ONLY INVITED AUTHORS ARE ALLOWED TO SUBMIT
(submission deadline April 14th, 2024)
Nowadays, large parts of the population obtain information about science, technology, and topics such as climate change online—this includes online journalistic media, but increasingly also social and other internet-based media (e.g., European Commission, 2021; Guenther et al., 2022; National Science Board, 2018). Digital media environments, especially social media, are characterised by a combination of interpersonal and mass-mediated communication; they provide heterogeneous content regarding actors, publics, and topics (e.g., Neuberger, 2014). Content critical of science (e.g., Gierth & Bromme, 2020), disinformation (e.g., Scheufele & Krause, 2019), conspiracy narratives (e.g., Allgaier, 2019; Mahl et al., 2022), and algorithm-curated information environments (e.g., Ziewitz, 2015) seem to be related to a so-called “post-truth era” (Keyes, 2004) and potentially negative consequences for public trust in science (e.g., Schäfer, 2016; Weingart & Guenther, 2016). So far, however, empirical evidence of a decreased public trust in science is lacking (Krause et al., 2019) and social media may also potentially benefit public trust in science by facilitated access to and exchange with scientific information (e.g., Taddicken & Krämer, 2021).This Special Issue of the Journal of Science Communication is dedicated to exploring public (dis)trust in science against the backdrop of changing information environments and potentially contrasting trends regarding audience’s increasing use of digital media. To advance research in this field, we invite theoretical and empirical contributions as well as practical insights, to cover different perspectives and aspects of this topic, and to reflect on current academic and public discourses surrounding it. This includes research and insights from various disciplines in fields such as communication research, sociology, psychology, or linguistics. We welcome research articles, practice insights, essays, and reviews that fall within the scope of JCOM. We are open to contributions that reflect on (Fage-Butler et al., 2022) and advance theory (e.g., an epistemic understanding of trust in science, Hendriks et al., 2015), or methods of trust research (e.g., reassessments of survey measures, Besley & Tiffany, 2023, or mixed-method-designs) and strongly encourage submissions from different countries, cultures, or with a global perspective.
Possible contributions may engage with but are not limited to the following thematic areas (based on Reif & Guenther, 2022):Also a part of:
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Scientists are increasingly affected by harassment, especially on social media. While initial research highlights the detrimental consequences for affected scientists, the increased visibility of harassment through social media might also negatively affect public perceptions of scientists. Using a preregistered 2x2 between-subjects experiment (N = 1,246), this study shows that exposure to uncivil comments harassing female or male scientists negatively affects citizens’ trust in the attacked scientists but not trust in scientists in general or scientific information. Furthermore, some of the effects are moderated by gender and science-related populist attitudes.
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Generative AI like ChatGPT has been diagnosed to fundamentally impact different realms of life. This includes science communication, where GenAI tools are becoming important sources of science-related content for many people. This raises the question of whether people trust GenAI as a source in this field, a question that has not been answered sufficiently yet. Adapting a model developed by Roberts et al. [2013] and utilizing survey data from the German Science Barometer 2023, we find that Germans are rather sceptical about and do not strongly trust GenAI in science communication. Structural equation modelling shows that respondents' trust in GenAI as a source in science communication is driven strongly by their general trust in science, which is largely driven by their knowledge about science and the perception that science improves quality of life.
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