To disseminate their respective ideologies think tanks produce vast amounts of publications, including research reports, newsletters, magazines and books. Although the quality of their "research findings" sometimes is of questionably scientific value their "experts" are regularly quoted in the print-media and also appear on television and radio.
Nevertheless, in most cases, when representatives of think tanks are used as experts on a topic, they are introduced as independent scholars, hiding the fact, that they are related to certain ideologies. "When a think tank representative is used as an expert on a topic, often that person's media-framed credibility may be measured by the ideological label attached to them. By failing to politically identify representatives of think tanks, or identify the financial base of think tanks, major media deprive their audiences of an important context for evaluating the opinions offered, implying that think tank "experts" are neutral sources without any ideological predispositions." (Michael Dolny)
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Funded by foundations, corporate donors and individual contributors, think tanks are endowed with the financial and human resources which enable them to systematically influence public opinion, media agenda setting and policy discussion. From time to time, when evidence is not at hand, these institutions produce tailor-made arguments, backing their ideological concepts, with the aim to influence policy making. In some cases this construction of evidence has not only remained in the position of an attempt, but actually led to specific policy reforms.
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