Entertainment Media Portrayals and Their Effects on the Public

Chapter 20

Entertainment Media Portrayals and Their Effects on the Public Understanding of Science Downloaded by MONASH UNIV on September 8, 2013 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): September 3, 2013 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2013-1139.ch020

Matthew C. Nisbet*,1 and Anthony Dudo2 1School

of Communication, American University, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW Washington, DC 20016 2Department of Advertising & Public Relations, The University of Texas at Austin, Belo Center for New Media, 300 W. Dean Keeton (A1200), Austin, Texas 78712 *E-mail: [email protected]

For decades members of the scientific community have lamented the state of entertainment media, which they often assume portrays science and scientists negatively and creates public animosity toward science. In this chapter, we review research that provides important context for these longstanding concerns. We first discuss research examining patterns in Hollywood portrayals of scientists and science, which suggest that over the past decade there has been a trend toward ever more positive “hero” portrayals of scientists. We then review research examining the contributions of entertainment media to perceptions of science, highlighting their potential to reinforce beliefs in the promise of science and support for controversial areas of research.

Since as early as the 1970s, many members of the scientific community have criticized entertainment, television, and film portrayals for promoting negative stereotypes about scientists, for featuring improbable or inaccurate scenarios and depictions, and as contributing to a perceived culture of “anti-science.” In this chapter, we review research that offers important insight and context for these longstanding concerns. First, we discuss relevant research analyzing trends and patterns in the portrayal of scientists and science over time and across Hollywood genres. Contrary to the fears of many scientists, this research in fact suggests © 2013 American Chemical Society In Hollywood Chemistry; Nelson, D., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2013.

that over the past decade there has been a trend towards ever more positive “hero” portrayals of scientists. We then review research correlating individual forms of entertainment media use with perceptions of science generally and of specific controversial topics such as biotechnology. As these findings suggest, entertainment TV viewing tends to reinforce belief in the promise of science and support for controversial areas of research, though these effects vary by genre and by the background of the audience member.

Downloaded by MONASH UNIV on September 8, 2013 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): September 3, 2013 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2013-1139.ch020

Science on Screen Previous studies suggest there is no one portrayal of scientists or theme about science that appears consistently across film and television programming. Instead, portrayals are marked by their diversity, with multiple images often appearing within the same film or program. These portrayals have also shifted across decades depending on social or historical context. Moreover, even those presentations or programs conventionally perceived as hostile to perceptions of science, such as The X-Files, offer important opportunities for social learning. Archetypes of Scientists Scholars have identified four main archetypes for scientists as characters. Depictions prior to the 1990s featured some of the most negative archetypes, yet over the past two decades, the most positive archetype—scientist as hero—appears with increasing frequency as a central character both in film and television. This trend suggests that somewhat contrary to scientists’ impressions, their image is not as negatively slanted as they might presume. Yet the trend towards more positive archetypes does not mean that scientists are portrayed realistically. Whether a nerd, a villain, or a hero, each of these archetypes are not reflective of scientists generally as a profession or as citizens. Only in biopics depicting the lives of real-world scientists such as Charles Darwin, Alfred Kinsey, or John Nash is realism likely achieved (1–4). The first archetype is that of Dr. Frankenstein, the sinister scientist who pursues socially irresponsible research only to be doomed by failure and often death. Noteworthy examples in films include Gregory Peck as Dr. Mengele in Boys from Brazil, Marlon Brando as the title character in The Island of Dr. Moreau, and Jeff Goldblum as a scientist ruined by self-experimentation in The Fly. On television, the long-running series Dr. Who provides numerous examples of scientists who fit this archetype, some of which include Professor Richard Lazarus and Davros, the creator of Dr. Who’s nemesis, the Daleks. A second enduring archetype is that of the scientist as a powerless pawn serving industry, the military, or a master evil figure. Examples include Robert Duvall as Dr. Griffin Weir in the cloning film The 6th Day and the scientists in Jurassic Park working under CEO John Hammond’s dinosaur cloning company InGen. The scientist as an eccentric, anti-social geek is the third archetype. This scientist is so personally committed to their research that they forego families, 242 In Hollywood Chemistry; Nelson, D., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2013.


