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Sep 30, 2020 Editorial

COVID-19 and science communication: a JCOM special issue

by Luisa Massarani , Padraig Murphy , Rod Lamberts

The devastating effects of COVID-19 and the speed of both the scientific and medical response and the public information requirements about frontline healthcare work, medical advances and policy and compliance measures has necessitated an intensity of science communication never seen before. This JCOM special issue — the first of two parts — looks at the challenges of communicating COVID-19 and coronavirus in the early spread of the disease in 2020. Here we present papers from across the world that demonstrate the scale of this challenge.

Volume 19Issue 052020Special Issue: COVID-19 and science communication, Part I, 2020 (COVID-19 and Scicomm / 1)

Sep 30, 2020 Article

China and the battle to win the scientific narrative about the origin of COVID-19

by Daniel Lemus-Delgado

The emergence of COVID-19 represented a critical problem for the legitimacy and prestige of the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese authorities had to fight not only to contain the spread of the virus but also to create a favorable public opinion about how they managed the crisis. Based on Foucault's approach to the “Regime of Truth”, this article analyzes the narrative surrounding the origin of the virus and how science was employed to lend it legitimacy. The article concludes by reviewing how the idea of science as a truth knowledge is used to construct a particular viewpoint, one focused on legitimizing the outbreak containment measures taken by the Chinese government.

Volume 19Issue 052020Special Issue: COVID-19 and science communication, Part I, 2020 (COVID-19 and Scicomm / 1)

Sep 30, 2020 Article

COVID-19 in the South Pacific: science communication, Facebook and ‘coconut wireless’

by Vipul Khosla , Prashanth Pillay

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the criticality of science communication. Utilising a mixed-methods approach, this article takes an audience-focused perspective to analysing COVID-19 related social media posts on 23 popular South Pacific community Facebook pages over a four-month period across eight South Pacific countries. We analyse how audiences co-opt scientific terms, address information gaps and embed it in their lived experience. It is ascertained that online conversations around COVID-19 in the Pacific are intermeshed with both scientific fact and, personal accounts and rumours, referred to locally as ‘coconut wireless’, problematising established modes of empirical enquiry.

Volume 19Issue 052020Special Issue: COVID-19 and science communication, Part I, 2020 (COVID-19 and Scicomm / 1)

Sep 30, 2020 Article

COVID-19 infections on international celebrities: self presentation and tweeting down pandemic awareness

by Wishes Mututwa , Trust Matsilele

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) which was first reported in China's Wuhan province in December 2019 became a global pandemic within a few months. The exponential rise in COVID-19 cases globally was accompanied by a spike in misinformation about the pandemic, particularly on social media. Employing Social Network Theory as a lens, this qualitative study explores how selected international celebrities appropriated their Twitter micro-blogging pages to announce their COVID-19 infection to the world. The study finds that these celebrities can take advantage of their huge social media following to counter disinfodemic and promote awareness about health pandemics.

Volume 19Issue 052020Special Issue: COVID-19 and science communication, Part I, 2020 (COVID-19 and Scicomm / 1)

Sep 30, 2020 Article

COVID-19: a metaphor-based neologism and its translation into Arabic

by Amal Haddad Haddad , Silvia Montero-Martinez

‘Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)’ is the neologism coined in reference to the pandemic disease currently affecting countries worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) was the international entity that coined this neologism in all its official languages, Arabic amongst them. However, in mass media, the most commonly used term is ‘coronavirus’, which is a meronymic denomination. This corpus-based case study aims at giving new insights into the creation of these neologisms in English and their equivalents in Arabic, and to the adequacy of the meronymic use of the term ‘coronavirus’ in the English and Arabic mass media.

