Hype in the Public Communication of Science-Intensive Entrepreneurship: An Analysis of the Spanish Radio Show ‘Los Revolucionarios’

Abstract

This paper investigates the phenomenon of hype in the public communication of science-intensive entrepreneurship. It analyses 70 episodes of the Spanish radio show ‘Los Revolucionarios’, encompassing the two complete seasons of emissions (2022–2024). It conducts a content analysis that aims to determine the main features of the companies whose technologies are showcased in ‘Los Revolucionarios’, to elucidate whether ‘Los Revolucionarios’ conveys a hyped representation of science-intensive entrepreneurship, and, finally, to disclose whether nationalist ideologies may underpin the content of the show. The main conclusion is that science-intensive entrepreneurship has been greatly ‘hyped’ in ‘Los Revolucionarios’. The primary indicator in this respect is that the frequency of mentions to benefits or advantages of the technologies showcased trebles the number of references to risks, threats or limitations. Results from other analytic categories lend further support to this conclusion. In turn, the analysis refutes our preliminary hypothesis that there might be a nationalist component underpinning the content of ‘Los Revolucionarios’, thus nuancing and qualifying the findings made in previous studies. The ultimate aim of this paper is to lay the groundwork for more theoretically and empirically oriented research that addresses the public communication of science and technology from a critical perspective.

Keywords

hype science-intensive entrepreneurship political economy of science commodification of science public communication of science science communication

Introduction

‘Hype’ is considered one of the most significant (and, perhaps, concerning) features of the contemporary public communication of science and technology (e.g. Caulfield and Condit, 2012; Davies, 2021; Gregory, 2016; Intemann, 2022; Marcinkowski and Kohring, 2014; Weingart, 2017). Hype occurs whenever overly optimistic and possibly unwarranted or unqualified claims about the benefits of a given technology, scientific development or line of research, are presented to the public (Intemann, 2022; Weingart, 2017). While instances of hype have been found across several scientific and technological domains, it tends to occur more frequently in ‘emergent’ fields of scientific research with an important component of knowledge commodification or commercialisation, such as biotechnology, nanotechnology or precision medicine (Caulfield and Condit, 2012; Marcon et al., 2018).

Whereas it remains to be elucidated whether hype in the public communication of science – and its potentially unfulfilled promises – actually has a negative effect on the public perceptions of science (Rinaldi, 2012), we can nevertheless surmise that it may have important repercussions going beyond the public attitude towards science itself. For instance, an overly optimistic, unbalanced and acritical representation of scientific and technological innovations could serve as an ideological justification for research policy-makers to push for more innovation while disregarding potential detrimental effects (see Coad et al., 2021). Hype might also be a relevant mechanism in the creation and reinforcement of the ‘common sense’ surrounding the commodification of science and academic research that previous studies have identified (Holloway, 2015; Lave et al., 2010). Finally, and more broadly, insofar as hype presupposes that technology and technological change are regarded as inherently beneficial, hyped science communication might serve to convey ideologically powered narratives that contribute to what Harvey (2003) dubs ‘fetishism of technology’, namely, the idea that all problems can and do have their corresponding technological fix.

Hype in the public communication of science has already received significant attention by academic researchers, yet it is often acknowledged that more studies along these lines are needed (Weingart, 2017). The works of Marcon et al. (2018) and Caulfield and Condit (2012) perfectly exemplify the type of empirically oriented approaches to that phenomenon. Other works have been of a more theoretical nature (Intemann, 2022; Marcinkowski and Kohring, 2014; Roberson, 2020; Weingart, 2017). This latter body of scholarship has been particularly preoccupied with elucidating whether hype is a ‘natural’ occurrence or can be better characterised as by-product of the current configuration of knowledge production in science and academia (see Caulfield and Condit, 2012; Rinaldi, 2012; Roberson, 2020; Weingart, 2017). Despite the valuable insights that all these works offer, none provides a comprehensive account of the public representations of one of the most outstanding manifestations of the current regime of knowledge production, namely, science-intensive entrepreneurship.

Science-intensive entrepreneurship, understood as the proliferation of start-up companies that conduct research and/or apply scientific findings to the production of new technologies or services reliant on technology, provides a vantage point for investigating the phenomenon of hype in science communication, since science-intensive start-up companies are at once: (1) the ultimate expression of the commodification of science and academic research (see De Oliveira, 2013; Kauppinen, 2014; Lave et al., 2010); (2) a particular form of entrepreneurship which involves the application and economic utilisation of scientific knowledge; and, finally, (3) for policy-makers (and some researchers as well, see Holloway, 2015), the most important ‘social institution’ through which knowledge flows into society and the latter can be benefitted from the outcomes of scientific research. Therefore, it is worth analysing whether, and to what extent, hype occurs in public representations of science and technology devoted to science-intensive entrepreneurship. This paper aims to shed light on this particular question. Our analysis is situated within a broader research programme that problematises science communication as a social practice, and which is particularly concerned with uncovering the ideological constructs – or ideologically powered motifs, concepts or world views – that are conveyed through the public communication of science (see Arboledas-Lérida and Vázquez-Lilán, 2024).

