Social Media and Science/Health Reporting

The social actors, technologies, affordances and business models behind digital media and platforms, such as Facebook, X (previously Twitter), YouTube and Weibo, have changed the practices of science/health reporting. Platformisation offers new opportunities to bring valuable health/science news to audiences with limited access to and low interest in traditional media such as newspapers, magazines and television. In addition, the networked environments where science/health news circulates make it easier, and more likely, for scientists and medical experts to fact-check science and health stories, thus potentially increasing the likelihood that audiences will receive more accurate information. However, digital media innovation and platformisation have also created new pitfalls, given that science/health journalists may find themselves competing with science and health ‘storytellers’ who have far less ability for, or interest in, communicating accurate information.