Angela Cho “Silence of the Bees:” A Study of Scientific Representation in Media Spring 2010 1 “Silence of the Bees”: A Study of Scientific Representation in Media Angela Jean Cho ABSTRACT Misrepresentation of scientific knowledge in the media is common across a range of environmental issues and has caused confusion among the public. The representation of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in print media has been changing since it was first reported in 2004. This is a case study on how the discrepancies in representation of CCD between scientists and media affect public’s perception on environmental issues. I read scientific and media articles using Melvyl and LexisNexis, noting the perceived causes and discrepancies. Although the number of scientific articles about CCD was relatively constant over the past three years, the number of media articles about CCD decreased significantly along with the sense of urgency regarding CCD. As time passed, the scientific articles suggested different varieties of perceived causes of CCD, while the media articles narrowed their focus to the three most commonly perceived causes; pesticide, pathogens, and parasites. CCD continues to be regarded as “uncertain” and a “mystery” in science and media articles, indicating that public awareness of honeybee decline is low as a result of both disagreement among scientists and misrepresentation of scientific knowledge in the media. KEYWORDS Colony Collapse Disorder, public perception, mass media, discrepancies, uncertaintyAngela Cho “Silence of the Bees:” A Study of Scientific Representation in Media Spring 2010 2 INTRODUCTION Misrepresentation of scientific knowledge in the media is common across a range of environmental issues, such as global warming and honeybee decline, and has caused confusion among the public despite increased media attention on environmental issues in recent decades. Since the early 1960s, public awareness and political concern about environmental issues received increased exposure in the media (Hansen, 1991; Dunlap, 1992; Murphy, 2005). Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) was a major catalyst for the emergence of the environmental movement (Hannigan, 2006), sparking debates in editorials, opinion columns, news articles and television broadcasts (Murphy, 2005). In the late 1980s, concerns over the environment grew, as major national news organizations effectively established the importance of global environmental issues in the American culture and politics (Mazur and Lee, 1993). Even though media coverage and awareness increased, a gap in scientific representation between science and the mass media pervades in areas such as exaggerating scientific claims, and confuses the public’s perception on environmental issues (Weingart et al, 2000). The vanishing of honeybees (Apis mellifera), called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), drew considerable media attention (Schacker, 2008) and has become one of the most important environmental concerns today. Initially labeled “bee die offs,” the mysterious disappearance of honeybees has beset beekeepers in the United States since late 2006 (Johnson et al, 2009). According to US Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, “this crisis threatens to wipe out production of crops dependent on bees for pollination,” since migratory beekeeping and commercial pollination are crucial to a full third of all US crops, such as almonds, blueberries, apples, cranberries, peaches, tomatoes, pumpkins, and many other crops, estimated to be worth more than $15 billion (Schacker, 2008). Many articles have quoted Albert Einstein’s prediction that “if bees were to disappear, man would only have a few years to live” to draw attention to the gravity of this phenomenon (Cambray, 2007). Despite increased media attention, there is low public awareness of CCD due in part to misrepresentation of scientific knowledge in the media. Media representation on CCD has been changing since it was first reported in 2004 (Schacker, 2008). The potential causes of CCD range from chemical residue/contamination, pathogens, parasite, stress,Angela Cho “Silence of the Bees:” A Study of Scientific Representation in Media Spring 2010 3 GMO crops, radiation, global warming and more (Kluser and Peduzzi, 2007). By early 2007, Colony Collapse Disorder began to cause a mild hysteria in the media, as media reported cell phones as another possible cause of CCD (Watanabe, 2008). Although this hypothesized cause of CCD was debunked, the public remained confused and many still think that cell phone tower radiation is a potential cause of the decline of honeybee population (Schacker, 2008). In general, the perception and understanding about CCD took divergent discussion among the different groups of scientists and media just as it has been for the changing perceptions of climate change (Weingart et al, 2000). While there are many studies that recognized the misrepresentation of environmental issues in media coverage, such in the case of global warming, there has not been a study on how CCD is represented in the media, that explains why there has not been an improvement in building the awareness of CCD in the public. In this case study, I explore how CCD’s representation in media and scientific journals changed over time. I observed two questions: 1) how have scientists and media explained the causes and impacts of CCD over the last three years? 2) how do the scientific and media representations of CCD differ? By analyzing the discrepancies between the scientific and media representation on CCD and their respective progress, I hope this study will be a useful source for improving the awareness of CCD by narrowing the gap of scientific knowledge between science and media. METHODS I reviewed scientific journals and newspaper articles on CCD, noting: 1) the different perceived causes of CCD, 2) how the focus of these possible causes evolved over time, and 3) what specific impacts are mentioned in both the scientific and media articles. I categorized them by perceived causes, modeling a list found in a literature review published by UNEP (Kluser and Peduzzi, 2007). Scientific representation of CCD I located scientific articles by using Melvyl, the online catalog for the University of California’s library system. I used the keywords “colony collapse disorder” to search for science journals. I noted the main cause of
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