Print Scientific Journalism in Mérida: Content Analysis of the Newspaper “Frontera”

Abstract

Communicating science through the written word promises to be a key element in the necessary understanding, ownership and participation of citizens in scientific and technological reality in which they are increasingly engaged. Being a city Merida Venezuela more scientific, it was considered useful to explore the status of science journalism in print media. The dates for the most traditional newspaper in Mérida, the newspaper Frontera and conducted a content analysis of the journalistic writings on science, humanities and technology, published in 2006. This method allowed to characterize the Science Journalism developed in the press in the city of Merida, in order to improve the communicative and educational practice in the region, in terms of strengths and weaknesses to enhance, correct or implement. Among the strengths, explored the print medium is the increased presence of content inherent in science and technology, also has a successful thematic agenda, when addressing the scientific theme, and frequently with proper grammar. As for the weaknesses reported include aspects such as the absence of a fixed section to present this content, poor medical public unspecialized no fixed terms of area coverage, high incidence of issues related to institutional propaganda, scarce appearance of interpretation and reasoned opinion, structural failures and handling of sources, predominantly in the mishandling of scientific information. Finally, most of the writings do not conform to the communicative situation or have depth in their content.