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• Date of publication Mar 20, 2009 Category: Book Review

  Scientists' virtues matter. More than ever

  by Alessandro Delfanti

  In his latest book “The scientific life. A moral history of a late modern vocation”, the social historian of science Steven Shapin addresses the public image of contemporary scientists, their virtues and vocations. Who are, and how they represent themselves, those scientists who work on the edge between industry and academy, and who are responsible for the radical uncertainty embedded in the contemporary production of scientific knowledge? If “people matter”, as Shapin states, the genealogy he provides should encourage us to dig more deeply in the main stage of the virtues and ethos of scientists: the mass media.

  Volume 8 • Issue 01 • 2009

• Date of publication Mar 20, 2009 Category: Commentary

  Master in science communication: an overview

  by Donato Ramani

  Science, politics, industry, media, state-run and private organisations, private citizens: everyone has their own demands, their own heritage of knowledge, thoughts, opinions, aspirations, needs. Different worlds that interact, question one another, discuss; in one word: they communicate. It is a complicated process that requires professionals «who clearly understand the key aspects of the transmission of scientific knowledge to society through the different essential communication channels for multiple organizations». The purpose of this commentary is to cast some light upon the goals, the philosophy and the organisation behind some European and extra-European Master’s degrees in science communication. We have asked the directors of each of them to describe their founding elements, their origins, their specific features, their structure, their goals, the reasons why they were established and the evolution they have seen over their history.

  Master in Scientific, Medical and Environmental Communication

  by Vladimir de Semir

  The Master's degree of Trieste

  by Pietro Greco

  A graduate course for science communicators: a Mexican approach

  by Elaine Reynoso-Haynes

  Masters (MSc) in Science Communication. Dublin City University

  by Brian Trench

  Master's Degree Program in Scientific and Cultural Communication: Preliminary reports on an innovative experience in Brazil

  by Carlos A. Vogt, Marcelo Knobel and Vera Regina Toledo Camargo

  MSc Science Communication, Science Communication Unit, UWE, Bristol

  by Clare Wilkinson, Karen Bultitude and Emma Weitkamp

  Volume 8 • Issue 01 • 2009

• Date of publication Mar 20, 2009 Category: Commentary

  A graduate course for science communicators: a Mexican approach

  by Elaine Reynoso-Haynes

  Within the UNAM (The National Autonomous University of Mexico) there is an institution, the Dirección General de Divulgación de la Ciencia (DGDC) devoted to the popularization of science through different media such as museums, exhibitions, journals, books, radio and TV programs, internet, workshops for children, demos, shows, plays, summer courses and outreach programs. Most of these products and materials are planned, designed and manufactured by a multidisciplinary team of professionals in the DGDC. Some of our most outstanding projects are: the creation and operation of two science museums, UNIVERSUM (on the university campus), and the Museo de la Luz (Museum of Light) in the center of the city, many temporary and traveling exhibitions, museums in other parts of the country and abroad and a monthly publication for young readers called ¿Cómo ves?

  Volume 8 • Issue 01 • 2009

• Date of publication Mar 20, 2009 Category: Commentary

  Master in Scientific, Medical and Environmental Communication

  by Vladimir de Semir

  Public communication of sciences is of strategic relevance in the transition from the industrial society to the knowledge society. The Master’s Course in Scientific, Medical and Environmental Communication of Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona (Spain) responds to this economic, social and cultural need. The result: professionals who clearly understand the key aspects of the transmission of scientific knowledge to society through the different essential communication channels in multiple organizations as, among others, mass media, institutional and public relations and museums. This initiative collaborates also to build informed and educated citizens, who understand, accompany and are able to participate in the necessary and unavoidable adaptation to this new society.

  Volume 8 • Issue 01 • 2009

• Date of publication Mar 20, 2009 Category: Editorial

  Techno-scientific hybrids. Science communication in pursuit of an academic identity

  by Nico Pitrelli , Yuri Castelfranchi

  A recent article published in Science Communication addresses the training issue in issue in our discipline. Henk Mulder and his colleagues discuss the shared features that university curricula should or could have to favour the full admission of science communication into the academic circle. Having analysed analogies and differences in the curricula that a number of schools provide all over the world, the authors reached the conclusion that much remains to be done. Science communication seems far from having found shared fundamental references, lessons that cannot be missed in the practical-theoretical education of future professionals or researchers in this discipline. What should one study to become a good science communicator? And to make innovative research?