friends, or romantic relationships. Examples include Christopher Lloyd as the Doc character in the Back to the Future series, the teenage boys in John Hughes’ Weird Science who create the perfect woman, or Val Kilmer and his fellow post-docs in Real Genius who work in the lab of a sinister professor seeking to control Star Wars-like anti-missile technology. The fourth archetype, the aforementioned character increasingly portrayed in current entertainment, is that of the scientist in a lead role as the action hero and protagonist. These figures also often serve as the voice and force for ethical decisions and virtue. Examples include Dr. Alan Grant as the main protagonist in the Jurassic Park series, Spock in the new version of Star Trek who takes on leading man and action hero qualities to rival Captain Kirk, Jodie Foster’s character in Contact, Sigourney Weaver’s character in Avatar, Dennis Quaid as the climate scientist hero in The Day After Tomorrow, Chiwetel Ejiofor as the geologist hero in 2012, William Peterson as Gil Grissom in the original CSI television series, Emily Deschanel as Dr. Temperance Brennan in the Bones television series, and Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark in the Iron Man films. Closely linked to this archetype is the increasingly common role of the scientist as a trusted, loyal, and brainy “sidekick,” a character who supports the main hero in a film as a friend or compatriot, and who often does the scientific “digging” and “uncovering” that leads to important revelations or discoveries that advance the cause of the hero. Examples include Leonard Nimoy’s Spock in the original Star Trek series, Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully in The X-Files, Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, inventor and CEO of Wayne Industries in the recent Christopher Nolan directed Batman films, and the supporting casts of crime scientists in the popular television series’ CSI and Bones. There also seems to be an emerging archetype wherein scientists are depicted as ambiguous protagonists. This archetype depicts scientists prominently, but in ways that highlight the multi-dimensionalty of their personalities. Gaius Baltar from the reimagined Battlestar Galactica TV series is an excellent example. Baltar is often depicted as a deeply-troubled, narcissistic scientist who is capable of egregious ethical lapses and destructive behaviors. The Baltar character, however, also frequently demonstrates intense empathy, moral sensitivity, and contempt for his questionable decisions. In this regard, this particular archetype shows scientists as fundamentally human—capable of the good, the bad, and everything in between. Analyzing Images of Scientists Still, despite evidence to the contrary, a belief in a one-sided negative portrayal of scientists persists, and is promoted in recent commentaries and books, usually to reinforce a narrative about an alleged loss of standing for science in society. An example is the chapter discussing entertainment media in Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum’s Unscientific America: How Scientific Uncertainty Threatens Our Future (5). The authors argue that the negative stereotype of a mad, dysfunctional scientist still dominants Hollywood, citing as evidence a quantitative study of portrayals from the mid-1980s by former University of Pennsylvania 243 In Hollywood Chemistry; Nelson, D., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2013.


communication researcher George Gerbner and colleagues (6) and an analysis by Stanley Goldman (1) from the same time period. The Gerbner study showed that in comparison to other occupations, scientists featured in primetime television suffered a higher ratio of negative stereotypes and were more likely to be victims of violence. Yet subsequent research documents a shift towards the positive for the image of scientists over the past two decades. In a 1999 report to the U.S. Department of Commerce, Gerbner and colleagues updated their analysis, concluding that based on data collected during the mid-1990s, "there is no basis to claim that any kind of systematic negative portrayal of scientists exists. Changes have occurred in Hollywood since the time of our initial study, which found scientists to be typically evil, disturbed, sexually dysfunctional villains…this is no longer the case” (7). More recent analysis of TV content confirms this trend. A study of primetime content appearing between 2000 and 2008 replicates Gerbner’s methodology and finds that scientists—in accord with their professional distribution among the general population—remain relatively rare characters in the TV world (just 1% of characters are scientists), but when they are shown, it is almost exclusively in a positive light. Of the scientist characters, 81% were characterized as good with some of the best known examples being Gil Grissom from CSI and Leonard Hofstadter from The Big Bang Theory, 26% as both good and bad such as Dr. Gaius Baltar from Battlestar Galactica, and just 3% as bad which includes examples such as villainous David Robert Jones. Depictions of Science Apart from the image of scientists, a number of historical and critical analyses conclude that science in general is often depicted as mysterious, magical, or dangerous with both positive and negative consequences for society. Depictions tend to break down along two lines. According to the first standard portrayal, scientists lose control of their research or their technology, to the detriment of society; as a consequence scientific achievement and technology are distrusted because of possible unforeseen ramifications. This is the Jurassic Park vision of genetic engineering, and the vision of science offered in The X-Files, the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, in horror movies, and sometimes in comic books turned into movies such as The Incredible Hulk or Spider Man. In the second portrayal, science and technology are shown as truthful, sacred endeavors. This is the Star Trek vision of social progress through science, the CSI vision of science as glamorous crime solving and a force for justice, and the PBS NOVA and An Inconvenient Truth vision of glorified, overly certain science (2, 3, 9–11). Not all scholars, however, view presentations such as those in The X-Files as negative, and instead see these portrayals as valuable complements to programming such as NOVA or Star Trek that might, in the words of the editors at Nature, dogmatically present scientists “as truth’s ultimate custodian” (12). For example, Dhingra observes that The X-Files emphasizes several important realities about science, namely that it is uncertain, sometimes offers few clearly defined answers, and can often be interpreted in multiple ways (13). 244 In Hollywood Chemistry; Nelson, D., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2013.


