A new paper “Fish tales: Combating fake science in popular media” published in the journal Ocean and Coastal Management explores how scientists can correct the spread of misinformation and bad science that is sometimes propagated by the media. The use of social media tools by scientists during 2013/14 pointing out the poor science and factual errors in some of the programs of the 2013 Discovery Shark Week, actually helped caused a reduction in viewer numbers of the event in 2014.

The paper goes on to identify that the effects of the dissemination of pseudoscience can be offset by strategically using what it defines as “key audience builders” to reach out to key influencers and help spread good science.