Comparing public and scientific discourse in the context of innovation systems

- This article considers media as a central actor in innovation systems.
- To contrast developments in science and society, a text mining framework is developed.
- Besides publication numbers, also the content can be compared.
- The results enable an overview on the present state of topics in science and society.

Innovation as a systemic process is not only driven by science and technology but has diverse sources. While there are (numeric) indicators to map S&T developments such as patents, publications or standards, new indicators are required to map other areas of the innovation system. In this regard, one option is the examination of news reporting. News is a recognized channel for innovation diffusion and plays an important role in informing society. To contrast changes and developments in science and society, specifically the link between both is addressed in this article by comparing the content of news articles and scientific publications. Thus, the aim of this article is to first argue the benefit of integrating the media in the innovation system debate because of its recognized role in innovation diffusion and to develop a methodology to automatically compare scientific and media discourses. To process the volume of textual data according to a common analytical scheme, a text mining framework has been developed. The results offer valuable input for examining the present state of themes and technologies and, thereby, support future planning activities.