To investigate the element of hype that may be underpinning public representations of science-based entrepreneurship, this article focuses on the section ‘Los Revolucionarios’ [‘The Revolutionaries’] that features weekly on the radio show ‘La Ventana’. This programme is produced by the leading Spanish radio broadcaster, La Ser. ‘Los Revolucionarios’ is a unique occurrence in the European media landscape, for it is one of the few spaces in mainstream radio, television or print media entirely dedicated to science-intensive entrepreneurship. ‘Los Revolucionarios’ also benefits from the massive audience of the programme ‘La Ventana’, which is the country’s top afternoon radio magazine due to its daily audience of up to 1.1M listeners, according to the latest audience survey.¹ That means that the public reach of ‘Los Revolucionarios’ is significant, and that the public representations of science-intensive entrepreneurship conveyed by the show could be shaping public opinions about the nexus between scientific production, technological development and entrepreneurship in Spain – with potential influence on public discussion concerning these matters. As far as the author can tell, this is the very first time that media representations of science-intensive entrepreneurship are subject to systematic analysis.

The remainder of the paper is structured as follows: Section ‘Conceptual framework’ outlines the main theoretical framework that informs this paper and justifies the approach adopted; Section ‘Methodology’ provides a more detailed characterisation of the case study (i.e. the show ‘Los Revolucionarios’) and describes the methodology; Section ‘Results’ presents and discusses the results of the analysis. Finally, Section ‘Conclusion’ summarises the main findings and concludes by conceptualising potential impacts of the ‘hyped’ representations of science-intensive entrepreneurship beyond the public communication of science proper.

Conceptual Framework

Disentangling the ‘Common Sense’ Around the Commodification of Science

In recent years, scholars from Science & Technology Studies have increasingly called attention to the importance that conceptions, ideas, beliefs and general states of opinion within the contemporary political economy of science and technology (e.g. Birch and Tyfield, 2013; Lave et al., 2010; Tyfield, 2012).² More specifically, Lave et al. (2010) have pointed out that society’s tacit acceptance of, or acquiescence towards, the current scenario of knowledge commodification is not ‘natural’ in any sense of the term. Rather, it is something that has been constructed or manufactured. Thus, the authors call on scholars to ‘crack open’ or unpack, as it were, how – and by whom – the ‘common sense’ surrounding the commodification of science and academic research writ large has been produced and sustained. Along the same lines, Holloway (2015) has argued that there is an ideological component inextricably linked to the policies propelling the commodification of knowledge production and from which such policies derive their ‘ideological permanence’.

This paper contends that the public communication of science and technology is one of those instances that researchers must look at when probing the beliefs that have been created in relation to the dynamics of knowledge commodification, and how such ideological constructs have been propagated to, and internalised by ample layers of the public. We also suggest that hype, or hyped representations of science and technology, is an important mechanism through which these ideological motifs permeate social consciousness and public debates concerning research policy, possibly shaping the priorities embedded in technology and technological change as well.

Unfortunately, there is a paucity of research that specifically addresses how ‘hype’ in the public communication of science may contribute to configuring a social milieu favourable to knowledge commodification and science-intensive entrepreneurship. At the theoretical level, there has been some unsystematic and conceptually underdeveloped work exploring the connection between hype in science communication, on one hand, and the commodification and commercialisation of science and academic research, on the other hand (Caulfield and Condit, 2012; Marcinkowski and Kohring, 2014; Marcon et al., 2018). The only empirical studies relevant to this research question are those of Sapir (2020) and Sapir and Oliver (2017). Both studies address the case study of Copaxone, a drug developed by the Weizmann Institute of Science and often showcased in the institute’s communications as a landmark achievement in terms of the commercialisation of academic knowledge. The latter have been pioneering works, but they also suffer from a few shortcomings. Apart from focusing on a single case study, possibly their greatest limitation is that the theoretical frameworks mobilised (‘organisational myths’ and ‘narrative sense-making’) inevitably blunt their critical edge. Elsewhere, it has been demonstrated that their findings (particularly, Sapir and Oliver, 2017) can be better understood through the lenses of propaganda theory (see Arboledas-Lérida and Vázquez-Liñán, 2024).

From the foregoing it can be concluded that, in order to advance our understanding about the phenomenon of hype, we must deploy a conceptually sound critical framework that approaches it as a mechanism for the social legitimation of the commodification of science and academic research.

Hype in the Scientific Literature

To recall the definition of ‘hype’ in the public communication of science given above, it can be understood as overstated or unwarranted claims about the promises, advantages or potentials of certain fields of research or technological solutions that are conveyed through various means, including mainstream media. There is a lively discussion about ‘hype’ in science communication studies and cognate fields. It has raised a few interesting theoretical and methodological issues. To render a better account of the approach to hype adopted in this paper, we should briefly delve into them.

The most important discussion revolves around whether hype is a ‘natural’ occurrence, namely, something flowing necessarily from the very nature of the scientific endeavour (as claimed in Rinaldi, 2012; Roberson, 2020), or represents, instead, an outgrowth of the current politico-economic configuration of knowledge production (e.g. Bauer, 2008; Caulfield and Condit, 2012; Gregory, 2016; Marcinkowski and Kohring, 2014). While we cannot dwell on this interesting debate – which is by no means settled yet, it must be clarified that our analysis sides with the latter interpretation of hype, namely, hype as an historically determined phenomenon and inextricably connected to the commodification of science and academic research. It is on these bases that the paper proceeds to problematise the public communication of science-intensive entrepreneurship.

