The popular press tends to represent the practice of science using metaphors related to the resolution of mysteries, the exploration of unknown lands, or the decoding of secret languages, according to three researchers in Greece, Vasilia Christidou, an assistant professor of preschool education at the University of Thessaly; Kostas Dimopoulos, a science-education teacher at the University of the Aegean; and Vasilis Koulaidis, the chair of social and educational policy at the University of the Peloponnese.

After studying more than 2,000 articles about science and technology in six Greek newspapers and magazines, the researchers identified 425 metaphors used in the description of a particular breakthrough or discovery. "The vast majority of metaphors," the authors write, depict science and technology "as an activity that 'extends the frontiers of knowledge.'" Other common metaphors relate the natural world and scientific theories to works of art or religious phenomena.

The researchers also found that the authors of articles about technology were only half as likely to employ explanatory metaphors as their counterparts writing about basic science research. Of all the fields studied, space science and astronomy were most often described in metaphorical language

. The news media generally describe the development of science and technology as "a sudden or even a violent process," like an explosion or a revolution, say the authors. That pattern, they conclude, "resonates well with the way the public perceives the state of the relevant knowledge changes."

The article, "Constructing Social Representations of Science and Technology: The Role of Metaphors in the Press and the Popular Scientific Magazines," is available to subscribers or for purchase at http://pus.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/13/4/347

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