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Short abstract:

A study on the mediatization patterns of visible scientists, based on qualitative interviews with 22 Estonian researchers, illustrates how different communication-related attitudes and media interaction practices lead to functionally distinct ways in which scientists are present in mass media.

Long abstract:

Increasingly, “the demand to communicate with the public has become part of [scientists’] legitimating exercises” (Weingart, 2012). Visibility of scientists is usually perceived positively and efforts are made to support their public communication efforts, e.g., by proving media training.

The impacts of a close relationship with media are evaluated more critically in the theoretical approach known as mediatization. According to this framework, an extensive adaptation with media logic can distort crucial processes within science and alter its basic social function (Franzen, Weingart & Rödder, 2012). While science has been considered resistant to extensive mediatization (Rödder & Schäfer, 2010), institutional changes connected with promotion culture have been noted (Väliverronen, 2021). Therefore, an individual scientist is expected to communicate with the public both by the society and their institution but the adaptations to media logic that are needed to gain and maintain media visibility can potentially alter the core scientific values that guide the researcher.

This paper presents the conclusions of my PhD thesis on mediatization of scientists, exploring how these tensions are being negotiated among publicly visible researchers in Estonia. Based on qualitative interviews with 22 researchers, the paper outlines patterns of adaptations to media logic among individual scientists, suggesting functional niches of media presence.

Those patterns are characterized by different communication-related attitudes and media interaction practices and can explain the variability among researchers’ presence in media. The niches vary in the extent to which they benefit the scientific endeavor, the institutions, the researchers, the journalists or the public.