At the same time, there is an ongoing discussion on the social, political and/or economic function(s) of hype. Some contributors regard hype in a somewhat positive light, as they contend that hype-fuelled expectations can serve as drivers of knowledge production and technological development (see Konrad et al., 2017; McNeil et al., 2017), not least because expectations and hype are deemed to aid in the coordination of the various actors involved in scientific developments, integrating their activities and providing direction (Hedgecoe and Martin, 2008). This idea has more recently been taken up and actualised in the literature on ‘sociotechnical imaginaries’, which are defined as ‘collectively held, institutionally stabilised and publicly performed visions of desirable futures’ that are supportive of advances in science and technology (Jasanoff, 2015: 4). Expectations are considered the building blocks of sociotechnical imaginaries (Rudek, 2022). We cannot engage in any substantial analysis of the theory of sociotechnical imaginaries, and future research should address this question. Suffice it to mention that treating expectations and ‘imaginaries’, fuelled by hype, as engines of technological development and change, represents a fantastic expedient to abstract from the distinctiveness of hype as a social phenomenon and de-problematise it.³

For Intemann (2022), there is a normative component built into the very pretension of demonstrating the presence of hype in science communication. The author argues that this purpose is underpinned by certain (undeclared) assumptions about what science communication should be. Acknowledging that Intemann may in fact have a point, we reject this argument on two grounds: (1) With this charge, the author seems to suggest that the assessment of hype is purely subjective and not guided by the insights gained in analysing the data. In reality, however, what scholars have tried to disclose is the unbridgeable gap between the supposed benefits of a given research field or technology and the inferences that can be drawn on the basis of a realistic assessment of its actual potential (e.g. Caulfield and Condit, 2012). Furthermore, Intemann’s charge (2) may discourage researchers from addressing the issue of ‘hype’ altogether, as they might fear that they will also be accused of ‘bias’ and normatively pre-defined assumptions shaping their studies. Thus, it brings us full circle to the de-problematisation of hype advocated by Roberson (2020) and implicit in the literature on ‘sociotechnical imaginaries’.

A final consideration, again related to Intemann (2022), pertains to methodology. Intemann suggests that comparing the number of benefits and the number of risks about a given technology raised in the media coverage (a well-established procedure; see Weingart, 2017) might not be an accurate proxy for hype. The author’s main contention is that there could be techno-scientific affordances for which ‘risks’ are less probable. This problematic also emerges in our data, given that not all technologies are intended to solve ‘grand challenges’. However, the issue at hand is not so much ‘risk’ per se, but the (unproven) promises regarding ‘technological effects’ more generally. Since every technology may bring about definite societal problems (Coad et al., 2021), hype could also be produced and/or sustained by not addressing them.⁴

‘Hyped’ Entrepreneurship?

Science-intensive entrepreneurship represents an excellent case study for the analysis of hype in science communication because, as mentioned, it arises at the intersection of emerging scientific fields, technological development and entrepreneurship. In other words, the level of hype that often surrounds the public communication of promising scientific areas and technological developments may increase several orders of magnitude when entrepreneurship enters into the picture.

From the extant literature on the public representations of entrepreneurship created and conveyed by the media, we can draw an unambiguous conclusion: entrepreneurship is represented as positive and beneficial almost universally (Laguía and Moriano, 2021; Radu and Redien-Collot, 2008). So much so that audiences have not failed to observe that media content is flooded with favourable stories about entrepreneurship (Cervantes-Zacarés et al., 2022). This should come as no surprise given that the promotion of entrepreneurship has become a key objective for regional, national and supranational political bodies. For instance, in 2007, the European Commission began exploring mechanisms by which the media could foster ‘a more entrepreneurial culture in Europe’ (Laguía and Moriano, 2021). In the absence of more structured and systematic analyses on this question, anecdotal evidence suggests that such efforts have been continued over the years.⁵ Crucially, some scholars have concluded that media campaigns aimed at promoting entrepreneurship can be regarded as part of a broader strategy to break resistances posed by citizens’ ideas concerning entrepreneurship (Radu and Redien-Collot, 2008; see also Cervantes-Zacarés et al., 2022). To propel entrepreneurship, it has sometimes been necessary to resort to unrealistic images of entrepreneurship, overemphasising its positive aspects and associating it to broader, socially desirable goals and values (Cervantes-Zacarés et al., 2022; Radu and Redien-Collot, 2008),⁶ while downplaying or omitting the risks connected to entrepreneurship – including the high likelihood of business failure (Cervantes-Zacarés et al., 2022).

The following conclusions can be drawn from the foregoing discussion: (1) public representations of entrepreneurship are hyped, if by hype we mean the production and dissemination of overly positive constructs about entrepreneurship that, on occasions, resort to deception through omission of relevant information; (2) the media are powerful actors in the production and dissemination of such hyped representations of entrepreneurship; (3) hype is more or less deliberate; and (4) its main objective is to convince people that entrepreneurship is a desirable way of making a living.

