Search

This short comment presents a few suggestions for the enrichment of JCOM seen from the perspective of an informal learning expert.

JCOM can enhance its contribution to the science communication community by greater rigour in selection and editing and by opening up to reader comment.

Scientific journalism ought to pay attention not only to the “products” of science, but also to the ways in which it operates in any given historical and political   context. A critical analysis of the presently dominant rhetoric of innovation and unlimited growth is necessary to shed light on the relationship between science  and democracy. Equally profitable would be a thorough investigation of past and present controversies on the role of scientists in decision-making.

The science&art research played an important role in the topics covered by JCOM because actually the convergence of languages and themes of art and science increasingly continue to act synergistically in the most diverse knowledge fields.

In the next few months, JCOM will undergo relevant changes. A new owner will take charge of its editorial management and define new development strategies. This important transition is a good opportunity to take stock of the past few years and to devise a new type of science communication research journal.

Spinal manipulation therapy (SMT) is a popular form of treatment for back pain among other musculoskeletal disorders, and it has received increasing media attention. Yet, despite its popularity, SMT is surrounded by controversy, mainly in regards to issues of safety and efficacy. To better understand how the media portrays SMT, we explored the content of print newspapers in Canada, the U.S., and U.K., including article framing, evidence of efficacy, risks and benefits, and the overall tone of the article in terms of whether or not the article was supporting, opposing or neutral about SMT. Results indicate that safety concerns and evidence for efficacy are rarely mentioned, but framing plays a large role in portrayals of SMT in each of the countries.

Various science events including Science Cafés have been held in Japan. However, there is the question whether these are events in which all people in society can participate? In particular, methods for checking whether or not the event attracts the participants targeted by the organizers have not yet been well established. In this paper, the authors have designed a simplified questionnaire to identify the participants’ attitudes toward science, technology and society, which can then be grouped into four clusters. When applied to various science cafés, the results revealed that participants consisted of Cluster 1 “Inquisitive  type” and Cluster 2 “Sciencephile” who are interested in science and technology. The cafes studied did not provide sufficient appeal to people of Clusters 3 and  4 who are not interested in science and technology without applying some inventive methods. Our method provides a means of objectivelyevaluating the tendencies of participants in science communication events in order to improve the spread of science communications within society.

New forms of co-working spaces and community labs, such as Hackerspaces and Fablabs, but also open science and citizen science initiatives, by involving new actors often described as makers, tinkerers, and hackers enable innovation and research outside the walls of academia and industry. These alternative and global innovation networks are test beds for studying new forms of public engagement and participation in emergent scientific fields, such as  nanotechnology. The article shows how these grassroots and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) or Do-It-With- Others (DIWO) research subcultures connect politics with design, community building with prototype testing, and how they establish an experimental approach for policy deliberation. We will consider a case study of a temporary, ad hoc and mobile NanoŠmano Lab in Ljubljana, Slovenia, which specializes in nanoscale materials and designs, to demonstrate the potential of prototypes and collective tinkering to become models for public involvement in emergent science and technology fields. This Hackerspace model of governance offers an alternative to the usual route of disruptive innovation, which starts in the R&D laboratory where it waits to be scrutinized by some government or regulatory body and be utilized by a start-up or mega corporation, and only then be safely taken up by the public. Hackerspaces operate through “disruptive prototypes” that create decentralized and nonlinear value chains and interactions between research, design and policy. Adoption of technology goes hand in hand with collective tinkering, and deliberation and assessment are happening simultaneously while prototyping. In this sense, disruptive prototypes can be said to support experimental governance. This policy closely follows some recent calls for “greater reflexiveness in the R&D process” via anticipatory policy and real-time assessment approaches, rather than more common, timeworn precautionary principles.

How can technoscientific controversies be interpreted in terms of their public communication? This essay explores the case of nanotechnology to describe how one of the most innovative and cutting-edge technoscientific fields has moved from a grey goo scenario of PCTS that described similarities with biotechnology and GMOs, underlining the risks of potential conflicts between science and society, to the idea of an ‘internal’ controversy, that is a debate mainly present in discussions within professional groups. The conclusions suggest how the study of public communication of technoscientific controversies, and in particular of  internal controversies such as nanotechnology, has lead to consideration of the idea of moving from a risk frame in public participation initiatives to a more open discussion on daily life, work activities, technological innovation, cultural representations, art and others.

On 22 October 2012, six members of a technical-scientific consultancy agency of the Italian Civil Protection were found guilty of multiple manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison by the court in L’Aquila. According to the prosecution, days before the earthquake that devastated the town of L’Aquila on 6 April 2009 killing 309 people, the experts failed to correctly alert the population on the actual seismic risk. The sentence was widely interpreted as an attack to science, penalised for not accurately predicting the quake. Actually, the defendants were accused of having deprived the citizens of information that may have saved their lives. This story does not hide any attack to science. On the contrary, this is the demonstration of the high regard the civil society has for the opinions of the experts. But in the so-called risk society, access to information is an inalienable right of the citizens. Beyond the legal aspects, the impression is that the lesson from L’Aquila can mark a point of no return in the relations between science and society.