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Journalist Fellows' Papers

The image of science in two daily Finnish newspapers

Reuters Institute Fellow's Paper

Liisa Vihmanen, a broadcast journalist from the Finnish state broadcasting company YLE, has written a detailed study of how science is depicted in Finnish newspapers.

The title of her study, ‘The image of science in two daily Finnish newspapers’, has a double meaning. On the one hand, the science pages of two main newspapers in Finland, Helsingin Sanomat (HS) and Aamulehti were examined to show how photographs and graphics are used to capture the readers’ interest. At the same time the social images of science, created in a public space in a daily newspaper, were examined to test the hypothesis that images are used in newspapers to create an image of science and scientific research. Either this building process in newspapers is conscious or unconscious. It affects readers’ minds as to how they see science as an institution and an activity. The paper shows how powerful images can be and how little this power is recognized in society.

As with all Fellows’ research papers, any opinions expressed are those of the author and not of the Institute.