The insights developed throughout this section inform our approach to the analysis of the public representations of science-intensive academic entrepreneurship. We move now to present our methodology and to provide a more detailed picture of our research object, ‘Los Revolucionarios’.

Methodology

The Structure of ‘Los Revolucionarios’

‘Los Revolucionarios’ is a weekly show of the afternoon radio programme ‘La Ventana’. Its emissions began at the start of the 2022–2023 season (September 2022) and have continued since then. It is broadcast on Mondays, usually around 4:30 p.m. (GMT/UTC + 2). The show follows an interview format: journalists from ‘La Ventana’ ask questions to the interviewee (the company’s CEO or CTO; always managers, never rank-and-file workers) about the company, its technology and, when relevant, about the interviewee’s personal story. There is also another figure, a ‘facilitator’, who is responsible for selecting the companies featured and who acts as an intermediary during the interviews: he suggests topics, expands or qualifies previous claims, and so forth. Not infrequently, the facilitator engages in hype as much as, or even more than, the interviewees themselves, something which attests to his ambiguous position.⁷ Figure 1 illustrates the typical structure of an interview in ‘Los Revolucionarios’.

Figure 1.

Interview structure of ‘Los Revolucionarios’.

Our analysis includes all the emissions of ‘Los Revolucionarios’ from the beginning of this show (September 2022) to July 2024, spanning two complete seasons. The total number of episodes analysed is n = 70. While the section ‘Los Revolucionarios’ will continue for the time being, the data already collected allow us to draw certain inferences and generalisations about how science-intensive entrepreneurship has been portrayed, and whether such media coverage has veered towards hype. It must be noted that our data corpus is missing four emissions prior to 10 October 2022, because they are unavailable in La Ser’s (the broadcaster) webpage. They have been repeatedly requested by the author through official channels, but La Ser has not responded to such requests.

Elements of Analysis

For the analysis of the content of ‘Los Revolucionarios’, we applied a three-tier coding analysis procedure which combines inductively and deductively generated categories, following a well-established methodological procedure in content analysis (see Neuendorf, 2002). In Annex I, there is a complete list of categories and their variables, with their corresponding definitions. The levels of analysis are as follows:

Level 1, ‘Company’s data’. This level focuses on the characteristics of the companies being featured, including their name, year of establishment, sector, number of employees and the level of maturity of the technology presented. All the information is collected solely on the basis of the information provided during the interview itself, without any additional searches. This coding level serves more than just a descriptive purpose. For instance, the business literature designates as ‘start-up’ companies that are less than 5 years old. As they are in their infancy, so to speak, they also tend to be small in size, with their number of employees serving as a good proxy for company size. Therefore, Level 1 enables us to better understand whether ‘Los Revolucionarios’ is really devoted to science-intensive start-up companies. In turn, it makes a world of difference whether the technology being presented is at a relatively advanced stage of development (e.g. clinical trials; in the process of regulatory approval, etc.) or already on sale, or whether it remains at a much earlier stage, such as conceptualisation, initial prototyping and preclinical trials.

Level 2. ‘Primary indicators of hype’. This level of analysis employs various measures as proxies for hype. It codes for (1) the broader problem to which the company’s technology is connected, and aims to resolve, (2) the number of benefits/advantages and risks/threats/limitations mentioned during the interview in relation to the company’s technology, and (3) the type of benefits/advantages, and risks/threats/limitations, according to the variables defined in Annex I. Complementing the counting of benefits/advantages and risks/threats/limitations with a more in-depth analysis of the types of benefits and risks that have been discussed during the interviews, we can explore how the technologies have been (and not been) framed and assessed.

Level 3. ‘Additional indicators’. Two categories considered at this third level.

One of them codes for the presence or absence of mentions to competing alternatives to the technology being showcased, that is to say, technologies that are similar or equivalent with respect to their purpose, functions and performance, and which may be already available on the market. Mentioning and discussing alternative technologies is important to qualify the alleged novelty or ‘uniqueness’ of the technologies at hand; the absence of such discussion, in turn, can be interpreted as an additional instance of hype, to the extent that the listeners are invited, as it were, to draw unproven inferences about the ‘disruptiveness’ of the company’s technology.

We also coded for the potential existence of a nationalist element at work in the representation of science-intensive entrepreneurship in ‘Los Revolucionarios’. The rationale for including this category derives from two previous studies: in Tyfield (2012), it is shown that, regardless of differences in other respects, the nation-wide strategies towards knowledge commodification and academic entrepreneurship adopted in China and the United States are shaped by considerations of national competitiveness in the global market. Sapir and Oliver (2017), in turn, found a strong element of nationalism underpinning the public image of Copaxone created and conveyed by both the Weizmann Institute of Technology and the media outlets reporting on the drug. We thus aimed to test whether such nationalist element has also informed, to a greater or lesser degree, the public communication of science-intensive entrepreneurship in the radio show ‘Los Revolucionarios’.

The coding process began in February 2024, and continued until the conclusion of the season 2023–2024 (the last emission was broadcast on 8 July 2024). The coding process was conducted directly from the recordings, and utilised an analysis sheet and a codebook (see Annex I). Data were processed using a spreadsheet. To ensure the reliability of the coding process (more specifically, ‘coding stability’, according to Krippendorf (1980), cited in Neuendorf (2002)), all audio archives were played and coded twice.

