ABSTRACT
The growing social impact of the mass media lends increasing importance to the questions “How are science and scientists represented in the mass media and how are they perceived by the audience?” In accordance with this, the focus of this paper is how science is portrayed to the public (and therefore not a purely media or film studies interest) and which repercussions this portrayal has for science itself. In the broadest sense, the research interest falls under the heading of “Public Understanding of Science” in a critical sense. In the context of the increasing interest in the public understanding of science, it has become largely accepted that the media cultivate and communicate their own special representations and perceptions of the world and reality. The media does not simply translate scientific information but are participants as well as producers of a dialogue about knowledge and have an important function within the public discourse. Not only does this have repercussions for the relationship between science and the media but also for science itself. The media are equal partners in the dialogue with the public and have a significant impact on how the public perceives numerous scientific issues. Most scientific studies on the relationship between science and the media have focused on the “traditional” mass media, that is, television and print media. Here, the research focuses on the portrayal of scientific controversies, the relationship between the media and issue attention, the communication of technological risks and the importance of science journalism in the knowledge society. For some time, however, some sub-disciplines of media studies and sociology of media and of science have increasingly begun asking how scientists are perceived and portrayed in the media.
