scholarly journals Scientists: Engage the Public!

mBio ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika C. Shugart ◽  
Vincent R. Racaniello
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Social Stigma ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
The Public ◽  
Advanced Society ◽  
The Social

ABSTRACT Scientists must communicate about science with public audiences to promote an understanding of complex issues that we face in our technologically advanced society. Some scientists may be concerned about a social stigma or “Sagan effect” associated with participating in public communication. Recent research in the social sciences indicates that public communication by scientists is not a niche activity but is widely done and can be beneficial to a scientist's career. There are a variety of approaches that scientists can take to become active in science communication.

scholarly journals Inayatullah, Rubina Saigol, and Pervez Tahir (eds). Social Sciences in Pakistan: A Profile. Islamabad: Council of Social Sciences, 2005. 512 pages. Hardbound. Rs 500.00.

2004 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Faiz Bilquees
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Mass Communication ◽  
Public Universities ◽  
The State ◽  
Educational Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Peace And Conflict ◽  
Peace And Conflict Resolution ◽  
And Linguistics

Commissioned by the Council of Social Sciences (COSS), this volume evaluates the seventeen social sciences departments in the public universities in Pakistan for a given set of parameters. The social sciences departments or the topics covered in this volume and their respective authors include: Teaching of International Relations in Pakistani Universities (Rasul Bakhsh Rais); Development of the Discipline of Political Science in Pakistan (Inayatullah); The Development of Strategic Studies in Pakistan (Ayesha Siddiqa); The State of Educational Discourse in Pakistan (Rubina Saigol); Development of Philosophy as a Discipline (Mohammad Ashraf Adeel); The State of the Discipline of Psychology in Public Universities in Pakistan: A Review (Muhammad Pervez and Kamran Ahmad); Development of Economics as a Discipline in Pakistan (Karamat Ali); Sociology in Pakistan: A Review of Progress (Muhammad Hafeez); Anthropology in Pakistan: The State of [sic] Discipline (Nadeem Omar Tarar); Development of the Discipline of History in Pakistan (Mubarak Ali); The Discipline of Public Administration in Pakistan (Zafar Iqbal Jadoon and Nasira Jabeen); Journalism and Mass Communication (Mehdi Hasan); Area Studies in Pakistan: An Assessment (Muhammad Islam); Pakistan Studies: A Subject of the State, and the State of the Subject (Syed Jaffar Ahmed); The State of the Discipline of Women’s Studies in Pakistan (Rubina Saigol); Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies (Moonis Ahmar and Farhan H. Siddiqi); and Linguistics in Pakistan: A Survey of the Contemporary Situation (Tariq Rahman).

scholarly journals Engaging bioscientists in science communication: Evidence from an international survey

F1000Research ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 209
Author(s):  
Andrea Boggio ◽  
Giorgio Scita ◽  
Carmen Sorrentino ◽  
David Hemenway ◽  
Andrea Ballabeni
Keyword(s):  
Science Communication ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Basic Research ◽  
Social Value ◽  
Science Outreach ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Negative Feelings ◽  
Study Participants ◽  
Institutional Actors

Background: Exchanges between scientists and nonscientists are critical to realizing the social value of basic research. These exchanges rest in part on the willingness and ability of scientists to engage effectively in science communication activities. In this paper, we discuss the perception and willingness of basic scientists in the biological and biomedical fields to engage in science outreach. Methods: The analysis is based on qualitative data collected as part of a survey on the social value of basic research and is framed by the theory of planned behavior. This is a well-established theory of human behavior that relies on the premise that a person’s intention to engage in a behavior is the single best predictor of whether that person will in fact engage in that behavior. Results: Our data show that, while bioscientists maintain a positive attitude towards science communication, their intentions are influenced by some negative feelings with regard to how nonscientists react to science communication efforts. Interactions with institutional actors, governmental bodies and the public are particularly problematic. On the other hand, interactions with clinicians and patients are framed in positive terms. Finally, some study participants raised concerns as to their ability to communicate science effectively, the availability of time and resources, and the lack of proper rewards, particularly in terms of career advancement, for those who engage in science efforts. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that bioscientists' intentions to engage in science communication efforts must be better studied to develop empirically-informed interventions to increase scientists’ participation in science outreach efforts.

scholarly journals The Social Life of the “Forever Chemical”

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 146-163
Author(s):  
Daniel Renfrew ◽  
Thomas W. Pearson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
The Public ◽  
Toxic Event ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Polyfluoroalkyl Substances

This article examines the social life of PFAS contamination (a class of several thousand synthetic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) and maps the growing research in the social sciences on the unique conundrums and complex travels of the “forever chemical.” We explore social, political, and cultural dimensions of PFAS toxicity, especially how PFAS move from unseen sites into individual bodies and into the public eye in late industrial contexts; how toxicity is comprehended, experienced, and imagined; the factors shaping regulatory action and ignorance; and how PFAS have been the subject of competing forms of knowledge production. Lastly, we highlight how people mobilize collectively, or become demobilized, in response to PFAS pollution/ toxicity. We argue that PFAS exposure experiences, perceptions, and responses move dynamically through a “toxicity continuum” spanning invisibility, suffering, resignation, and refusal. We off er the concept of the “toxic event” as a way to make sense of the contexts and conditions by which otherwise invisible pollution/toxicity turns into public, mass-mediated, and political episodes. We ground our review in our ongoing multisited ethnographic research on the PFAS exposure experience.

