Science content and social contextWilliam Evans and Susanna Hornig PriestContent analysts have made substantial progress in moving beyond the framework in whichscience new is assessed pn’marily in terms ofaccuracy and adequacy. but content-analyticstudies of science news remain under-theorized and too narrowly focused. We recommendthat content analysts (I) broaden their scope of inquiry to accommodate the great diversityof outlets and audiences for science news, and (2) oRer more explicit and rigoroustheoretical accounts of content-analytic data. To facilitate this latter recommendation, wesuggest that content analysts borrow as needed from recent work in linguistics and rhetoricand reaffirm and rearticulate the connection between content analytic research and socialtheory. In addition, we discuss the need for content analysts to develop theories capable ofdocumenting and understanding science news in the emerging era of electronic media.