Media discourse on pseudosciences in general-interest newspaper: an analysis of the main Spanish diaries

Abstract

Pseudosciences or “false sciences” use the media to trasmit their messages to the population and achieve their social insertion. Objective: To determine the informative treatment that media carry out within the pseudoscientific practice and therapies. Methodology: It has been developed a qualitative empirical research based on the examination of the content related to the news that have been published in the four main Spanish newspapers that also counts with the largest Internet audience: El Pais, La Vanguardia, El Mundo and ABC. Results: It is shown that media don’t have any well defined criteria so as to include some of the news which are related to the field of pseudoscience in some sections, prevailing the information as a favourite genre to address this topic due to the influence of the general-interest media, emphasizing the health problems that are consequence of the pseudosciences and the need of their adjustment, mainly. Conclusions: This research shows that when general-interest media address the topic of pseudoscience, they do so especially through pieces of news, except for El Pais, which acquires a stronger editorial commitment through the insertion of editorials. In any case, the published information is clearly committed to being critical toward this type of practices which lack scientific evidence.