Mathematics in the Portuguese press: a case study Susana Simões Pereira, FCUP (
[email protected]) José Manuel Pereira Azevedo, Departamento de Sociologia, FLUP António Machiavelo, Departamento de Matemática, FCUP Mathematics is essential to communicate information in various areas of knowledge, accurately and clearly and, as such, its use is also fundamental in the media. However, and despite its recognized need, there is a widespread notion that journalists make a poor use of mathematics. There are only, as far as we can tell, two systematic studies on the use of mathematics in the news and the errors made using it, by Maier (Maier 2000, Maier 2002) and Brand (Brand 2006). There is, therefore, a big lack of information on this subject. So, this study aims to give a contribution at assessing the frequency and misuse of mathematical information in portuguese newspapers. Literature review: The bad use of mathematics in the news is a problem that has been addressed by several authors — Dewdney (Dewdney 1993), Best (Best 2001), Dilnot and Blastland (Blastland and Dilnot 2008), Paulos (Paulos 1990) and Huff (Huff 1993). Among others, Allen Paulos, in his book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper, explores several misuses of maths in the news. The author also defends that even the very structure of a piece of news may promote the occurrence of mathematical errors, and may induce the reader to make false inferences through omission of information. He also stresses the absence of a questioning attitude towards numbers by media professionals, and alerts to the price we will have to pay for this lack of a critical eye with regard to mathematics in society – which is also reinforced by its absence in the news. Thus, Paulos highlights that not only is mathematics not properly used in the news, but also that it should be used in the news. This last point – that it is important to use mathematics in the news – is also highlighted by Victor Cohen and Lewis Cope (2001), in their book News & Numbers, where they analyze frequent examples of poor use of mathematical information in health related news. We should also highlight the contribution of Prabu (1992), who in 1992 carried out a study in which he concluded that the majority of the figures in the news (in the cases under study) distorted the numerical data on which those were based on. Research Design: This study constitutes the first part of a case study which has to do with an analysis of Portuguese weekly and daily newspapers, in order to gauge the frequency with which mathematics is used in the production of
journalistic articles of several genres, and an attempt to characterize the kinds of mathematical misuses that are most common in newspaper articles. This analysis includes newspaper articles of various lengths, and articles in newspaper supplements. The sections of culture, entertainment, ads, obituaries and gastronomy were excluded because it is very unlikely to find mathematical information in these sections. The above mentioned analysis ranged over all the printed editions between January 1, 2013 and March 31, 2013 of the weekly newspapers Expresso and Sol. A content analysis of all the news that included mathematical information was performed for the described period. News were coded regarding the form, content, and mathematical errors identified. The errors were categorized based on the categorization created by Charnley (Charnley 1936) and Berry (Berry 1967). Thus, they were classified into objective errors (technical errors, due to bad use of mathematical concepts) and subjective errors (errors that depend on the interpretation done by the journalist, for example omissions or exaggerated emphasis). In addition to this classification, the errors were also categorized according to the type of mathematical content, under numerical, statistical, graphical and logical errors. An intercoder reliability test was developed in order to validate the coding scheme.1 Results: 1867 news were identified as matching the operational conditions of the study, of which 365 (approximately 20%) contained mathematical information (with a complexity degree not higher than the one required in compulsory education). In fact, only 23% of the total number of the analyzed news in Expresso editions had some kind of mathematical information, whereas only 14% of news in Sol used mathematics. The disparity of this number between the two newspapers is also due to the fact that the newspaper Expresso has a supplement only dedicated to Economy. It was in this section that a greater number of news with mathematical content (174) was found, followed by the International section, with 24 pieces of news. The results show that in 40% of the news with mathematical content (145 news) there were one or more errors: 39% of the Expresso news and 41% of the Sol news. In both cases, the frequency of objective errors is lower than the frequency of subjective errors: 68 objective errors and 72 subjective errors in Expresso; 22 objective errors and 40 subjective errors in Sol. However, although in total number subjective errors are more than objective errors, it is important to notice that when crossing these results with the categorization of errors according to mathematical content, only in statistical
1 Using the Cohen´s kappa coefficient (categories were considered valid only if k> = 0.632).
errors is the number of subjective errors bigger than the number of objective errors. It was further noted that the most frequent errors in the news are numeric. However, analyzing the two newspapers separately, in Sol, statistical errors are the most prevalent, while in Express the most common errors are numerical. Data also allow us to conclude that, in the majority of news with subjective errors or graphical errors, the mathematical content is considered essential to understand of the information presented. Conclusions: Although the results obtained cannot be generalised, due to the nature of the study (a case study), they indicate that there is a scarce use of mathematics as a tool of communication in the news, when compared with the studies performed by Maier (Maier 2000, Maier 2002). This may indicate a lack of confidence of journalists in using mathematical information (Maier 2000). It was also found that the most frequent mathematical errors are subjective. According to Paulos (1995) this may be due to the very structure of a news story, that "obscures" the information, and therefore it may be inherent to the activity of journalism. From this viewpoint, it is not possible to conclude that errors are due to a problem of mathematical literacy of journalists. But, data also indicates that there is a poor use of numbers and graphs, giving raise to quite some objective errors. All of this suggests a lack of an effective use of mathematical knowledge by journalists Referências: Berry, F. C., Jr (1967). "A Study of Accuracy in Local News Stories of Three Dailies." Journalism Quarterly 44: 482-490. Best, J. (2001). Damned Lies and Statistics, University of California Press. Blastland, M. and A. Dilnot (2008). The Tiger That Isn't: Seeing Through a World of Numbers. Londres, Profile Books. Brand, R. (2006). Suckers for Numbers. Rhodes Journalism Review. 26: 26-27. Charnley, M. V. (1936). "Preliminary Notes on a Study of Newspaper Accuracy." Journalism Quarterly 13: 394-401. Cohen, V. and L. Cope (2001). News & Numbers, Iowa State Press. Dewdney, A. K. (1993). 200% of Nothing: An Eye Opening Tour Through the Twists and Turns of Math Abuse and Innumeracy John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Huff, D. (1993). How to Lie with Statistics. Londres, W. W. Norton & Comany. Maier, S. R. (2000). Newsroom numeracy : a case study of journalistic use and misuse of numbers in the news. School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina. Doctor of Philosophy 189. Maier, S. R. (2002). "Numbers in the news: a mathematics audit of a daily newspaper." Journalism Studies 3(4): 507-519. Maier, S. R. (2005). "Accuracy matters: a cross-market assessment of newspaper error and credibility." Journalism Quarterly 82(3): 533-551. Paulos, J. A. (1990). Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences. Nova Iorque, Vintage Books. Paulos, J. A. (1995). A mathematician reads the newspaper. Nova Iorque, Anchor Books. Prabu, D. (1992). "Accuracy of Visual Perception of Quantitative Graphics: An Exploratory Study." Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 69(2): 273-292.
