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While different forms of media permeate daily life, several organizations and badociations have published public statements about the various effects of media exposure. However, a scientific journal suggests that many of these statements do not faithfully reflect the available scientific evidence, offering overly simplistic or one-sided accounts of scientific research. The results are published in Progress in methods and practices in the psychological sciences, a review of the Association for Psychological Science.
"Although there are certainly some very good media policy statements, many of them were not very accurate and when there were inaccuracies, they tended to go into the meaning of conclusions that were generally more frightening than the actual data allowed. ", explains Christopher J. Ferguson, a psychology researcher at Stetson University, who co-wrote the paper with other media researchers. There is no presumption of bad faith, but it appears that many professional organizations are struggling to develop policy statements that effectively communicate the complicated, disorderly and nuanced nature of many fields of media impact. "
Ferguson and his coauthors are all experienced researchers in some aspects of media effects, although they do not always draw the same conclusions about the impact of different forms of media. They consider the ongoing discussions and debates to be an important part of the scientific process, but they noted that the policy statements of many organizations on the effects of the media did not recognize that such a debate had taken place.
"We were curious about how often this happened and, if that happened often, to indicate directions that could lead to more specific statements in the future," Ferguson said.
With the help of Google Scholar and targeted web searches, the team of researchers has identified policy statements about the effects of media produced by professional rights organizations that represent academics or clinicians in relevant areas (eg, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association). This research resulted in 24 public statements, the oldest of which was published in the early 1990s. Statements covered the impacts of media violence, screen time, badual content, and more "general".
The research team divided into subgroups to evaluate each type of statement, using a standardized section focused on specific characteristics: citation bias, false consistency, lack of clarity of transparency, over generalization, exaggeration , isolation and non-credible sources.
In general, researchers have seen a noticeable increase in the frequency of reporting on media effects over the last 30 years. Most of the 24 statements of principles were formulated by committees of organizations and were produced by specialists with an interest and expertise in the field.
The research team found that the majority of the statements (19 out of 24) showed citation bias, citing evidence to support a specific conclusion without mentioning existing evidence that did not support the conclusion. Similarly, 22 out of 24 statements were characterized by false consistency, implying that the evidence of effects on the media was more consistent than it actually was. And only one statement refers to the existence of various points of view among specialists in this field.
The team concluded that 15 out of 24 statements were over-generalized, applying the results of the media effects to contexts well beyond the scope of the original research. And 19 out of 24 statements made exaggerated claims about the effects of the media, suggesting impacts on public health or society without highlighting the small or insignificant size of the effects seen in many research studies.
Most of the statements did not provide detailed information about the authors of the statement or how they were selected. They also did not indicate how the data that fed the returns was selected.
Ferguson and his colleagues suggest that these findings have important implications for decision makers and parents.
"Since these are" policy statements ", it can be presumed that they define the policy positions that organizations would like to see changed, and policymakers may need to be careful not to not to confuse these positions with a faithful summary of current research, "Ferguson said. "The other group of concern is about parents, because many parents may be unnecessarily worried about the effects of the media when political statements proclaim that evidence is stronger, more consistent, or more applicable to actual behavior than reality." .
Based on their findings, the research team developed a checklist of best practices that, if followed, would significantly improve the accuracy and quality of these policy statements:
- -Recognize non-confirming data
-Focus on the magnitude of the effects
– Recognize the limitations of research methods
-Solicitly balanced
-Avoid secondary sources
-Differentiate scientific statements of advocacy statements
-Reduce fewer declarations
-Be attentive to unintentional damage
-Priorize and encourage open science practices
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