  Volume 8 • Issue 01 • 2009

• Date of publication Mar 20, 2009 Category: Article

  The communicative process of weather forecasts issued in the probabilistic form

  by Alessio Raimondi

  One of the main purposes of weather forecasting is that of protecting weather-sensitive human activities. Forecasts issued in the probabilistic form have a higher informative content, as opposed to deterministic one, since they bear information that give also a measure of their own uncertainty. However, in order to make an appropriate and effective use of this kind of forecasts in an operational setting, communication becomes significatively relevant.The present paper, after having briefly examined the weather forecasts concerning Hurricane Charley (August 2004), tackles the issue of the communicative process in detail.The bottom line of this study is that for the weather forecast to achieve its best predictive potential, an in-depth analysis of communication issues is necessary.

  Volume 8 • Issue 01 • 2009

• Date of publication Mar 20, 2009 Category: Commentary

  Masters (MSc) in Science Communication. Dublin City University

  by Brian Trench

  The Masters (MSc) in Science Communication at Dublin City University (Ireland)
draws on expertise from several disciplines in human and physical sciences.
The programme takes a broad view of communication that includes the various
kinds of interaction between institutions of science and of society, as well
as the diverse means of exchanging information and ideas. Nearly 200 students
from a wide variety of backgrounds have completed the programme since its
start in 1996, and they work in many different types of employment, from
information and outreach services, to science centres, to publishing and
journalism. Through the programme, and in the dissertation in particular,
students are encouraged to reflect critically on the place and performance
of science in society, and on relations between the cultures of natural sciences
and of humanities and social sciences.

  Volume 8 • Issue 01 • 2009

• Date of publication Feb 24, 2009 Category: Article

  Using communication research to gather stakeholder preferences to improve groundwater management models: a South Texas case study

  by Ric Jensen , Venkatesh Uddameri

  There is a compelling need to ensure that the points of view and preferences of stakeholders are fully considered and incorporated into natural resources management strategies. Stakeholders include a diverse group of individuals in several sectors that have an interest in how natural resources are managed. Typically, stakeholders with an interest in groundwater resources include groups who could be affected by the manner in which the resource is managed (e.g., farmers who need water for irrigation; municipalities and individuals who need drinking water, agencies and organizations that want to maintain in-stream flows to support ecosystems, etc.) Refugio County in South Texas provides an interesting case study since several groups of water users in the region are working with researchers at Texas A&M University-Kingsville (TAMUK) to develop decision-support models that incorporate stakeholder concerns. The focus of this paper is to provide a series of arguments and approaches about the ways in which stakeholder issues have recently been incorporated into environmental models, to briefly describe some of the TAMUK efforts to develop groundwater models that incorporate stakeholder inputs, and to present and discuss a method in which communication research can be used to obtain stakeholder preferences input into modeling efforts.

  Volume 8 • Issue 01 • 2009

• Date of publication Jan 26, 2009 Category: Article

  Mouse model: what do Japanese life sciences researchers mean by this term?

  by Jin Higashijima , Kae Takahashi , Kazuto Kato

  Mouse-related research in the life sciences has expanded remarkably over the last two decades, resulting in growing use of the term “mouse model”. Our interviews with 64 leading Japanese life sciences researchers showed heterogeneities in the definition of “mouse model” in the Japanese life sciences community. Here, we discuss the implications for the relationship between the life sciences community and society in Japan that may result from this ambiguity in the terminology. It is suggested that, in Japanese life sciences, efforts by individual researchers to make their scientific information unambiguous and explanative are necessary.

  Volume 8 • Issue 01 • 2009

• Date of publication Dec 19, 2008 Category: Commentary

  Mediation within science centres and museums. The guides of Universum, México

  by Concepción Ruiz Ruiz-Funes

  The creation of a scientific culture through the experiences that can be offered in a museum is the central theme in the training of guides at Universum. Emphasising the social importance of science democratisation, providing the public with the chance to enjoy science itself, conceiving it as a human creation of extreme beauty, giving it the chance to be appreciated and enjoyed, presenting it from the different fields where an approach to it is possible, is something difficult to achieve outside a science museum and impossible without the intervention of the anfitriones.

  Volume 7 • Issue 04 • 2008