Knowledge, Reservations, or Promise by Nisbet - Article Example

The second hypothesis states that viewing television is on average negatively associated with knowledge of science, which might reduce the reservations against the same. Thus in order to prove these hypotheses and answer the associated research questions, the data have been adopted from the 1999 NSB Science and Engineering Indicators Survey in order to generate the media effects model. Findings reveal that the effects of media, like newspapers, general television, science magazines, and science television all had a comparatively smaller impact on reservations against science and technology than frequent viewing of television.

The study finally reflects that while certain television programs are merely meant for entertainment, others related to science programs might have a positive impact on the understanding of the same. However among the television viewers the popularity of science fiction, paranormal mystery programs are much more than the real scientific knowledge.The article is helpful as a research paper in more than one respect. First, it helps in establishing the theories and some of the already established results.

Secondly, during the primary survey, the people were asked open-ended queries about the science magazines they read. Many responses related to art and literature or sports. The sample was shortened based upon the name of the magazines. Therefore, it is a good tool adopted for the accuracy of the sample selection because this will automatically eliminate the people who hardly are aware of the parameters to categorize magazines in terms of science and technology. This will automatically eliminate the external impact of people who have an extremely poor understanding of science by itself and mainly those who are not familiar with scientific content.

Thirdly the media effects model incorporates the demographic influences on the relation between the use of media and scientific understanding and appropriately employs a statistical method for the same apart from the qualitative approach. However, there are certain points on the basis of which the article might be criticized. First, the secondary data usage by default questions the recency and relevance of the dataset. The data pertains to 1999 and secondly, the method employed in collecting the data might also be questioned.

The process of random dialing and talking over the phone to unknown participants might itself lead to bias especially when people might have reservations about revealing one’s age and might give vague answers to the close-ended questions. Thirdly the questions asked to test scientific understanding were too basic in nature and not enough to test the negative impact of media on their understanding. They mainly related to basic understanding and someone might have it despite the fact that they hold certain reservations developed from watching televisions frequently.

The article, despite all, does a fairly good job of explaining the influence of media and also the role of demographic factors in understanding science. Policy implications will not help. One needs to accept the fact that certain content is merely for entertainment purpose and for real knowledge one should rely on education.