Entomotourism: The Allure of the Arthropod

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (7) ◽  
pp. 733-750
Author(s):  
Raynald Harvey Lemelin ◽  
Elizabeth Y. S. Boileau ◽  
Constance Russell
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Monarch Butterfly ◽  
Whale Watching ◽  
The Public ◽  
Wildlife Tourism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Tourism Studies ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Public Imagination

AbstractWildlife tourism is often associated with charismatic megafauna in the public imagination (e.g., safaris, whale watching, bear viewing). Entomotourism (insect-focused tourism) typically is not on the radar, but each year thousands of peoples visit monarch butterfly congregations and glow worm caves, and participate in guided firefly outings. Elsewhere, millions of peoples visit butterfly pavilions, insectariums, and bee museums. Calculations of visitation numbers aside, researchers in tourism studies have largely ignored the appeal of these animals, relegating these types of activities to the recreational fringe. By highlighting the popularity of entomotourism, this article challenges the vertebrate bias prevalent in the social sciences and seeks to move entomotourism from the margins to the mainstream of research on tourism in human/animal studies.

Complexity, Science and the Public

2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 113-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristian Suteanu
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Unexpected Result ◽  
Multiple Relationships ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Measurability Problem ◽  
Rule Out ◽  
The Way

This article addresses complexity by selecting some of its key aspects that share a common feature: the power to change. They seem to change not only the way the world is approached by scientists, but also the way this approach, the resulting perspectives and their multiple relationships, are interpreted. These main aspects are: (1) the challenge of measurability, with an unexpected result that escapes the gravitational field of the measurability problem; (2) the meaning of reproducibility and the redrawn boundaries of scientific inquiry, with implications for the social sciences; (3) the altered expectations concerning prediction, which seem to break with a glorious tradition of unquestioned technological success; and (4) the discovery of all-embracing patterns of events that unavoidably include large events, possibly perceived as ‘crises’, which one may hope to understand and confront, rather than rule out. The resulting geography, with its new landmarks, new relationships among its elements and new means of orientation, is expected to reach the public sooner or later, even if the effect – according to complexity theory itself – cannot be foreseen in detail. All these fibres of change are considered in the context of a fresh meaning of time and of a topology dominated by network concepts.

scholarly journals Policymakers' Online Use of Academic Research

2003 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Willinsky
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
The Political ◽  
Online Research ◽  
Federal Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Impact ◽  
Academic Resources

In addressing the question of how new technologies can improve the public quality and presence of academic research, this article reports on the current online use of research by policymakers. Interviews with a sample of 25 Canadian policymakers at the federal level were conducted, looking at the specific role that online research has begun to play in their work, and what frustrations they face in using this research. The study found widespread use of online research, increasing the consultation of this source in policy analysis and formation. The principal issues remain those of access, indexing and credibility, with policymakers restricting themselves in large part to open access sources. Still, online research is proving a counterforce to policymakers' reliance on a small number of academic consultants as gatekeepers and sources for research. What is needed, it becomes clear, is investigations into whether innovative well-indexed systems that integrate a range of academic and non-academic resources might increase the political impact of research in the social sciences and education.

scholarly journals On critical hope and the anthropos of non-anthropocentric discourses. Some thoughts on archaeology in the Anthropocene

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-170
Author(s):  
Piraye Hacıgüzeller
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Hope

AbstractIn this essay I scrutinize the non-anthropocentric discourses used by the social sciences and humanities narratives and critiques of the Anthropocene. Although not always predominant within the academic Anthropocene debate, such discursive strands remain politically and ethically inspiring and influential in that debate and for the public discourse concerning the epoch. I stress that these discourses inherit the hope for human progress that characterizes critical theory of the Frankfurt school, i.e. ‘critical hope’, a type of hope that renders the non-anthropocentric discourses self-contradictory. Even when they manage to escape the hold of critical hope, these discourses, I argue, suffer from ethical and political failings due to their inherent lack of focus on human–human relations and largely ahistorical nature. I conclude the essay by advocating an Anthropocene archaeology that remains critical of and learns from the ethical and political shortcomings of non-anthropocentric perspectives and making a related call for a slow archaeology of the Anthropocene.

scholarly journals Researching the Dynamics of National Social Policy in a Globalized Society. A Proposal for a De-Nationalized Analytical Framework

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-155
Author(s):  
Erica Righard
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Pension Scheme ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social

Abstract Epistemological hierarchies in the social sciences stipulate that sedentarism is naturalised as a normality, and that mobility is viewed as a deviation. This article sets out to propose an analytical framework that takes the analysis beyond this kind of nationalized knowledge production, and to empirically show the gains of de-nationalized frameworks for analysis of social protection and dynamics of in-/equality in the globalised society. I will do this relying on the empirical example of the public old-age pension scheme in Sweden.

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