IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0145294.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Media Coverage, Journal Press Releases and Editorials Associated with Randomized and Observational Studies in High-Impact Medical Journals: A Cohort Study

Author

Listed:
  • Michael T M Wang
  • Mark J Bolland
  • Greg Gamble
  • Andrew Grey

Abstract

Background: Publication of clinical research findings in prominent journals influences health beliefs and medical practice, in part by engendering news coverage. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) should be most influential in guiding clinical practice. We determined whether study design of clinical research published in high-impact journals influences media coverage. Methods and Findings: We compared the incidence and amount of media coverage of RCTs with that of observational studies published in the top 7 medical journals between 1 January 2013 and 31 March 2013. We specifically assessed media coverage of the most rigorous RCTs, those with >1000 participants that reported ‘hard’ outcomes. There was no difference between RCTs and observational studies in coverage by major newspapers or news agencies, or in total number of news stories generated (all P>0.63). Large RCTs reporting ‘hard’ outcomes did not generate more news coverage than small RCTs that reported surrogate outcomes and observational studies (all P>0.32). RCTs were more likely than observational studies to attract a journal editorial (70% vs 46%, P = 0.003), but less likely to be the subject of a journal press release (17% vs 50%, P 0.99), nor were they more likely to be the subject of a journal press release (14% vs 38%, P = 0.14). Conclusions: The design of clinical studies whose results are published in high-impact medical journals is not associated with the likelihood or amount of ensuing news coverage.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael T M Wang & Mark J Bolland & Greg Gamble & Andrew Grey, 2015. "Media Coverage, Journal Press Releases and Editorials Associated with Randomized and Observational Studies in High-Impact Medical Journals: A Cohort Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(12), pages 1-6, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0145294
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0145294
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0145294
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0145294&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0145294?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary Schwitzer & Ganapati Mudur & David Henry & Amanda Wilson & Merrill Goozner & Maria Simbra & Melissa Sweet & Katherine A Baverstock, 2005. "What Are the Roles and Responsibilities of the Media in Disseminating Health Information?," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 2(7), pages 1-1, July.
    2. Amélie Yavchitz & Isabelle Boutron & Aida Bafeta & Ibrahim Marroun & Pierre Charles & Jean Mantz & Philippe Ravaud, 2012. "Misrepresentation of Randomized Controlled Trials in Press Releases and News Coverage: A Cohort Study," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(9), pages 1-11, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:plo:pone00:0196833 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Joseph W Taylor & Marie Long & Elizabeth Ashley & Alex Denning & Beatrice Gout & Kayleigh Hansen & Thomas Huws & Leifa Jennings & Sinead Quinn & Patrick Sarkies & Alex Wojtowicz & Philip M Newton, 2015. "When Medical News Comes from Press Releases—A Case Study of Pancreatic Cancer and Processed Meat," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-13, June.
    2. Fadi El-Jardali & Lama Bou Karroum & Lamya Bawab & Ola Kdouh & Farah El-Sayed & Hala Rachidi & Malak Makki, 2015. "Health Reporting in Print Media in Lebanon: Evidence, Quality and Role in Informing Policymaking," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(8), pages 1-19, August.
    3. Cohen, Scott & Stienmetz, Jason & Hanna, Paul & Humbracht, Michael & Hopkins, Debbie, 2020. "Shadowcasting tourism knowledge through media: Self-driving sex cars?," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    4. Romana Haneef & Clement Lazarus & Philippe Ravaud & Amélie Yavchitz & Isabelle Boutron, 2015. "Interpretation of Results of Studies Evaluating an Intervention Highlighted in Google Health News: A Cross-Sectional Study of News," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(10), pages 1-15, October.
    5. Chloe Patel & Lukasz Walasek & Eleni Karasouli & Caroline Meyer, 2022. "Content and Validity of Claims Made about Food Parenting Practices in United Kingdom Online News Articles," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-16, April.
    6. Ruben Sanchez-Sabate & Esteban Zunino & Yasna Badilla-Briones & Natalia Celedon Celis & Daniel Caro Saldías, 2021. "Chilean Digital Press Coverage of the Relation between Diet and Mental Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-18, February.
    7. repec:plo:pone00:0196833 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. repec:plo:pone00:0085355 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. , Aisdl, 2020. "Let’s Do Better: Public Representations of COVID-19 Science," OSF Preprints 3cpvs, Center for Open Science.
    10. Robert G. Alexander & Stephen L. Macknik & Susana Martinez-Conde, 2022. "What the Neuroscience and Psychology of Magic Reveal about Misinformation," Publications, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-19, September.
    11. Michael T M Wang & Greg Gamble & Mark J Bolland & Andrew Grey, 2014. "Press Releases Issued by Supplements Industry Organisations and Non-Industry Organisations in Response to Publication of Clinical Research Findings: A Case-Control Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(7), pages 1-14, July.
    12. Lutz Peschke & Seyedehshahrzad Seyfafjehi & Irmak Dündar & Yasemin Gümüş Ağca, 2024. "Analyzing Media Content in Turkiye and the UK during the COVID-19 Pandemic Considering the Dimensions of Quadruple Helix Collaboration Processes," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-23, September.
    13. Moritz Edlinger & Finn Buchrieser & Guilherme Wood, 2023. "Presence and consequences of positive words in scientific abstracts," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(12), pages 6633-6657, December.
    14. Luca Iaboli & Luana Caselli & Angelina Filice & Gianpaolo Russi & Eleonora Belletti, 2010. "The Unbearable Lightness of Health Science Reporting: A Week Examining Italian Print Media," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(3), pages 1-6, March.
    15. Marta Serra-Garcia, 2025. "The Attention–Information Tradeoff," CESifo Working Paper Series 11885, CESifo.
    16. Estelle Dumas-Mallet & Andy Smith & Thomas Boraud & François Gonon, 2017. "Poor replication validity of biomedical association studies reported by newspapers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(2), pages 1-15, February.
    17. João A G Moreira & Xiao Han T Zeng & Luís A Nunes Amaral, 2015. "The Distribution of the Asymptotic Number of Citations to Sets of Publications by a Researcher or from an Academic Department Are Consistent with a Discrete Lognormal Model," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(11), pages 1-17, November.
    18. Markus Lehmkuhl & Nikolai Promies, 2020. "Frequency distribution of journalistic attention for scientific studies and scientific sources: An input–output analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-20, November.
    19. Arnaud Vaganay, 2016. "Outcome Reporting Bias in Government-Sponsored Policy Evaluations: A Qualitative Content Analysis of 13 Studies," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(9), pages 1-21, September.
    20. Paula Silva & María P. Portillo & Alfredo Fernández-Quintela, 2022. "Resveratrol and Wine: An Overview of Thirty Years in the Digital News," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-14, November.
    21. Abeysinghe, Sudeepa & Tao, Yu & Kyei-Baffour, Priscilla & Adrion, Emily, 2025. "‘Small benefits and a certain risk’: Media representations of novel treatments for Alzheimer's disease," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 365(C).
    22. Andrew W Brown & David B Allison, 2014. "Using Crowdsourcing to Evaluate Published Scientific Literature: Methods and Example," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(7), pages 1-9, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0145294. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.