(1 Oct 2025) Broad public understanding of scientific discoveries has traditionally been shaped by mainstream media coverage. To better understand the process of communicating academic publications to popular media, a team from Harvard University analyzed 1,155 archaeology papers published in one specialist and six general science journals over six years and the resulting media coverage.
The team found that archaeology journal articles with news releases on EurekAlert!, a news release distribution platform operated by the non-profit American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), were about four times more likely to receive media coverage in the 15 U.S. media outlets analyzed for this study, compared to journal articles that did not have a news release on EurekAlert!.
The findings were published on July 2 in Science Advances, part of the Science family of journals published by AAAS. (EurekAlert! and the Science family of journals operate independently within AAAS and the former has no influence on the editorial process of the latter.)
The researchers found that 32% of the studies were reported on by at least one of the 15 major U.S. news sources the team analyzed. While inclusion in EurekAlert! did not guarantee coverage, 158 out of 224, or 70%, of the articles with a press release on EurekAlert! received media coverage, compared to 209 out of 931, or 22%, of papers without press releases on EurekAlert!.
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