Audience Perceptions Analyses of how science and scientists are represented in film and television are valuable because they help us understand how these portrayals influence perceptions of science among the public. Entertainment media comprise the dominant source of information for the public about science and are an integral part of the social context by which the public judges and makes decisions relative to debates and controversies. For students and adults, entertainment media also likely pre-shape the impressions, views, knowledge, and orientations that they bring to school-based and informal learning settings such as museums or science centers or to reading about policy-debates or events in the news. Despite concern about this topic within the scientific community, few studies have addressed directly how the image of scientists in film and television impact adult stereotypes about scientists. A study by Losh, however, does provide indirect evidence (14). As entertainment portrayals have shifted since the 1990s from more negative archetypes to more positive hero portrayals, so have the stereotypes held by adult audiences. The study concludes that in comparison to 1985, American adults in 2002 were far less likely to hold negative stereotypes about scientists and were much more likely to believe that a career in science was a desirable choice for their children or for themselves. Though evidence on the direct connection to stereotypes is limited, a series of studies have considered how patterns of television viewing are connected to generalized perceptions of science, either in terms of beliefs relating to reservations about the impact of science on society or belief in the promise of science to improve life and society. Most Americans simultaneously hold both mental models. Depending, for example, on how issues such as stem cell research or nanotechnology are framed in fictionalized programming, in news coverage, by opinion-leaders, and in personal conversations, one or the other model—reservations or promise—can become activated, influencing public evaluations of the issue (3, 8, 15). As discussed in the previous section, these mental models also map closely to the dominant narratives told about science in entertainment, as either a force out-of-control to the detriment of society; or as a glamorous tool for societal improvement and justice.

Viewing Science As Portrayed on TV Studies examining the connection between public beliefs about science and entertainment media use have been conducted using analysis of cross-sectional, nationally representative public opinion surveys. These efforts have been predominately guided by a body of work in the field of communication called cultivation theory. This research approach hypothesizes that heavy viewers of television will be more likely to hold conceptions of the world consistent with what is seen on television than individuals who view television less frequently (16). In these studies, differences in perceptions are looked at across variations in frequency of general entertainment TV viewing along with the viewing of specific TV genres such as science fiction programming. Education, age, gender, values, 245 In Hollywood Chemistry; Nelson, D., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2013.


