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  • Sep 22, 2014 Commentary

    Research institutions: neither doing science communication nor promoting ‘public’ relations

    by Michel Claessens

    In this commentary I explain why research institutions are neither doing science communication nor developing ‘public’ relations in the proper sense. Their activities are rather a mix of different things, serving various purposes and targets. However, dealing with PCST, their main responsibilities [should] include: promoting genuine communication and dialogue, being open and accessible to the public, providing high quality scientific information, ensuring good internal communication and educating their scientific staff.

    Volume 13Issue 032014

  • Sep 22, 2014 Conference Review

    Observations of PCST2014

    by Nancy Longnecker

    Attendance at any large conference is highly personal and every registrant has a unique experience. The value to the individual depends on which sessions they attend, whom they connect with and what outcomes eventuate from what they learn and the networking they do. The networking and feedback can be life changing as it was for me when I attended PCST in 1996 in Melbourne. PCST2014 was a successful conference that provided many options for delegates. This was my fifth PCST and I was glad to have made the long trip to Brazil. One of the most successful aspects of PCST2014 was the opportunity to hear voices that I had not heard at previous PCSTs. The opportunity to hear about interesting work and different perspectives is one of the main advantages of this large, diverse, international network. Some reflective presentations eloquently articulated the familiar but evolving framework of the science communication discipline. Some provocative presentations pushed me to consider new and different perspectives or methodologies. Some case study presentations illustrated that good science communication is happening around the world. All types are particularly useful to those of us at a crossroad in our career, considering where to invest our energy, expertise and time.

    Volume 13Issue 032014

  • Sep 22, 2014 Book Review

    Who’s Asking? Native Science, Western Science, and Science Education

    by Emily Dawson

    ‘Who’s Asking: Native Science, Western Science, and Science Education’ explores two key questions for science education, communication and engagement; first, what is science and second, what do different ways of understanding science mean for science and for science engagement practices? Medin and Bang have combined perspectives from the social studies of science, philosophy of science and science education to argue that science could be more inclusive if reframed as a diverse endeavour. Medin and Bang provide a useful, extensive and wide-ranging discussion of how science works, the nature of science, the role of culture, gender and ethnicity in science, biases and norms, as well as how people engage with science and the world around them. They draw on their collaborative research developing science education programmes with Native American communities to illustrate the benefits of reconstructing science by drawing on more than ‘Western’ science in education practices. The book argues that reconceptualising science in science education is crucial for developing a more diverse, equitable and inclusive scientific community and scientific practices, as well as improving educational opportunities and outcomes for youth from diverse and non-dominant backgrounds.

    Volume 13Issue 032014

  • Sep 22, 2014 Commentary

    Public relations as science communication

    by Matt Shipman

    Public communication from research institutions often functions as both science communication and public relations. And while these are distinct functions, public relations efforts often serve as science communication tools. This is because successful science communication and public relations efforts for research institutions both rely on finding shared language and disseminating findings in context.

    Volume 13Issue 032014

  • Sep 22, 2014 Conference Review

    Communicating Science for social inclusion and political engagement: reflections on the PCST Conference, Brazil 2014

    by Astrid Treffry-Goatley

    The 13th International Public Communication of Science and Technology Conference (PCST) conference offered a valuable opportunity for over 500 science communicators to congregate and network with the international community. While the sheer size of the event made fostering debate somewhat of a challenge, the pertinent theme of ‘science communication for social inclusion and political engagement’, inspired some thought-provoking talks. Certainly, it was an appropriate time for this topic to be explored in Brazil, a developing country with a national government actively working towards greater social inclusion and local scientific development.

    Volume 13Issue 032014

  • Sep 22, 2014 Article

    Delivering the message: a theoretical study on designing science content for nature-based experiences

    by Sanha Kim

    The urgent state of our global environment calls for collective action, which depends in large part on effective science communication for better understanding and awareness. Activities and institutions that provide opportunities to learn about nature all ultimately rely on scientific findings about nature. Although science produces the knowledge and information about nature, for the content to be accessible and meaningful to the general public, it needs to be processed by what I call science content design. This process is similar to the concepts of interpretation in tourism, or aesthetic understanding in alternative science education. This study is a theoretical exploration on the definition and nature of science content design, what constitutes its process, and how the content can be designed. Focusing on the fields of macro-biology, I also discuss the types of biological content generally used in nature-based experiences, and examine model cases of biological content design.

    Volume 13Issue 032014

  • Sep 22, 2014 Article

    Types of knowledge in science-based practices

    by Nelius Boshoff

    Science communication as an interdisciplinary field of study has always been concerned with issues of knowledge utilisation. This theoretical paper focusses on the “knowledge” part of knowledge utilisation and provides a conceptual frame to distinguish between different types of knowledge in science-based practice. A practitioner’s knowledge store is portrayed as a dense set of personal knowledge, consisting of procedural knowledge, factual knowledge, potential factual knowledge and opinions/beliefs; the totality of which is continuously refined through more experiences and additional information received from people, documents or events. Implications for future studies of knowledge utilisation in science-based practices are highlighted and a number of questions posed to science communication as a profession.

    Volume 13Issue 032014

  • Sep 22, 2014 Commentary

    The changing rationale of science communication: a challenge to scientific autonomy

    by Frank Marcinkowski , Matthias Kohring

    We argue that the institutionalized push communication of academic institutions has become the dominant form of public science communication and has tended to force other forms and functions of science communication into the background. Given the new schemes of public funding, public communication of science now primarily serves the purpose of enabling academic institutions to promote themselves in a competition that has been forced upon them by the political domain. What academics working under these conditions say about themselves and their work (and what they do not) will depend crucially on the strategic communication goals and concepts of the organizations to which they belong. We surmise that the inherent logic of this form of science communication represents a potential threat to the autonomy of scientific research.

    Volume 13Issue 032014

  • Sep 22, 2014 Article

    Slovenian social scientists’ understanding of public knowledge and participation in sustainable development: from deficit to mutual learning

    by Pika Zaloznik

    Public participation in decision-making has in the last decades become a common refrain in political and scientific discourse, yet it does not often truly come to fruition. The present study focuses on the underlying issue, that of the construction of the difference between scientific and public knowledge and its consequences. Through discourse analysis of scientific texts on sustainable development three distinct groups of Slovenian social scientists were discerned that differed in their views on the relationship between scientific and public knowledge and consequently the role and nature of public participation in decision-making processes. With a rise in participatory practices the preponderance of the deficit model found in this study remains problematic.

    Volume 13Issue 032014

Total: 1473 records