away from those who might be making important decisions about them. The exposure and especially the free agent exposure from media networks outside the mainstream should both inform the public and influence public policy as a matter of course. Without truly neutral reporting and investigative work of these so called free agent media professionals, working for PBS, Free Speech TV and Link to name a few feel they have a personal and professional responsibility to expose as much reality as they possibly can with regard to how the rest of the world lives and how the U.S. interacts there. Without this influence public policy would be seriously challenged.

With regard to science there is a serious need for science and technology discoveries to influence public policy, as science feeds development and innovation. Public policy should demonstrate a real collaborative approach to aide in controlling scientific ethics as well as the possibility of innovation that might aide the whole of humanity. Science, like many other entities is largely self-regulated by a myriad of networks as well as simply by the scientists themselves and yet there are always cases where science does not do a good enough job policing themselves and needs the introduction of public policy to keep controls on ethical and moral actions in the name of science.

One example I can readily call to mind is stem cell research. Though I myself would take a looser stance than the Bush era law and public policy has with regard to this emerging science the need to help the scientific community put controls on the ethical standards of live tissue sampling is still evident. There should not be a mass generation of life simply to experiment on, any more than there should be allowances for human subjects to endure experiments that are fundamentally harmful to them. (Kaplan NP) Not to enter the debate on either side there is still a very clear sense that public policy should help science answer some difficult and enduring questions regarding stem cell research and especially regarding issues such as cloning and where stem cells can be gleaned from for scientific use.