Un curioso caso de retroalimentación informativa
Benjamín Montesinos
En algunos campos científicos, por ejemplo en medicina, y dada la inmensa cantidad de material científico que se publica a diario, algunos investigadores se enteran del trabajo de sus colegas a través de los medios de comunicación. En un artículo titulado «El Dr. Hwang y el clon que nunca existió» de Vladimir de Semir y Gemma Revuelta publicado en la revista Quark, los autores describen un curioso episodio de retroalimentación entre medios de comunicación y revistas científicas.
En 1991 apareció en el New England Journal of Medicine un interesante estudio acerca del impacto de las noticias que aparecen en los medios de comunicación, referidas a ciencia, sobre los propios científicos.
Con motivo de una huelga en The New York Times, este periódico estuvo tres meses sin salir a la calle. La huelga fue bastante particular, porque los redactores siguieron trabajando como de costumbre, cada sección con su trabajo particular, acudiendo a ruedas de prensa o, en el caso de los encargados de la sección de ciencia, consultando revistas científicas. La única diferencia es que el diario no salía a la calle, aunque el número de cada día quedaba compuesto.
Unos años más tarde, un grupo de investigadores buscó entre esas páginas no publicadas cuáles eran las noticias que se habían basado en artículos de revistas científicas médicas, y siguieron la pista contando cuántas citas habían recibido esos artículos en otros trabajos científicos, es decir, cuál había sido su nivel de impacto dentro de la comunidad científica.
Estos investigadores compararon estos datos con los que se referían a artículos mencionados en el mismo diario pero en un periodo en el que The New York Times había llegado a los lectores con normalidad. En ese caso los científicos habían tenido oportunidad de leer el diario. El resultado fue que los artículos mencionados en The New York Times y que habían salido a la calle fueron más citados por la comunidad científica que los que, siendo mencionados también, no vieron la luz pública debido a la huelga.
La conclusión de todo ello, no es que la sagacidad de The New York Times fuera realmente tan brillante como para seleccionar entre todas las noticias científicas, aquellas que eran más relevantes para una disciplina dada, sino que el propio diario tenía un impacto más que importante sobre lo que los científicos iban a considerar después como relevante.
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