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• Date of publication Jun 19, 2009 Category: Commentary

  From interventions to interactions: Science Museum Arts Projects’ history and the challenges of interpreting art in the Science Museum

  by Hannah Redler

  Hannah Redler’s paper examines the 13 year history of Science Museum, London’s contemporary art programme and explores how changing cultural conditions and the changing function of museums are making the questions raised by bringing art into the Science Museum context increasingly significant. It looks at how Science Museum Arts Projects started as a quirky, experimental sideline aimed at shaking up the Museum and its visitors’ assumptions, but has now become a fundamental means by which the Science Museum chooses to represent the impact of science, medicine, engineering and technology on peoples’ everyday lives.

  Volume 8 • Issue 02 • 2009

• Date of publication Jun 19, 2009 Category: Commentary

  The art of discovery

  by Susie J. Lee

  "The Art of Discovery" discusses an ambitious educational program taught by the artist which incorporated locative media, contemporary art, site specificity, and creative work as a proposal for the integration of art, technology and science.

  Volume 8 • Issue 02 • 2009

• Date of publication Jun 03, 2009 Category: Article

  Quality and integrity in scientific writing: prerequisites for quality in science communication

  by Marie-Claude Roland

  Standards and Good Practice guidelines provide explicit criteria for maintaining quality and integrity in science. But research practices are now openly questioned. I defend the idea that the tension between norms and practices in scientific writing must be addressed primarily by the scientific community if quality of the sources in the process of science communication is to be guaranteed. This paper provides evidence that scientific writing and researchers’writing practices do not reflect expected quality criteria. Evidence is based on four complementary analyses of: (i) communication manuals, journals’ recommendations to authors and the norms they convey (ii) feedback given by reviewers (ii) interviews and questionnaires (iv) researchers’ written productions and writing practices. I show that researchers’ writing and communication practices are very often in total contradiction with the norms and standards the scientific community has established. Unless researchers can improve and guarantee quality and integrity of the sources, the whole system of science communication will be threatened.

  Volume 8 • Issue 02 • 2009

• Date of publication May 18, 2009 Category: Article

  Best practice in communications training for public engagement with science, technology, engineering and mathematics

  by Joana Silva , Karen Bultitude

  Effective training in key communications skills is critical for successful public engagement. However, what are the secrets to designing and delivering an effectual training course? This paper outlines key findings from a research study into communication training programmes for public engagement with STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). The research focused on training in direct communication methods, (as separate from media training) and encompassed both trainers and trainees, the latter group spanning across both scientists and explainers. The findings indicated that training courses are effective at increasing involvement in science communication events and trainees feel more confident and able to engage due to training. An interactive style was found to be a key element of training courses. Demonstrations of good practice followed by own performance with feedback were also important, preferably involving a ‘real’ audience. A list of guidelines on best practice has been developed which offers practical advice.

  Volume 8 • Issue 02 • 2009

• Date of publication Apr 30, 2009 Category: Article

  Opening the Test Tube: what do we know about research on science communication and the teaching of microbiology in Brazil?

  by Daniela Franco Carvalho Jacobucci , Giuliano Buzá Jacobucci

  Brazilian research has grown intensely in all areas of microbiology, with the increase in the amount of governmental resources for the sector and the strengthening of a greater number of research groups. However, very few academic studies deal with research about teaching and science communication in microbiology. There is no in-depth study of how this topic is currently being divulgated in communication journals, didactic books and the Internet, or about the interest and the difficulties faced by researchers in communicating microbiology to the general public. This paper investigates academic production on science communication and the teaching of microbiology in Brazil and contextualizes the need for studies about the ways and means through which this activity is being carried out.

  Volume 8 • Issue 02 • 2009

• Date of publication Apr 16, 2009 Category: Article

  Communicative challenges in assessing progress towards environmental quality objectives

  by Victoria Wibeck

  Assessment of trends in the state of the environment constitutes one important aspect of efforts to achieve environmental sustainability. Assessments are often undertaken via indicators which measure progress towards environmental objectives and interim targets. This paper starts from the assumption that different types of environmental indicators have different implications for the public communication and the societal dialogue about the state of the environment and the measures needed to increase ecological sustainability. The paper concludes that it is important to evaluate environmental indicators on the basis of their communicative potential. It is demonstrated how science-based assessment of progress towards environmental objectives may fulfil different aims. Each of these aims may be linked to particular types of indicators, as well as to particular ideas of how to communicate uncertainties, and to particular views of the role of the public in the system of environmental objectives.

  Volume 8 • Issue 02 • 2009

• 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

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

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

  The multidisiciplinary Master’s Degree Program in Scientific and Cultural Communication (MDCC) began in the first semester of 2007. It is offered by the Laboratory of Advanced Studies in Journalism (Labjor) of the Creativity Development Nucleus (NUDECRI) and by the Institute of Language Studies (IEL), both of which are entities the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). The program is also supported by the Department of Scientific and Technological Policy (DPCT) of the Geosciences Institute (IG) and by MediaTec – Media and Communication Technologies Laboratory of the Multimedia Department (DMM) of the Art Institute (IA). The objective of the MDCC is to train and enable researchers with in-depth theoretical knowledge about current questions related to science communication. A global vision of the systems of science and technology are joined together with an understanding of a solid, contemporary literary and cultural repertoire. The interaction among subjects offered in the MDCC seeks to provide an education that allows critical reflection about the main accomplishments of science, technology and culture in our current society and the way in which the mass or specialized media have worked in order to communicate these accomplishments. The areas of research focus on the analysis of cultural production and science communication within the most diverse means of information, such as print, radio, television and electronic media. There is a special emphasis on areas such as science and technical history and the sociology of science, as well as other spaces of science and cultural communication, such as museums, forums and events.

  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