Results

Level 1, ‘Company’s Data’

In terms of the profile of the companies showcased in ‘Los Revolucionarios’, we find that the majority of them are start-up companies less than 5 years old (42 out of 70, or 60%). However, a sizable number of them are older (28 out of 70, or 40%) and would not qualify as ‘start-up companies’ according to business standards. In addition, there were 11 companies (15.7%) more than 10 years old at the time the radio show was broadcast.

By sector, ‘Medicine, Health, and similar’ companies far outstrip the remaining categories, with 18 out of 70 companies (25%) falling under this category. ‘Agriculture/Food production/Farming, and similar’ account for nine companies (12.8%); whereas ‘Mobility/Transportation/Logistics’ and ‘Lesiure & Sport/Entertainment’ have seven representatives each (10%). They are followed by ‘Education’, with six companies (8.5%); ‘Finance/Insurance/Real estate’, with five companies (7.1%); ‘Utilities/Energy production’, with four (5.7%). Further down the line are ‘Retail’ and ‘Industry/Manufacture’, with three (4.3%) and two companies (2.8%), respectively. Nine companies (12.8%) are in sectors not classifiable under any of the aforementioned categories (see Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Number of science-intensive companies per production sector.

Concerning the degree of maturity of the company’s technology, according to the information provided during the interviews, the majority (n = 44; 62.8%) were already on sale by the time the interview was broadcast. Only a minority were at early stages of development, whether in initial conception, prototyping, or similar (n = 5; 7.1%), or relatively more advanced stages, such as testing, clinical trials or in the process of regulatory approval (n = 8; 11.4%). There is also a sizable group of companies for which their corresponding stage of development cannot be inferred from the information provided throughout the interview (n = 13; 18.5%). We suggest that the latter circumstance creates additional difficulties for the public to understand the validity and accuracy of the claims made regarding the actual or potential benefits of the technologies in question.

In terms of company size by number of employees, the vast majority of companies (58 out of 70, or 82.8%) do not disclose this information during the interviews. Among those that do provide information, most have fewer than 50 employees (n = 8; 11.4%; ‘small-sized enterprise’, according to the Spanish classification); three companies have between 51 and 249 employees (‘medium-sized enterprise’), representing just 4.2% of the total; and only one company have more than 250 employees (‘big company’), that is, 1.4%. Journalists exhibit a high level of selectivity concerning this particular datum – interviewees do not disclose this information unless asked, but there seems not to be any consistent pattern in this behaviour that merits further scrutiny.

From the above analysis, we can conclude that the majority of companies whose technology is presented in ‘Los Revolucionarios’ are, in fact, start-up companies – as proxied by both the year of establishment and the number of employees. There is also a marked emphasis on medicine and health, a circumstance which may reflect a journalistic strategy intended to help listeners realise, as it were, the relevance of the showcased technologies in their daily lives. The same criterion seems also to underlie the selection of companies according to the degree of maturity of their technologies – which also entails that relatively more warranted inferences can be drawn as regards their real or potential impacts.

Level 2, ‘Primary Indicators of Hype’

As mentioned in Section ‘Methodology’, this level of analysis aims to elucidate whether science-intensive entrepreneurship has been hyped in the radio show ‘Los Revolucionarios’. To elucidate this aspect, the analysis considers not only the raw counting of Benefits/Advantages versus Risks/Threats/Limitations (the standard procedure; see Caulfield and Condit, 2012; Weingart, 2017), but also the type of Benefits/Advantages and Risks/Threats/Limitations, according to the variables shown in Annex I. In addition, we consider how the ‘Technical report’ (see Figure 1, above) frames the technology.

Beginning with this latter aspect, we investigated the wording choices made in the catch-phrase included in the ‘Technical report’. By so doing, we found that 14% of technologies (n = 10) are framed as ‘Solution/Cure’; 10% of them (n = 7) mobilises a framework that suggests that the technology comes from, or is oriented towards, the ‘Future/Tomorrow’, for example, as something designed ‘for the 21st century’. Similarly, 7.3% of technologies (n = 5) are couched as ‘Novelty’, implying that they are ‘new’ or ‘never seen before’. In total, 5.8% (n = 4) of catch-phrases do mention the word ‘Innovation’; the same percentage (5.8%, n = 4) refer to the showcased technology as a ‘Disruption/Transformation/Revolution’. Finally, three cases (4.4%) utilise references to the popular culture to help listeners understand what the technology is intended for.

Moving now to ‘Benefits/Advantages’ and ‘Risks/Threats/Limitations’ and their respective weights, we have found that the frequency of these two elements is absolutely disproportionate: there is only one case in which no clear advantage of the technology can be identified from the information given during the interview.⁸ In other words, 69 out of 70 emissions do mention benefits or advantages of the technologies being featured (98.5%). At the same time, 44 out of 70 interviews (62.9%) refer to ‘Risks/Threats/Limitations’, but 26 of them do not (37.1%). The divergence between these two categories stands in starker contrast when we consider the average number of ‘Benefits/Advantages’ and ‘Risks/Threads/Limitations’ that are mentioned per interview. On average, 3.12 benefits or advantages are mentioned per interview (n = 219 mentions in total), while only one risk, threat or limitation per interview is addressed (n = 70 mentions in total).⁹ That is to say, benefits or advantages of the technologies presented are mentioned three times more often than their risks, threats or limitations.