Volume 19Issue 052020Special Issue: COVID-19 and science communication, Part I, 2020 (COVID-19 and Scicomm / 1)

Aug 17, 2020 Article

Listen to the audience(s)! Expectations and characteristics of expert debate attendants

by Nina Wicke , Monika Taddicken

Expert debates have become a popular form to inform the public about scientific issues. To deepen our knowledge about individuals who attend such formats and to investigate what they expect of the dissemination of science, this study analyzes the attendants of scientific expert debates and their expectations. Cluster analysis is applied to survey data (n=358) to explore whether distinct segments may be distinguishable within this supposedly homogeneous audience. Four different segments were identified and, overall, the findings indicate that attendants expect science communication to not only present scientific findings comprehensibly and from different perspectives, but also to create everyday life applicability, whereas interacting with scientists is of less interest.

Volume 19Issue 042020

Jun 29, 2020 Book Review

A comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach to science communication

by Erik Stengler

A comprehensive treatise on science communication from the perspectives of scholars of multiple disciplines, this book contributes a unique compendium of virtually all fields of study that have something to say about the theory and practice of public engagement with science. It is an enriching companion for research, teaching and practice of science communication in all its forms.

Volume 19Issue 032020

Jun 16, 2020 Commentary

Lessons from Laos: selecting appropriate communication media for context

by Wesley Ward

Current agricultural research depends on complex contexts that can impose major barriers for communication within geographically dispersed research teams. Such barriers are multiplied where team members originate from and operate in contrasting cultures and economic circumstances. A case study based in the Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR) showed how to identify such barriers between Lao and Australian scientists using transcripts of 30 interviews with these groups. These were analysed using grounded theory analysis to identify these barriers which were operationalised to construct an assessment tool — I-CHET. This tool was subsequently applied to nine online communication technologies used by the interviewees to identify the technology that displayed the fewest problems regarding these barriers — email, and those with the most problems — websites and Skype. The study highlighted the complexity of communication barriers for international research teams, beyond economic and online infrastructural constraints, to include individual and cultural differences as well as language. By addressing these differences, project managers and funding agencies can maximise the benefits from research completed by international teams that provide vital agricultural knowledge and methodologies for many developing countries worldwide.

Volume 19Issue 032020

Jun 16, 2020 Commentary

The communication of scientific research in news media: Contemporary challenges and opportunities

by Georgia Dempster

This commentary is based on a talk that was presented during the Australian Science Communicators Conference in February 2020. As a Ph.D. student, my research is focused on the investigation of methods of communicating science to public audiences. Within science communication, this talk discussed a case study that was completed as part of my Ph.D. This commentary details a review of a portion of the literature that I completed for my Ph.D. related to the misreporting of scientific research in news media. This review of the literature is relevant to the contemporary environment of scientific research reported in news media. I conclude by suggesting that given the challenging science and news media landscapes; scientists, science communicators and journalists must work more effectively together to uphold the integrity of their professions and to ensure that scientific research is more accurately reported in news media. Additionally, I argue that more research is needed that seeks to understand the relationships between scientists, science communicators and journalists to enable more effective working relationships between these professionals.

Volume 19Issue 032020

Jun 01, 2020 Article

Post-normal science communication: exploring the blurring boundaries of science and journalism

by Michael Brüggemann , Ines Lörcher , Stefanie Walter

This article provides a framework for analysing changes and continuities in science communication. The field is challenged by three contexts: (1) ‘post-normal situations’ of coping with uncertainties, value questions, an urgency to take action, and associated political pressures; (2) a dramatically changing media environment, and (3) a polarizing discourse culture. We refine the concept of post-normal science to make it more applicable to analyse public science communication in an era of digital media networks. Focussing on changes in the interactions between scientists and journalists, we identify two ideal types: normal and post-normal science communication, and conclude that the boundaries of science and journalism are blurring and under renegotiation. Scientists and journalists develop new shared role models, norms, and practices. Both groups are increasingly acting as advocates for common goods that emphasize the emerging norms of post-normal science communication: transparency, interpretation, advocacy and participation.

Volume 19Issue 032020

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