Media, mass

In March 1989, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons reported their discovery of cold nuclear fusion. They announced that during electrolysis of a solution of hthium hydroxide in heavy water (DjO) with a cathode made of massive palladium, nuclear transformations of deuterium at room temperature can be recorded. This announcement, which promised humankind a new and readily available energy source, was seized upon immediately by the mass media in many countries. Over the following years, research was undertaken worldwide on an unprecedented scale in an effort to verify this finding. 

In communicating information about a food scare, there is recent evidence that the media might be more influential than one-on-one interactions. Empirical research conducted in April 1998 indicated that mass media had a negative impact on consumer risk perceptions, health concerns, and attitude and behavior toward meat. Compared to alarming reports of the press, personal communication (through butchers for meat products, for example) had only a small effect on consumer decision making (Verbeke et al., 1999). 

Where do scientists get more reliable data In principle, there are several possible sources the scientific literature is the most common source (76.67%) of POPs information followed by conferences (56.67%) and the Internet (43.33%). Mass media, such as magazines, newspapers, TV and radio were cited by only 30% of respondents as a source of information. 

Perlman, D., Science and the Mass Media, Daedalus, 1974, Summer, 207. 

Although details of the biochemistry of energy transformation have been established for over 50 years, it is only recently that this knowledge has been applied to key life processes in health and disease. This has been driven by several factors appreciation of the importance of provision of chemical energy (i.e. food) for patients, in hospital, provision of chemical energy for physical activity of all kinds and the need to balance energy intake and expenditure for prevention and treatment of obesity. In discussions of the last point, even the mass media refer to the first law of thermodynamics. 

In recent years, the performances of women in long-distance rnnning events have engendered more interest from spectators and the mass media than those of men. It is interesting to note, however, that it is only relatively recently that women have been allowed to participate in rnnning events, as Nina Kuscik relates. 

The bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, which is a major cause of infection in the developed countries, is now resistant to most antibiotics. It is usually present on the skin, where it causes no problems, but it can invade the body through cuts and wounds, including those caused by surgery. These bacteria are now prevalent in many hospitals, so that infection is a major problem for the medical staff in hospitals. The resistant bacterium is known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). It is also known in the mass media as the super bug . Penicillin kiUs bacteria because the P-lactam group in the antibiotic inhibits a reaction that is essential for bacterial ceU wall production. Consequently, the bacteria cannot proliferate. Resistance to penicillin in many bacteria is due to production of an enzyme, p-lactamase, that degrades P-lactams. The antibiotic methicillin is one of a group of semisynthetic penicillins in which the P-lactam group is not... 

Similarly, hospitals were not able to advertise their involvement into clinical studies. There are detailed regulations as to what hospitals can advertise, and they were amended in April 2001 so that the hospitals can recruit patients by means of mass media. 

Vidanapathirana J, Abramson MI, Forbes A, Fairley C. Mass media interventions for promoting HIV testing. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2005. 

Analyzes a 1995 survey on attimdes toward gun control with respect to respondents media consumption. Concludes that most of the public s knowledge about crime comes from the mass media (particularly television news and crime dramas). Viewers are more likely to oppose gun control and support the defensive use of guns. 

National Institute for Health Care Management Eoundation (2000) Prescription drugs and mass media advertising. New York Times, September 20, 2000. 

The physical evidence testifying to such mass psychic impoverishment is ubiquitous in the postmodernist mass media. Since the 1980s, advertising... 

Perhaps even more to the point is that the principal alternative to nuclear power is coal burning, which causes hundreds oftimes as many deaths owing to its air pollution alone in generating the same amount of electricity.11 Every time a coal-burning plant is built instead of a nuclear plant, about one thousan d extra innocent people are condemned to an early death, and this estimate applies even if the nuclear risks are those proposed by the antinuclear UCS. All the calculations leading to the above conclusions were published in prestigious scientific journals and never criticized in other published scientific papers (or elsewhere as far as I know). But none of this material was ever transmitted to the public by the mass media. Likewise it was never explained to the public that radiation doses from nuclear power are very much smaller than doses from natural radioactivity to which everyone is exposed (and which varies substantially with geography), and very much smaller than doses from medical X rays. 

The mass media simultaneously point at the wonders of psychedelic experience and view them with alarm. Psycholo-... 

---