It is possible to delve further into the presence of hype in ‘Los Revolucionarios’ by examining the type of ‘Benefits/Advantages’ and ‘Risks/Threats/Limitations’ that are considered in each particular case. Figure 3 presents the percentages for the frequency of different types of ‘Benefits/Advantages’, and Figure 4 reports the results corresponding to ‘Risks/Threats/Limitations’. Regarding the former, there are 46 benefits or advantages related to ‘economic-related’ matters (21%); 23 arguments concerning ‘environment-related’ benefits or advantages (10.5%); and 65 associated with ‘social/health-related aspects’ (29.7%). ‘Job-related’ benefits or advantages are mentioned only three times (1.3%), suggesting that interviewers and interviewees have tacitly assumed that most technologies have no positive effects on employment and working conditions. There are other 82 benefits or advantages that do not fall into any of the former categories (37.4%). While they have not been coded further, during the coding process we identified that the majority of them are technology-specific benefits. In other words, they are benefits, advantages or improvements that are not directly connected to major societal problems and needs, but simply to the technology’s performance.

Figure 3.

Types of benefits/advantages mentioned in ‘Los Revolucionarios’.

Figure 4.

Type of risks/threats/limitations mentioned in ‘Los Revolucionarios’.

In terms of ‘Risks/Threats/Limitations’ represented in Figure 4, there are references to eight ‘economic-related aspects’ (11.4%); four to ‘environment-related aspects’ (5.7%); 14 to ‘social/health-related aspects’ (20%); and eight to ‘job-related aspects’ (11.4%). In addition, there are 36 risks or threats (51.4%) not classifiable under any of the aforementioned categories. This is significant for the present purposes because it means that the majority of risks, threats or limitations that have been discussed are unrelated to, or have not been considered within the framework of, concerns that are economically, environmentally or socially relevant; or relevant in terms of jobs and employment.

Apart from the low frequency of mentions to risks, threats or limitations across all emissions of ‘Los Revolucionarios’, perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the figures above is the marginal occurrence of discussions concerning ‘job-related’ negative impacts of technology – similar in frequency to ‘economic-related’ risks and only slightly more frequently discussed than ‘environment-related’ ones. No stretch of one’s intellect is required to recognise that a sizable number of technologies featuring in ‘Los Revolucionarios’ are directly intended either to speed-up production processes, with the ensuing increase in labour intensity, or to eliminate job postions altogether. That is to say, these technologies do have an impact in jobs, working conditions and employment. However, interviewers rarely explore such a contentious issue, and interviewees understandably refrain from raising it, lest they receive negative publicity resulting in self-inflicted damage. Even more concerning is the fact that, when ‘job-related’ concerns finally arise, interviewees – sometimes assisted by the facilitator – find it easy to dismiss them. To do so, they often resort to what Steinhoff (2021: 89) has termed in a related context ‘centaur theory’. Setting questions of ‘hybridisation’ and the mixing of humans and machines aside, the kernel of the ‘centaur theory’ is that technology is regarded as a means of ‘augmenting’ or enhancing human skills and capabilities, rather than a method for outright labour displacement.

The foregoing results confirm our preliminary hypothesis that science-intensive entrepreneurship has been hyped in ‘Los Revolucionarios’ – and extensively so. Evidence for this is to be found, above all, in the unbalanced, representation of companies’ technologies, with benefits or advantages far outweighing risks, threats or limitations. The fact that the former treble the latter can be interpreted, as classic approaches do, as a clear indication of hype. It is equally relevant to consider how differently are the broader societal frameworks to which benefits/advantages and risks/threats/limitations are connected. It seems that the underlying purpose is to cast a positive light on the technology – and, by extension, on the company behind it – while minimising or overlooking the potential risks that it could bring about.

Level 3, ‘Other Indicators’

Finally, Level 3 codes for two categories, one of which is only tangentially associated to hype, while the other is not. We refer to the mention of ‘Alternatives’ to the proposed solution in the course of the interview, on one hand; and the presence or absence of a component of ‘Nationalism’ in the public representations of science-intensive entrepreneurship in ‘Los Revolucionarios’, on the other hand.

As mentioned in Section ‘Methodology’, the presence or absence of mentions to alternative technologies that are similar or substantially equivalent to one showcased can be understood in terms of hype, as either reinforcing or qualifying previous claims about the device’s ‘uniqueness’, or ‘disruptive’ and ‘ground-breaking’ nature. Our analysis reveals that 24 out of 70 interviews (34.3%) do refer to ‘alternatives’ to the intended, developed or commercialised solution. In the remaining cases (46 out of 70; 65.7%), no alternatives to the technology showcased are discussed. Logically, given the purpose ‘Los Revolucionarios’ seems to serve, when alternatives are mentioned, they are often downplayed or deemed as inferior to the one being featured – a circumstance which, in turn, reinforces the positive, laudatory and hyped portrayal of science-intensive entrepreneurship in ‘Los Revolucionarios’.¹⁰

