Are the media creating the Shrinking Sheep controversy?

This is what some of the scientists we interviewed put forward. Indeed, in the mainstream media (CNN, Huffington Post, New York Times…), there was a tendency among journalists to:

-  Always put photographs of sheep (even if they weren’t Soay sheep, who are not white, but light brown or dark brown)

-  Use puns in their headlines (“Ewe’ve got to be kidding me”, “Baaaaad news” etc)

-  Simplify the findings of the scientists (“pocket-sized sheep”, “global warming shrinks sheep”, “climate change makes sheep shrink”).

This phenomenon was not so prominent on scientific news websites such as Discover Magazine, probably because they have a more rigorous deontology regarding accuracy of scientific facts.

We asked the researchers we interviewed if they thought the findings about Soay sheep had been sensationalized by the media. Overall, they agreed that the research had been trivialized for the sake of vulgarization, turning the scientific results into entertaining scenarios like “pocket-sized sheep”. The team from the National University of Singapore, apparently exasperated by the lack of scientific accuracy, published on their website a reaction to the media frenzy, denouncing “a very biased and inflammatory view from this work” and adding: “No, we will not be producing, distributing, or marketing miniature polar bears!”

However, despite the “exasperation”, some scientists were interviewed and quoted in some of these articles. It is here that we see the tension between scientific accuracy and scientific reputation. It seems that to a certain extent, the former has to be sacrificed for the latter, especially if the information is intended for the general public and not a certain pool of informed readers.

What’s more, without the press to encourage public participation, there would be no controversy and no awareness about this topic. Thanks to journalists, the reduction in size of the Soay sheep in recent year has entered the public debate and touched public opinion.

The role of the media is visible in our web cartography