Mediating Social Science

The authors give an accessible and authoritative guide to the mass communication process. They examine media production, the nature of media texts, the role of news sources, the general social and political context of mass communication and the ways in which media outputs are assimilated by audiences. The discussions are developed by an examination of the following areas: the interaction between journalists and social scientists; the publicity seeking activities of universities, research institutes and government departments; the attempts of individual social scientists to get noticed; the social policy environment surrounding social scientific research and its dissemination; pressure from funders; and the public understanding of social science in the news.