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Filter by keyword: History of public communication of science

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Sep 13, 2021 Book Review
A timely update to a classic text

by Emma Weitkamp

The third edition of Bucchi and Trench's classic handbook offers a contemporary look at science communication. First published over 10 years ago, this latest edition includes new chapters focusing on contemporary issues, such as mediatization, as well as addressing new trends in science communication, such as the move towards STEAM. The text offers a useful introduction to the diverse debates and issues facing science communication today.

Volume 20 • Issue 05 • 2021

May 10, 2021 Essay
Rethinking science communication as the social conversation around science

by Massimiano Bucchi and Brian Trench

In this essay the authors reflect on some recent trends in science communication research, celebrating it as an inherently interdisciplinary endeavour. Some current tendencies in science communication are more limiting, however: they present theoretical and strategic prescriptions that do not adquately reflect the variety and cultural diversity of science communication internationally. Rethinking science communication in the context of such diverse practices and cultural reorientations, the authors revise some of their own views and revisit notions of communication as conversation to propose an inclusive definition of science communication as the social conversation around science.

Volume 20 • Issue 03 • 2021 • Special Issue: Re-examining Science Communication: models, perspectives, institutions, 2021

Nov 16, 2020 Book Review
Celebrating the complexity and diversity that is science communication around the globe

by Emma Weitkamp

This book review considers the contribution of Communicating Science, A Global Perspective to our understanding of the history of science communication across the globe. With 40 chapters and nearly 1000 pages of text, this substantial book provides insights into the unique histories of science communication in 39 countries across all regions of world.

Volume 19 • Issue 06 • 2020

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 19 • Issue 03 • 2020

Jun 08, 2020 Article
«Diamo l’assalto al cielo!» («Let’s assault the sky»): science communication between scientists and citizens and Lombardo Radice’s television in Italy in the years of the protests

by Fabio Lusito

The years of the protests marked a period of social turmoil in Italy. The critical impulses that developed within worker and student groups had political effects even on science. This paper aims to offer a historiographical description of some stages of the relationship between scientists and protesting movements, going back over the developments in science communication in Italy between the late sixties and the seventies, focusing on the case of Lucio Lombardo Radice and his work as a TV populariser. The reinterpretation of the recent past could be useful to better understand the contemporary developments in science communication from a historical perspective.

Volume 19 • Issue 03 • 2020

May 11, 2020 Book Review
A textbook linking theory, research, and practice of science communication

by Lars Guenther

This book review will discuss “Science communication. An introduction”, edited by Frans van Dam, Liesbeth de Bakker, Anne Dijkstra, and Eric Jensen (2020), the first book in the PCST book series. The review will give an overview, a summary, and a criticism of this textbook, which is intended to be used in educational programs in science communication. As will be outlined, the book puts specific emphasis on linking theory, research, and practice, as well as including more perspectives from developing country contexts, and thus provides a valuable contribution to the dynamic field of science communication.

Volume 19 • Issue 03 • 2020

Mar 30, 2020 Article
Strategies for including communication of non-Western and indigenous knowledges in science communication histories

by Lindy A. Orthia

How a discipline's history is written shapes its identity. Accordingly, science communicators opposed to cultural exclusion may seek cross-cultural conceptualizations of science communication's past, beyond familiar narratives centred on the recent West. Here I make a case for thinking about science communication history in these broader geotemporal terms. I discuss works by historians and knowledge keepers from the Indigenous Australian Yorta Yorta Nation who describe a geological event their ancestors witnessed 30,000 ybp and communicated about over generations to the present. This is likely one of the oldest examples of science communication, warranting a prominent place in science communication histories.

Volume 19 • Issue 02 • 2020

Mar 23, 2020 Conference Review
Report — 2nd meeting of mediation of knowledge and scientific culture

by Diogo Santos

On 3rd and 4th February, at Pavilhão do Conhecimento (Lisbon, Portugal), Ciência Viva organized the 2nd meeting of Mediation of Knowledge and Scientific Culture. This edition reunited politicians, teachers, science communicators and researchers to discuss culture, science communication and museums. The organization promoted workshops and invited three keynote speakers: Abdulaziz Alhegelan, Brian Trench and Ngaire Blankenberg who led discussions around cultural differences, science communication processes such as evaluation or impact, and how museums need to change to became more neutral.

Volume 19 • Issue 02 • 2020

Sep 12, 2018 Book Review
Book review: The science communication challenge. Truth and disagreement in democratic knowledge societies

by Birte Faehnrich

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

Apr 11, 2018 Book Review
Little country, big talk

by Toss Gascoigne

Modern science communication has emerged as a field of study, a body of practice and a profession. In the last 60 years, we have seen the birth of interactive science centres, university courses, the first research into science communication, and a growth in employment by research institutions, universities, museums, science centres and industry. Now Ireland has told its story.

Volume 17 • Issue 02 • 2018