John Oliver Language Analysis

Science communication faces some major representation issues in modern society. One notable controversy, as mentioned by John Oliver, points to fruitless debates shown on television or various social media outlets as the reason people are still having doubts or disagreeing with clear-cut facts. These needless debates are routinely nationally televised to a large, loyal viewership and tend to spur social dialogue. Individuals with no to average science education have a tendency to base arguments off of well-known topics and will mention random information or facts in order to appear sophisticated. Television and social media networks understand that arguing about a topic is much more entertaining and keeps people talking instead of just finding

In the article “They won a Nobel for what? Why good science communication counts” by Elizabeth Bass, she states that “The idea is that when you know something very well it becomes hard to remember what it was like not to know it. You no longer recognize what is amazing or mysterious or funny or confusing about your work.” In other words, most scientists forget how to speak in a way in which everyone understands and can relate. John Oliver also touched on this thought when he spoke about how the public will listen to recognizable faces like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Al Pacino rather than well-educated scientists. Researchers have to stop oversimplifying the science and instead help the viewer understand it in a simpler fashion. The final problem with Science communication that John Oliver explained was how many news outlets send out “Much sexier but pretty misleading titles to be able to sell to the public.” By doing this repeatedly broadcasters cause the public to grow tired of fake studies and will instead ignore the field

Another reason the general public receives subpar facts is because everyone with accesses to the internet can be a “scientist.” Almost anyone including myself can write an article talking about some random fact that I came up with and some people in today’s society will believe it when written professionally enough. To conclude, the social media outlets have made science illiterate in recent years and researchers need to find a way to market the product in a more interesting and unique way. The first model of communication I noticed in the video was the deficit model. In one of the videos, John Oliver showed a clip in which random facts were spat out without any proof to back it up and the viewers would believe it. He was trying to display that most of the society is illiterate when it comes to science. The issue here is not that people are stupid but instead just not that interested in what the science community has to offer. Furthermore, another model of science I found was the contextual