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Jun 03, 2024 Essay
Scientific temper: towards an alternate model of science-society relationships

by Siddharth Kankaria and Anwesha Chakraborty

Scientific temper, a mainstay in Indian science policies and science communication/education programmes, conceptualises citizens as scientifically conscious and powerful agents that approach societal issues with a rational and critical mind rather than taking refuge in religious, superstitious and pseudoscientific worldviews. Our essay provides a brief history of this term and compares it with existing science communication models to demonstrate how, despite sharing commonalities, it is distinct from models like deficit, dialogue, and participation. We elucidate how scientific temper fosters critical features like a process-oriented approach, reflexivity, democratisation of scientific expertise and being a potential tool for decolonisation. Lastly, we propose scientific temper as an alternate framework for democratising knowledge-making and -sharing, building an engaged deliberative citizenry, and studying science-society relationships overall.

Volume 23 • Issue 04 • 2024 • Special Issue: Science communication for social justice

Jun 03, 2024 Essay
Fugitive publics: sex, sexuality, and science communication

by Chase Ledin

This article attends to the absences and silences of sexual identity and knowledge in science communication scholarship. It locates identitarian debates within this scholarship and utilises queer theory to encourage a shift towards a post-identitarian approach to conceptualising sex (as a social act) in science communication. In this way, this article advocates for a queer science communication that critically examines normative identities, practices, institutions, and policies, and makes room for subjugated knowledges within science communication theory and practice.

Volume 23 • Issue 04 • 2024 • Special Issue: Science communication for social justice

Jun 03, 2024 Essay
Clashing epistemologies and contrasting injustice: an Aotearoa/ New Zealand case

by Marie McEntee, Mark Harvey and Fabien Medvecky

How, as researchers, do we recognise and address the implicit biases when engaging across multiple knowledge ecologies. In this paper, we consider the way historical and epistemic justice and injustice plays into our knowledge making when dealing with a specific issue: forest biosecurity. Specifically, we focus on the Aotearoa New Zealand context where knowledge making has been, and still is, dominated by a western paradigm, but where there is increasing discussion on mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) as a valid and valuable form of knowing. Drawing on the experiences of a transdisciplinary research programme that sought to examine the human dimensions of biosecurity aspects of the plant pathogens kauri dieback and myrtle rust, we approach our original question using the theoretical concept of epistemic injustice and draw on our experiences as a way to highlight instances and forms of epistemic injustice in the science-society relationship. We argue that the division of epistemic labour (into fields, disciplines, etc), and the ranking and assigning of relative epistemic credibility based on this division is a fundamental part of the western knowledge ecology which creates the necessary conditions for specific and potent forms of epistemic injustice. We contrast this by discussing how other knowledge ecologies, specifically mātauranga Māori, comfortably engages with a variety of knowledge and knowers and discuss the possibilities other knowledge ecologies offer.

Volume 23 • Issue 04 • 2024 • Special Issue: Science communication for social justice

Apr 24, 2024 Essay
Studying science in pop culture through textual analysis. An introduction to examining science in visual texts — Street art, comics and (animated) film

by Anna-Sophie Jürgens, Lucy Darragh, Paul Peace, Rita Agha, John Noel Viana and Isabel Richards

Textual analysis is a commonly-used qualitative method for analysing and interpreting cultural texts. This approach elicits how representations occur, their underlying assumptions and how they come to have meaning. Despite the popularity and utility of textual analysis, its interpretive and theoretical strategies are not comprehensively described in science communication research. To fill this gap and clarify how textual analysis can be used to unpack the cultural meanings and representation of science in visual texts — images, comics and films — the authors analyse and discuss four environmentally-themed scholarly articles that apply textual analysis. This showcases the value of textual analysis in investigating and understanding the relationships between pop culture and science, demystifying it for science communication students and researchers.

Volume 23 • Issue 03 • 2024

Mar 25, 2024 Essay
Bridging research and practice: insights from collaborative science communication research on Japanese television

by Taichi Masu and Yasuhito Abe

This collaborative essay details the reflections of a science communication practitioner and a media communication scholar on their joint research into science communication through Japanese commercial terrestrial television. It emphasizes their unique perspectives as an insider and outsider in their respective fields, suggesting a method to strengthen the collaboration between academic research and its practical application in science communication.