race, science knowledge, and other background factors are statistically controlled in an attempt to identify the unique relationship between TV viewing and beliefs. During the 1980s, studies done by Gerbner and colleagues (6, 17, 18) represent the first research on the relationship between television viewing and attitudes toward science. This work found that heavy television viewing was associated with more negative views of scientists and new technologies, more willingness to place restrictions on science, a tendency to think science makes life change too fast, an increased anxiety about science, and an erosion of appreciation for the benefits of science. Yet consider that in two recent survey-based studies conducted during the 2000s, heavier viewers of entertainment television held stronger reservations about the impact of science on society but they were also more likely to score higher on belief in science as contributing to societal progress. These findings suggest that the general influence of TV viewing reflects the dual imagery of science in entertainment. Forms of TV use are also linked to public knowledge. Heavier entertainment viewers tend to be less knowledgeable about science, since entertainment use likely displaces other media behaviors such as newspaper reading, online news or blog reading, or documentary TV viewing (3, 8). But not all entertainment programming has been found to have the same effects. Heavier viewers of science fiction programs, tend to be more positive in their views of biomedical research (15), agricultural biotechnology (19), and science more generally (8, 20). These studies demonstrate how exposure to unique genres of televised entertainment programming can cultivate different attitudes toward science. The studies also compel additional explanation and exploration relative to the relationship between entertainment television and science. Nisbet and Goidel, for example, raise two possible factors explaining the direct influence of science fiction television on evaluations of stem cell research and therapeutic cloning (15). First, the science fiction audience is by nature strongly enthusiastic about science, meaning that their viewing habits capture an underlying natural support for science. Repetitive viewing of science fiction simply strengthens this orientation, further cultivating an audience naturally receptive to new innovations in science. Yet as the authors describe, the analysis controlled for generalized views about science, which should account for at least some of this underlying predisposition. A second possible factor suggested by the authors was that by familiarizing themselves with the moral dimensions of human genetic engineering through TV and film portrayals, audiences may assuage some of their reservations about the technology. In part, science fiction TV viewing may in fact desensitize an audiences’ natural “yuck factor,” shielding viewers from the influence of some of the more dramatic claims made by political opponents of stem cell research. Not only do effects tend to differ by entertainment genre, but they also vary by the background of the audience member. In a 2011 survey study, Dudo and colleagues, for example, observe that heavy entertainment TV use among Americans without college science experience is linked to a stronger belief in the promise of science (8). Conversely, heavy entertainment use among Americans with college science experience is linked to stronger reservations about science. The reason for these differences, however, remains unclear. Similarly, when 246 In Hollywood Chemistry; Nelson, D., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2013.

focus groups are used to prompt audiences to think more deliberatively about entertainment portrayals of issues such as genetics, personal experience and social background factors are observed to alter how respondents draw upon these portrayals to arrive at judgments about the social implications of genetics (21). Recent research also has shown that watching religious TV programming contributes to religious individuals’ negative perceptions of science (20).


The CSI Effect Perhaps one of the most widely presumed influences of entertainment is the so-called “CSI effect,” the alleged influence that long running syndicated TV series Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) has on public perceptions about forensic science and its role in jurisprudence. For example, CSI has commonly been associated with increased demand for DNA evidence in the courtroom (22, 23) and with burgeoning enrollment in collegiate forensic science departments (24, 25). In one of the few studies empirically investigating the CSI effect, Brewer and Ley find that overall TV viewing was correlated with stronger belief in the reliability of DNA evidence, greater weight attached to the absence of DNA evidence in a case, and support for a national DNA databank (26). The survey analysis also included an experimental design. In the half of the sample that were presented first with questions asking them to reflect about their media use and then to evaluate a series of DNA questions, this process of thinking about what programs they watch primed respondents to give greater weight to DNA evidence in court cases. In short, for these respondents, when thoughts about TV programming were made more salient, their answers about real-world court decisions were more likely to be in line with TV portrayals of crime solving.

Conclusion Overall, the studies and findings reviewed offer important context for the longstanding concerns voiced by scientists about the image of their profession and work in Hollywood productions. Contrary to the fears of many scientists, this research indicates that over the past decade portrayals of scientists have become more complex. Scientists in 21st century entertainment programming are more frequently imbued with intricate, multi-faceted personalities and are more often being depicted as “hero” protagonists. Furthermore, as these findings reviewed in this chapter suggest, entertainment TV viewing often strengthens beliefs in the promise of science and support for quickly evolving fields like biotechnology or nanotechnology. Overall, this growing body of research does not support commonplace assumptions that entertainment media are hostile toward science. This is not to say that members of the scientific community should not strive to enhance the presence of their profession in Hollywood. Indeed, the Science and Entertainment Exchange, a program created by the National Academy of Sciences, was recently created to help bolster collaborative partnerships between entertainment producers and scientists. We believe that such efforts, however, 247 In Hollywood Chemistry; Nelson, D., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2013.

would be best served to operate from an understanding of the Hollywood-Science relationship that is more sophisticated than the "hostile media" trope and that instead seek to capitalize on some of the encouraging trends reviewed in this chapter.

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Entertainment Media Portrayals and Their Effects on the Public

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