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• Date of publication Sep 30, 2020 Category: Practice Insight

  Complexity, transparency and time pressure: practical insights into science communication in times of crisis

  by Jana Lasser , Verena Ahne , Georg Heiler , Peter Klimek , Hannah Metzler , Tobias Reisch , Martin Sprenger , Stefan Thurner , Johannes Sorger

  A global crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic that started in early 2020 poses significant challenges for how research is conducted and communicated. We present four case studies from the perspective of an interdisciplinary research institution that switched to “corona-mode” during the first two months of the crisis, focussing all its capacities on COVID-19-related issues, communicating to the public directly and via media, as well as actively advising the national government. The case studies highlight the challenges posed by the increased time pressure, high demand for transparency, and communication of complexity and uncertainty. The article gives insights into how these challenges were addressed in our research institution and how science communication in general can be managed during a crisis.

  Volume 19 • Issue 05 • 2020 • Special Issue: COVID-19 and science communication, Part I, 2020 (COVID-19 and Scicomm / 1)

• Date of publication Sep 30, 2020 Category: Article

  COVID-19 in the South Pacific: science communication, Facebook and ‘coconut wireless’

  by Vipul Khosla , Prashanth Pillay

  The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the criticality of science communication. Utilising a mixed-methods approach, this article takes an audience-focused perspective to analysing COVID-19 related social media posts on 23 popular South Pacific community Facebook pages over a four-month period across eight South Pacific countries. We analyse how audiences co-opt scientific terms, address information gaps and embed it in their lived experience. It is ascertained that online conversations around COVID-19 in the Pacific are intermeshed with both scientific fact and, personal accounts and rumours, referred to locally as ‘coconut wireless’, problematising established modes of empirical enquiry.

  Volume 19 • Issue 05 • 2020 • Special Issue: COVID-19 and science communication, Part I, 2020 (COVID-19 and Scicomm / 1)

• Date of publication Sep 30, 2020 Category: Editorial

  COVID-19 and science communication: a JCOM special issue

  by Luisa Massarani , Padraig Murphy , Rod Lamberts

  The devastating effects of COVID-19 and the speed of both the scientific and medical response and the public information requirements about frontline healthcare work, medical advances and policy and compliance measures has necessitated an intensity of science communication never seen before. This JCOM special issue — the first of two parts — looks at the challenges of communicating COVID-19 and coronavirus in the early spread of the disease in 2020. Here we present papers from across the world that demonstrate the scale of this challenge.

  Volume 19 • Issue 05 • 2020 • Special Issue: COVID-19 and science communication, Part I, 2020 (COVID-19 and Scicomm / 1)

• Date of publication Sep 30, 2020 Category: Article

  COVID-19: a metaphor-based neologism and its translation into Arabic

  by Amal Haddad Haddad , Silvia Montero-Martinez

  ‘Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)’ is the neologism coined in reference to the pandemic disease currently affecting countries worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) was the international entity that coined this neologism in all its official languages, Arabic amongst them. However, in mass media, the most commonly used term is ‘coronavirus’, which is a meronymic denomination. This corpus-based case study aims at giving new insights into the creation of these neologisms in English and their equivalents in Arabic, and to the adequacy of the meronymic use of the term ‘coronavirus’ in the English and Arabic mass media.

  Volume 19 • Issue 05 • 2020 • Special Issue: COVID-19 and science communication, Part I, 2020 (COVID-19 and Scicomm / 1)

• Date of publication Sep 30, 2020 Category: Article

  Pharmaceutical influencers on Instagram and their communication during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis

  by Zahaira Fabiola González Romo , Sofia Iriarte Aguirre , Irene Garcia Medina

  Today, thanks to the consolidation of Internet, users have access to many sources of information on health issues. On social networks, there are profiles of health professionals who share content that generates credibility when published by specialists who are knowledgeable in the sector. These profiles include pharmaceutical professionals who disseminate and create content based on scientific knowledge. Pharmaceutical influencers on Instagram have an informative role on health, nutrition and cosmetic dermatology issues. This research aims to learn about the communication management of these influencers during the Coronavirus crisis in Spain and how they have modified their habitual discourse, as well as seeking to identify the formats of their publications that generate greater engagement and conversions among their followers.