In terms of ‘Nationalism’, our analysis draws from Sapir and Oliver (2017), who found that stories reported by the media on the drug Copaxone were couched in terms of ‘national pride’ or ‘national accomplishment’. And we also rely on Tyfield (2012), who demonstrated that strategies favouring knowledge commodification and commercialisation in both China and the United States are underpinned by concerns related to national competitiveness in the global economy. Beyond these general considerations about the connection between science-intensive entrepreneurship – and its public representations – and nationalism, we also hypothesised the presence of nationalist elements in the content of ‘Los Revolucionarios’ due to the political events occurring in Spain in recent years. We mean, above all, the so-called Procés [‘The Process’], or independence movement in Catalonia. Catalonia is an economically rich region located at the Northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, which has its own co-official language, and whose economic activity is primarily oriented towards the Mediterranean and Central Europe rather than to the rest of Spain. The movement for independence in Catalonia has prompted the re-emergence of a distinctly nationalist ideology – with the defence of the ‘unity’ of Spain as its cornerstone – throughout the rest of the country. This idiosyncratic aspect of the Spanish situation further supports our expectation that a nationalist ideology or nationalist elements may underpin the media portrayal of science-intensive entrepreneurship in ‘Los Revolucionarios’.

The results refute our initial hypothesis. Only in 10 cases out of 70 (14.2%) was it possible to identify a discernible nationalist element at work in the interview. In the remaining ones, such a component was totally absent – at least, as far as the topics addressed in the course of the interview are concerned. At least preliminarily, these results evidenced that the nationalist component has not played a prominent role in the radio show. This said, the presence of such nationalist element cannot be totally ruled out: except for a few cases, all companies featuring in ‘Los Revolucionarios’ are based in Spain or led by Spanish citizens. This suggests that the nationalist component may have a greater weight in the earlier stages of the production of the radio show – that is, during the selection of incumbent companies – rather than in the course of the interview itself. It may also be the case that the nationalist component appears somewhat diluted given two additional circumstances: on one hand, a sizable number of companies showcased in ‘Los Revolucionarios’ operate in various international markets and have partners and employees in foreign countries. While this is not, by itself, a check against nationalism, it may nevertheless exert its influence on the discourses articulated by the companies’ CEOs. On the other hand, the broadcaster La Ser had its origins in Catalonia, and it possesses an ample base of operations and audience in that region as well.

Conclusion

The extant literature on ‘hype’ has not paid enough attention to the particular case of ‘science-intensive entrepreneurship’. This is a rather unfortunate occurrence, because the emergence and development of entrepreneurial ventures based on knowledge and technology are among the most conspicuous features of the ongoing process of commodification of science and academic research (De Oliveira, 2013; Kauppinen, 2014; Lave et al., 2010). In other words, science-intensive entrepreneurship is the cornerstone of the contemporary ‘politico-economic’ configurations of knowledge production (Mirowski and Sent, 2008), which are also said to have had a lasting and pervasive influence on the public communication of science (Bauer, 2008; Gregory, 2016; Thorpe and Gregory, 2010; Weingart, 2017).

This paper has filled this gap by examining the media representations of science-intensive entrepreneurship constructed by the radio show ‘Los Revolucionarios’. Given the massive average audience of ‘La Ventana’ (the radio magazine in which the former features on a weekly basis), and the fact that ‘Los Revolucionarios’ is one of the few mainstream media contents entirely dedicated to science-intensive entrepreneurship, this radio show provides an excellent opportunity to test whether science-intensive entrepreneurship is ‘hyped’ and to further advance our theoretical understanding about the occurrence of hype in science communication.

By examining 70 emissions of ‘Los Revolucionarios’ spanning two complete seasons (2022/2023 and 2023/2024) through content analysis, it has been concluded that science-intensive entrepreneurship has been hyped to a large extent in ‘Los Revolucionarios’. The clearest indication of this lies in the ostensible divergence between the number of times that benefits or advantages of technologies are mentioned compared to the frequency of references to risks, threats or limitations, whereby the former trebles the latter. Along these lines, the qualitative difference in the types of Benefits/Advantages, on one hand, and Risks/Threats/Limitations, on the other hand, is also worth considering: benefits and advantages are more closely connected to relevant societal problems (including economic issues, health, climate change and environment) than risks, threats or limitations are. Other elements that also attest the presence of hype in ‘Los Revolucionarios’ are the following: (1) the relatively marginal discussion of alternatives to the technology being showcased, which reinforces the appearance that the latter is, in fact, ‘unique’; and (2) certain word selections in the ‘Technical report’ preceding the interview proper, that couch the technology as ‘disruption’ or ‘revolution’, or ‘innovation’, ‘novelty’ and so forth. In turn, our preliminary hypothesis that the content of ‘Los Revolucionarios’ would be underpinned by a nationalist ideology or nationalist intents has been refuted.

