Fact-checking in popular science media discourse: types of unreliable information and verification difficulties

For citation: Manskova E.A. Fact-checking in popular science media discourse: types of unreliable information and verification difficulties // Mediascope. 2024. 4. Available at:  https://www.mediascope.ru/2885

© Elizaveta A. Manskova

Associate Professor at the Chair of Theory and Practice of Journalism, Altay State University (Barnaul, Russia), manskova79@gmail.com

Abstract

The trend of popular science enlightenment has led to depreciation of the science popularization principles. Popular science information is used as a tool of media promotion. Sensation and entertainment substitute the requirement of accuracy and reliability in a popular science media discourse. Therefore, increasing fake, factoid and unreliable popular science information actualizes the issue of effective fact check order of such kind of media content. Basing on the structural-semiotic approach and content-analysis method the typology of popular science unreliable information and mistakes is presented in the article. All types of unreliable information are divided into fakes, factoids, distorted data, factual errors, mistakes of personal data, illustrative errors, term mistakes and incomplete data. The author formulates the order of popular science content verification and the marks of unreliable and qualitative information, which includes a clickbait headline, inaccurate use of terms, a simplified language, and the main thing - absence of an author and references to official data of a since research.

Keywords: fact-checking, fake, factoid, popular science information, reliability

Notes

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Amazonka Ukoka «pomenyala» pol [Ukok amazon “changed” sex]. Nauka iz pervykh ruk. 2015. 30 November. Available at: https://scfh.ru/news/amazonka-ukoka-pomenyala-pol-novye-dannye-paleogeneticheskikh-issledovaniy-nositeley-pazyrykskoy-kul/ (In Russian)

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Lindsay J.A., Boghossian P., Pluckrose H. Academic Grievance Studies and the Corruption of Scholarship. Areo. Available at:https://areomagazine.com/2018/10/02/academic-grievance-studies-and-the-corruption-of-scholarship/

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