Science in the Media: A Game of Telephone

By Stephanie Batalis

A group of children sit in a circle, decorated with party hats and giddy from cake and ice cream.  The first child turns to the second and whispers a made-up phrase. The second child giggles, turns, and repeats the message to his neighbor.  By the time the message has been passed all the way around the circle, it’s completely unrecognizable.  The classic telephone game has twisted the original message into nonsense.

Breaking scientific discoveries are distorted through a similar game of telephone.  On the journey from the lab to your Facebook feed, a scientific message is morphed by a series of exaggerations and misunderstandings. 

Although scientific reporting has always been vulnerable to misrepresentation, the COVID-19 pandemic has put this process on a global stage.  Information about the health crisis is time-sensitive, pressuring news outlets to report quickly and often without adequate fact-checking or context.  The world has watched in confusion as single studies have spawned a whole slew of contradictory messages.   

Alison Bernstein from the blog SciMoms calls this phenomenon the “Chain of Exaggeration.”  As information passes through multiple sources, each step “amplifies fear, loses nuance, and loses context.”  

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