With the conclusion that the media representation of science-intensive entrepreneurship provided in ‘Los Revolucionarios’ has, in fact, engaged in hype, our paper contributes substantial empirical evidence indicating that the presence of hype in the public communication of science and technology is closely connected to the commodification of science and the ensuing politico-economic configurations of knowledge production. Consequently, it can be confidently asserted that ‘Los Revolucionarios’ serves to reproduce and sustain the ‘common sense’ surrounding knowledge commodification and the policy initiatives and directives aiming to bolster it (Lave et al., 2010). For one thing, it cannot be expected that the majority of the public have direct access to the reality of the current politico-economic configurations of academia; thus, their knowledge and experience in these matters are mediated – their views are filtered through the overly positive and laudatory portrayals of science-intensive entrepreneurship found in media content such as ‘Los Revolucionarios’. In this particular sense, the public communication of science-intensive entrepreneurship helps to pre-empt any form of opposition or contestation to policies and initiatives aimed at propelling academic entrepreneurship, university – industry relationships, and similar initiatives favouring the commercialisation of knowledge.

But the ideologically powered motifs conveyed by ‘Los Revolucionarios’ resonate, at least, on two other planes or dimensions of reality. Note that ‘Los Revolucionarios’ is specifically earmarked for science-intensive technological devices that are developed and produced by for-profit companies. This means that the radio show has also an impact on the stylised public representations of entrepreneurship itself. The very title of the show, ‘Revolutionaries’, is a very clear declaration of intent. There exists a school of mainstream economic theory that views entrepreneurs, and industrial capitalists more generally, as ‘revolutionaries’. This perspective has its origins, among others, in Joseph Schumpeter and his theory of ‘creative destruction’. As pointed out by historian of science and technology Nathan Rosenberg (1982), Schumpeter regarded entrepreneurs as ‘distinct heroic figure[s], prepared . . . to venture forth boldly into the unknown’ (p. 106; emphasis added). More importantly, ‘creative destruction’ is the expedient Schumpeter resorted to in his attempt to explain technological change in capitalism within the framework of neoclassical economics and the theory of perfect competition and general equilibrium (Mattick, 1981). Thus, entrepreneurs were for Schumpeter ‘revolutionaries’ who, by ‘ventur[ing] forth boldly into the unknown’ and introducing new technology, disrupted pre-established configurations of equilibrium and moved the economy forward, only to re-establish that equilibrium at a different level of economic performance. Our contention is that there is a great risk that this totally unrealistic and distorting view of capitalist production and entrepreneurship may become even more deeply embedded in social consciousness. That said, more empirical studies are needed to better understand what ideas about entrepreneurship and the business world shape the public representations of science-intensive entrepreneurship.

Our second and final consideration concerning the ideological resonance of ‘Los Revolucionarios’ and their hyped representation of science-intensive entrepreneurship pertains to what has been dubbed the ‘fetishism of technology’ (Harvey, 2003). According to Harvey, ‘fetishism of technology’ can be defined rather straightforwardly as the conception that there is ‘a technological fix to every problem’, thus endowing technology with a power that it simply does not possess. Such a conception of technology as a ‘fix’ recurs in our dataset. There are even extreme cases, such as that of the company Planet Biotech. This is a biotechnological start-up that defines drought as ‘illness’ and claims that it will ‘cure’ that disease through genetic engineering. The idea that technology is inherently good (with far more advantages or benefits than risks, threats or limitations, as demonstrated) and that more technology is both necessary and desirable to solve social problems – these claims are a central component of the ideological constructs propagated by ‘Los Revolucionarios’, so that there are solid grounds to hypothesise that the radio show contributes to reproducing and perpetuating the ‘fetishism of technology’.

However, the ‘fetishism of technology’ has many ramifications and can be probed at a more profound level. After all, it can be considered as a particular instance of what is called the ‘fetishism of capital’ (Murray, 2016) – particularly, when the capitalist social relations of production adopt an ‘objective form’ in the shape of fixed capital. Neither technology nor the science on which it is based, nor the science that technological development makes possible, is neutral. As Marx (1996) stated, machinery (production technology) is ‘a means for producing surplus value’ (p. 374). While there are many, albeit definite, potential configurations that are contained, as it were, within any given technological structure, the profit motive overrides any other consideration and pre-determines both the specific direction(s) of scientific research and the range of its applications (Mattick, 2025). In other words, there is a specific ‘bias’ built into technology and technological development that is directly concerned with profits and the reproduction of the capitalist conditions of production. This is the final twist to our problematisation of hype in the public communication of science-intensive entrepreneurship: Given the immanent, organic nexus between capitalist production and technology just elucidated, can we expect anything from ‘Los Revolucionarios’ other than a passionate and ideology-laden defence of for-profit companies that propose ‘technological fixes’ to all and every social problem?

However the question is pursued, it is self-evident that any critical approach to hype in the public communication of science and technology demands that we sidestep the naïve views that dominate the mainstream literature on science communication studies. The critical sociology of communication recently suggested (Bilić and Allmer, 2024) seems to be an ideal venue where this critical approach to the public communication of science – and science-intensive entrepreneurship within it – can be developed. The author would be glad to see more studies advancing a critical understanding of science communication and the ideologically powered motifs conveyed by media content dedicated to science and technology.

Footnotes

Annex I

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers whose illuminating suggestions and expert guidance contributed to the improvement of this manuscript. All the remaining weaknesses are the author’s sole responsibility.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Luis Arboledas-Lérida

Notes

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