  Volume 19 • Issue 05 • 2020 • Special Issue: COVID-19 and science communication, Part I, 2020 (COVID-19 and Scicomm / 1)

• Date of publication Sep 21, 2020 Category: Article

  Addressing diversity in science communication through citizen social science

  by Lissette Lorenz

  This article seeks to address the lack of sociocultural diversity in the field of science communication by broadening conceptions of citizen science to include citizen social science. Developing citizen social science as a concept and set of practices can increase the diversity of publics who engage in science communication endeavors if citizen social science explicitly aims at addressing social justice issues. First, I situate citizen social science within the histories of citizen science and participatory action research to demonstrate how the three approaches are compatible. Next, I outline the tenets of citizen social science as they are informed by citizen science and participatory action research goals. I then use these tenets as criteria to evaluate the extent to which my case study, a community-based research project called ‘Rustbelt Theater’, counts as a citizen social science project.

  Volume 19 • Issue 04 • 2020

• Date of publication Sep 07, 2020 Category: Article

  Operationalizing science literacy: an experimental analysis of measurement

  by Meaghan McKasy , Michael Cacciatore , Leona Yi-Fan Su , Sara K. Yeo , Liane Oneill

  Inequalities in scientific knowledge are the subject of increasing attention, so how factual science knowledge is measured, and any inconsistencies in said measurement, is extremely relevant to the field of science communication. Different operationalizations of factual science knowledge are used interchangeably in research, potentially resulting in artificially comparable knowledge levels among respondents. Here, we present data from an experiment embedded in an online survey conducted in the United States (N = 1,530) that examined the distribution of factual science knowledge responses on a 3- vs. 5-point response scale. Though the scale did not impact a summative knowledge index, significant differences emerged when knowledge items were analyzed individually or grouped based on whether the correct response was “true” or “false.” Our findings emphasize the necessity for communicators to consider the goals of knowledge assessment when making operationalization decisions.

  Volume 19 • Issue 04 • 2020

• Date of publication Sep 01, 2020 Category: Commentary

  Collective creativity: strategies for catalyzing interdisciplinary research

  by Elizabeth LaPensee , Aalap Doshi

  Fostering interdisciplinary collaboration is critical for addressing complex research problems. At the earliest stages of research ideation and mobilization, we need to create environments that cultivate collective creativity, curiosity and decision making among those with diverse expertise. The fields of design and design thinking offer excellent tools and approaches for promoting rich conversations while simultaneously navigating ambiguity. Here we describe how design strategies can support team science, specifically as loosely formed groups collaboratively brainstorm around intractable problems.

  Volume 19 • Issue 04 • 2020

• Date of publication Sep 01, 2020 Category: Commentary

  Disentangling the different layers of interdisciplinarity

  by Renate Klaassen

  Interdisciplinarity for complex problem solving is a rising phenomenon. Each self-respecting university is trying to realise different programmes and approaches to interdisciplinary teaching and research. The debate on what interdisciplinarity is, how it may work as a substantial part of a university, which barriers are encountered to realising interdisciplinary teaching and research and what the added value is, is addressed in this paper from a social science perspective. Based on the attendance of a conference at the Volkswagenstiftung organised by the Humboldt University of Berlin, different scholarly viewpoints and examples are explored on Interdisciplinary teaching and (researching). Collaborations across the at-times-fragmented subfields of research and education ultimately yield insightful, informative, and even educational experience that creates space for mutual understanding and new ways of thinking about seemingly-established approaches to knowledge-building and communication.

  Volume 19 • Issue 04 • 2020

• Date of publication Sep 01, 2020 Category: Commentary

  Science Communication as a design challenge in transdisciplinary collaborations

  by Éva Kalmár , Hanneke Stenfert

  In this series of comments, we argue for Science Communication as an enabler of transdisciplinary, integrative collaboration in the context of today’s complex, multi-stakeholder issues. Participatory design, as a collaborative method, is effective in achieving mutual learning, shared understandings, integrating disciplines and creating solutions that make sense in the multi-layered reality of today’s challenges. Science Communication, therefore, is communication design in transdisciplinary collaborations.

  Power in science communication collaborations

  by Megan Halpern and Michael O'Rourke

  Disentangling the different layers of interdisciplinarity

  by Renate Klaassen

  Should science communication become part of a discipline of integration and implementation sciences (i2S)?

  by Gabriele Bammer

  Collective creativity: strategies for catalyzing interdisciplinary research

  by Elizabeth LaPensee and Aalap Doshi

  From actors to space, through processes: reflections from co-production and commoning

  by Paola Alfaro - d'Alençon and Horacio Torrent

  Volume 19 • Issue 04 • 2020