Science in advertising: uses and consumptions in the Italian press

Abstract

Among the social practices that the world of advertising draws upon in order to convey its message, science is used to convince the target audience of the effectiveness of the product it is promoting. The study of the presence and use of science to encourage consumer spending provides information on the public perception of science itself. The present work analyzes these aspects with reference to the Italian press. A quantitative study was carried out on a sample of daily, weekly and monthly publications throughout 2002 and 2003, using a coding frame that enabled the identification of the frequency of scientific messages in advertising, the occurrence of scientific content in the images, the context in which they are set and the type of language used. The results demonstrate that science has a consistent presence in advertising and the image of science that derives from this is a positive one.