La falsa-ciència (pseudociència) als mitjans de comunicació: estudi de les estratègies discursives d'inserció social a la premsa espanyola (2011-2016)
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Pseudoscience is understood as “false science” or “that which pretends to be conceived as
scientific without being so”. As a piece of essential cohesion in a democratic society, the media
have the responsibility to ensure the imperative need to educate and inform the population
with rigor and adherence to true knowledge about social news. Although sometimes this premise
doesn’t correspond to reality, when inserting pseudoscientific content in its media agenda.
The present study aims to identify the social insertion strategies of pseudoscience through
the empirical analysis of the Spanish press coverage between June 2011 and May 2016. The
results obtained show a majority of pieces contrary to pseudoscience, but there is still some
permissiveness on the part of the press. The pseudoscientific discourse is characterized by
using a more emotional and direct language to pass on beliefs as scientific evidence. In order
to improve this situation it is necessary, on behalf of scientists and scientific journalists, to pay
greater attention to the diffusion of solid and robust scientific information that enables the
formation of a critical judgment on pseudoscience. The authors also propose that the term
pseudoscience be replaced by false science, since it would be clearer and would help to capture
the full depth of this concept