Volume 23 • Issue 02 • 2024 • Special Issue: Connecting science communication research and practice: challenges and ways forward

Mar 25, 2024 Essay
Broadening adult engagement and education in science cafés: lessons from an STS — science communication boundary spanning experiment

by Karen A. Rader and CJ Gibbs

This essay describes and reflects on a collaboration between a university Science & Technology Studies (STS) educator and a community science café organizer. Our partnership was designed to address two challenges: how to encourage diversity and inclusion in science café audiences and how to create assessments for broader ‘science in society’ content delivered to adult café learners. We used focus groups to develop STS learning constructs and do community engagement needs assessments. We describe the resultant café series development and other outcomes of our cross-domain work in STS, science communication, and science education. We conclude with observations about the power of collaborative storytelling and make general recommendations for how practitioners and scholars can address the described challenges in ways that might ease future collaborations.

Volume 23 • Issue 02 • 2024 • Special Issue: Connecting science communication research and practice: challenges and ways forward

Mar 25, 2024 Essay
Collaborative design to bridge theory and practice in science communication

by Carolin Enzingmüller and Daniela Marzavan

The science communication field strives to connect theory and practice. This essay delves into the potential of collaborative design to bridge this gap. Collaborative design in science communication can involve scientists, science communication researchers, designers, and other stakeholders in developing new science communication solutions. By incorporating diverse perspectives and expertise, it can help create more effective and evidence-based communication strategies that cater to the needs of audiences. To integrate these demands, a structured approach is necessary. This paper discusses two established frameworks, Design-Based Research and Design Thinking, and applies practical insights to envision the impact of collaborative design on the future of science communication.

Volume 23 • Issue 02 • 2024 • Special Issue: Connecting science communication research and practice: challenges and ways forward

Feb 12, 2024 Essay
Polio vaccine misinformation on social media: challenges, efforts, and recommendations

by Muhammad Ittefaq, Shafiq Ahmad Kamboh, Carina M. Zelaya and Rauf Arif

On April 22, 2019, false rumors regarding the side effects of the polio vaccine quickly spread across various social media platforms, including Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), WhatsApp, and YouTube. This rapid spread of misinformation had a detrimental impact on Pakistan's efforts to eradicate polio. This essay sheds lights on two critical aspects related to polio vaccine misinformation on social media in Pakistan. First, it examines the current state of polio vaccine misinformation on social media and finds it a significant threat to public health, resulting in vaccine refusals, erosion of trust in public health institutions, distrust in science, and providing opportunities for anti-vaccination groups and individual advocates to target healthcare workers involved in polio eradication efforts nationwide. Second, it highlights the collaborative initiatives undertaken by relevant government institutions and social media companies, which have proven inadequate in effectively addressing the persistent dissemination of mis/disinformation, particularly on Facebook. Lastly, we suggest Pakistan should adopt a more inclusive approach of engaging all stakeholders, promote independent fact-checking initiatives, and increase health literacy among the target population about the risks and benefits associated with the polio vaccine.

Volume 23 • Issue 01 • 2024

Dec 11, 2023 Essay
Strengthening interdisciplinarity in science communication education: promise, pleasures and problems

by Brian Trench

Science communication education is fundamentally concerned with relations between and within communities, cultures and institutions. Through exploration of these relations, it develops understanding of how knowledge is produced, shared and validated. Science communication operates at the boundaries and intersections of disciplines in its professional practice and it analyses them in research and education. At its interdisciplinary best, science communication is a continuing exercise in reflexivity on science and its place in wider intellectual and public culture. From this “premise”, this essay reflects on the “promise” of bringing perspectives from humanities, social sciences and natural sciences to bear on science, the “pleasures” of science communication as “joyously interdisciplinary”, but also on the “problems” in fulfilling the promise and realising the pleasures. It closes with a “proposition” for giving interdisciplinarity a more prominent place in science communication education.

Volume 22 • Issue 06 • 2023 • Special Issue: Science communication in higher education: global perspectives on the teaching of science communication

Dec 11, 2023 Essay
Science communication as interdisciplinary training

by Matthew Wood

Science communication education has come a long way thanks in part to broad recognition of the importance of communication skills and the capacity for science communication courses to address that need. Similarly, the current rise in demand for interdisciplinary competencies offers new opportunities for the advancement of science communication education, and for greater contribution to preparing graduates for a rapidly changing world.

Volume 22 • Issue 06 • 2023 • Special Issue: Science communication in higher education: global perspectives on the teaching of science communication