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• Date of publication Oct 01, 2018 Category: Article

  Revisiting public debate on Genetic Modification and Genetically Modified Organisms. Explanations for contemporary Dutch public attitudes

  by Lucien Hanssen , Anne Dijkstra , Susanne Sleenhoff , Lynn Frewer , Jan M. Gutteling

  Genetic Modification (GM) has been a topic of public debates during the 1990s and 2000s. In this paper we explore the relative importance of two hypothesized explanations for these controversies: (i) people's general attitude toward science and technology and (ii) their trust in governance, in GM actors, and in GM regulations, in explaining the Dutch public's Attitude toward GM applications, and in addition to that, the public's GM Information seeking behaviour. This will be conducted through the application of representative survey methodology. The results indicate that Attitudes toward GM applications are best predicted by both the attitude toward science and technology and three trust measures. GM information seeking is predicted by gender and educational level, as well as attitude toward science and technology, trust in organisations and trust in regulations (negative). Overall, psychological variables seem better predictors than demographics. Implications for future research on information seeking behaviour are discussed.

  Volume 17 • Issue 04 • 2018

• Date of publication Sep 12, 2018 Category: Book Review

  Book review: The science communication challenge. Truth and disagreement in democratic knowledge societies

  by Birte Fähnrich

  The Science Communication Challenge by Gitte Meyer, a Danish science communication scholar with a previous career in science journalism, is a collection of essays on the interrelationships among science, society and politics in modern knowledge societies. The book is valuable as it contributes to the important debate on the “whys” (instead of the “hows”) of science communication and its (long term) impact on science and society. However, it does not present explicit solutions to the questions in focus but rather reads as a large patchwork of ideas, theories and concepts which require readers to have at least some basic knowledge.

  Volume 17 • Issue 03 • 2018

• Date of publication Sep 10, 2018 Category: Article

  Structure and development of science communication research: co-citation analysis of a developing field

  by Adrian Rauchfleisch , Mike S. Schäfer

  Since the early 1990s, there has been a considerable increase in the number of scientific studies on science communication, and this increase has been accompanied by a diversification of the research field. This study focuses on one aspect of this development: it analyses how citation network structures within the field have developed over time, and whether science communication research shows signs of becoming a research field or a discipline in its own right. Employing a co-citation analysis of scholarly publications published between 1996 and 2015, it assesses to what extent a coherent communication network exists within science communication research. The results show a field with a diverse internal structure and clear internal changes over time which suggest an increasing emancipation of the field.

  Volume 17 • Issue 03 • 2018

• Date of publication Aug 06, 2018 Category: Article

  Science created by crowds: a case study of science crowdfunding in Japan

  by Yuko Ikkatai , Euan McKay , Hiromi M. Yokoyama

  “Science crowdfunding” is a research funding system in which members of the public make small financial contributions towards a research project via the Internet. We compared the more common research process involving public research funding with science crowdfunding. In the former, academic-peer communities review the research carried out whereas the Crowd Community, an aggregation of backers, carries out this function in the latter. In this paper, we propose that science crowdfunding can be successfully used to generate “crowd-supported science” by means of this Crowd Community.

  Volume 17 • Issue 03 • 2018

• Date of publication Jun 20, 2018 Category: Article

  An inconvenient source? Attributes of science documentaries and their effects on information-related behavioral intentions

  by Sara K. Yeo , Andrew R. Binder , Michael F. Dahlstrom , Dominique Brossard

  We investigate the impact of a science documentary on individuals' intention to engage in information-related behaviors by experimentally testing the effects of source type (scientist, politician, or anonymous source) and communication setting (interview or lecture) using a manipulated clip from the documentary, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. Our results indicate that, compared to anonymous sources, use of authoritative ones result in greater intention to engage in some information-related behaviors. Additionally, our results suggest that increased intentions to engage in exchanging information can be attributed to negative affect induced by the clip featuring a politician. Implications for documentary films and science communication are discussed.

  Volume 17 • Issue 02 • 2018

• Date of publication May 07, 2018 Category: Article

  To know or not to know: uncertainty is the answer. Synthesis of six different science exhibition contexts

  by Helena Thuneberg , Hannu Salmi

  This meta-article aims to explore the role of uncertainty in knowing in informal science learning contexts. Subjects (N=2591) were sixth-graders from four countries. In addition to the correct and incorrect questionnaire alternatives, there was a "don't know" option to choose if uncertain of the answer. The unique path-analysis finding showed that the role of motivation was uniformly positive on correct and negative on uncertainty of answers. In all contexts the number of correct answers increased, incorrect and uncertain answers decreased. Interestingly, although there was no more difference in knowledge pro boys after the intervention, the girls were still more uncertain.

  Volume 17 • Issue 02 • 2018

• Date of publication Apr 17, 2018 Category: Commentary

  Open infrastructure and community: the case of astronomy

  by Niels Taubert

  This comment focuses on an early case of an open infrastructure that emerged in the 1990s in international astronomy. It targets the reasons for this infrastructure's tremendous success and starts with a few comments on the term ‘digital infrastructure’. Subsequently, it provides a brief description of the most important components of the infrastructure in astronomy. In a third step, the use of one component — the arXiv, an open access repository for manuscripts — is analyzed. It concludes with some considerations about the success and acceptance of this infrastructure in astronomy.

  Volume 17 • Issue 02 • 2018

• Date of publication Apr 17, 2018 Category: Commentary

  A collaboration platform for sociology. How to increase accessibility, visibility and sustainability of scientific information in sociology

  by Johann Schaible , Sonja Strunk , David Brodesser

  Web-based information and communication systems extend access for scientific communities to information such as publications or research data and provide the opportunity to collaborate with other scientists. Our comment gives a short sketch of the Information Service Sociology (short: FID Sociology), in which we aim at designing and developing such an information and communication infrastructure within the field of Sociology. To this end, it comprises (i) an approach for simplified publishing of open access publications, (ii) an integrated search across multiple sociological databases, and (iii) a collaboration platform to facilitate interaction and collaborations between members of the sociological community. Here, we mainly focus on the individual steps of the development of the collaboration platform.

  Volume 17 • Issue 02 • 2018

• Date of publication Jan 23, 2018 Category: Essay

  The potential of comics in science communication

  by Matteo Farinella

  Visual narratives, such as comics and animations, are becoming increasingly popular as a tool for science education and communication. Combining the benefits of visualization with powerful metaphors and character-driven narratives, comics have the potential to make scientific subjects more accessible and engaging for a wider audience. While many authors have experimented with this medium, empirical research on the effects of visual narratives in science communication remains scarce. This review summarizes the available evidence across disciplines, highlighting the cognitive mechanisms that may underlie the effects of visual narratives.

  Volume 17 • Issue 01 • 2018

• Date of publication Dec 13, 2017 Category: Commentary

  Universities as living labs for science communication

  by Caroline Wehrmann , Maarten van der Sanden

  Science communication research and education programmes worldwide exhibit notable differences as well as similarities. In this essay the authors claim that this diversity is not a problem. They argue that universities can contribute well to the science communication field, theoretically and in practice, if they invest in building collaborations and make use of the ‘networked pattern’ connecting various actors, contexts and contents. As critical nodes in the networks, universities can enable practitioners to deliver real-life cases, students to participate to find solutions and researchers to investigate and explain. Universities can also prepare their students and (future) practitioners for lifelong learning in the dynamic context of science communication, helping them to become adaptive experts. These two aspects will be illustrated in the case study of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

  Volume 16 • Issue 05 • 2017