Engaging the Public at a Science Festival

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 250-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen M. Rose ◽  
Kaine Korzekwa ◽  
Dominique Brossard ◽  
Dietram A. Scheufele ◽  
Laura Heisler
Keyword(s):  
Public Engagement ◽  
Gene Editing ◽  
Human Gene ◽  
The Public ◽  
Scientific Issue ◽  
Public Engagement With Science ◽  
Risk And Benefit ◽  
Science Activities

Theoretically and methodologically sound research on the reach and impact of public engagement practices continues to lag behind. Using the 2015 Wisconsin Science Festival as context, we empirically investigate the impacts of a public engagement activity about a nascent and controversial scientific issue, human gene editing. Overall, we find the panel increased participants’ understanding of the complexities of human gene editing, as demonstrated by increases in knowledge and the moral acceptability of the technology among respondents, as well as the associated risk and benefit perceptions. Practical and theoretical implications for science festivals and public engagement with science activities are discussed.

scholarly journals Scaling training to support scientists to engage with the public in non-traditional venues

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (04) ◽  
pp. N02
Author(s):  
Caitlin Weber ◽  
Sue Allen ◽  
Nalini Nadkarni
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Training Program ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Access ◽  
Traditional Learning ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Engagement With Science ◽  
Science Activities

Public engagement with science activities need to be extended beyond traditional learning venues (e.g., museums, schools) to increase public access. Scientists are motivated to carry out this work; however, it is difficult to scale up training to support the implementation of engagement activities in non-traditional venues. Such training would need to be applicable to different engagement contexts, while avoiding a “one size fits all” approach. We describe the guiding principles, challenges, and design choices of a training program in the United States to support scientists in designing and implementing audience-specific engagement activities in a range of non-traditional venues.

scholarly journals Biofilm Control Strategies: Engaging with the Public

Antibiotics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 465
Author(s):  
Joanna Verran ◽  
Sarah Jackson ◽  
Antony Scimone ◽  
Peter Kelly ◽  
James Redfern
Keyword(s):  
Public Engagement ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Control Strategies ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Audience Engagement ◽  
The Public ◽  
Biofilm Control ◽  
Public Engagement With Science ◽  
Future Events ◽  
Plaque Control

There are few peer-reviewed publications about public engagement with science that are written by microbiologists; those that exist tend to be a narrative of an event rather than a hypothesis-driven investigation. However, it is relatively easy for experienced scientists to use a scientific method in their approach to public engagement. This short communication describes three public engagement activities hosted by the authors, focused on biofilm control: hand hygiene, plaque control and an externally applied antimicrobial coating. In each case, audience engagement was assessed using quantitative and/or qualitative methods. A critical evaluation of the findings enabled the construction of a public engagement ‘tick list’ for future events that would enable a hypothesis-driven approach with more effective communication activities and more robust evaluation.

scholarly journals The Power of Place

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-53
Author(s):  
Catharina Landstrom ◽  
Stewart Kemp
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Risk ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Geographical Location ◽  
Risk Governance ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Engagement With Science ◽  
Lay Members ◽  
Local Engagement ◽  
The Uk

Investigating the role of geographical location in public engagement with science we examine the West Cumbria Managing Radioactive Waste Safely (MRWS) Partnership’s undertaking of one of the most extensive local public engagements with environmental risk science in the UK. The case study highlights the transformative impacts of this three-year long local engagement on both science and the public. Differently from other invited public engagements, organised as experiments controlled by scientists in spaces set aside from the everyday, the Partnership’s lay members led a process unfolding in the place that was potentially at risk. The Partnership had the authority to demand that scientists addressed issues of local interest. We frame the analysis with the notions ‘re-situating technoscience' and ‘re-assembling the public' to illuminate how scientific knowledge claims were modified and a new local public emerged, at the intersection of public engagement with science and public participation in environmental risk governance.

Enhanced threat or therapeutic benefit? Risk and benefit perceptions of human gene editing by purpose and heritability of edits

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Emily L. Howell ◽  
Patrice Kohl ◽  
Dietram A. Scheufele ◽  
Sarah Clifford ◽  
Anqi Shao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gene Editing ◽  
Human Gene ◽  
Therapeutic Benefit ◽  
Risk And Benefit

Psychology and its publics

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Pettit ◽  
Jacy L. Young
Keyword(s):  
Public Engagement ◽  
Public Understanding Of Science ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Engagement With Science ◽  
Understanding Of Science ◽  
The Relationship

This paper introduces the special issue dedicated to ‘Psychology and its Publics’. The question of the relationship between psychologists and the wider public has been a central matter of concern to the historiography of psychology. Where critical historians tend to assume a pliant audience, eager to adopt psychological categories, psychologists themselves often complain about the public misunderstanding of them. Ironically, both accounts share a flattened understanding of the public. We turn to research on the public understanding of science (PUS), the public engagement with science (PES) and communications studies to develop a rich account of the circuitry that ties together psychological experts and their subjects.

scholarly journals A survey to gather perspectives of DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance-funded researchers on public engagement with science

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 269
Author(s):  
Sarah Iqbal ◽  
Banya Kar
Keyword(s):  
Public Engagement ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Funding Agency ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
The Public ◽  
Structural Support ◽  
Professional Recognition ◽  
Science Funding ◽  
Public Engagement With Science

Lately, the Indian research ecosystem has seen an upward trend in scientists showing interest in communicating their science and engaging with non-scientific audiences; however, the number and variety of science communication or public engagement activities undertaken formally by scientists remains low in the country. There could be many contributing factors for this trend. To explore this further, the science funding public charity in India, DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance (India Alliance), in a first of its kind of study by a funding agency in India, surveyed its 243 research grantees in November 2020 requesting their views on public engagement with science in India through an online survey. The survey included both quantitative as well as open-ended questions to assess the understanding of, participation in, and attitude of India Alliance Fellows/Grantees towards public engagement with research, identify the enablers, challenges, and barriers to public engagement for India Alliance Fellows/Grantees, understand the specific needs (training/capacity-building, funding, etc.) and develop recommendations for India Alliance as well as for the larger scientific ecosystem in the country. The survey showed that India Alliance grantees are largely motivated to engage with the public about science or their research but lack professional recognition and incentives, training and structural support to undertake public engagement activities.

scholarly journals Impacts of genre and access on science discussions: ‘The New Reddit Journal of Science’

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (05) ◽  
pp. A04
Author(s):  
Ehren Helmut Pflugfelder ◽  
Alexander Mahmou-Werndli
Keyword(s):  
Public Engagement ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Science Writing ◽  
Discussion Boards ◽  
Science Content ◽  
The Public ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Public Engagement With Science ◽  
Science News ◽  
Science In Society

Which genre of science writing contributes most to public understanding, and how does that understanding happen? Working within a science in society approach, this paper examines public engagement with science as it occurs in the comments and discussion boards of r/science. Researchers use content analysis to identify relevant concept categories and code comments for interaction with science content. The resulting data are analyzed by genre (scientific news journalism, press release, and research article) and open access status, revealing differences in public engagement with implications for science communicators and scholars seeking to understand how the public interacts with science news.

scholarly journals Communicating astronomy with the public: perspectives of an international community of practice

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (03) ◽  
pp. A11
Author(s):  
Sara Anjos ◽  
Pedro Russo ◽  
Anabela Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
International Community ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Engagement With Science ◽  
Public Perspectives

Communities of practice in science communication can make important contributions to public engagement with science but are under-researched. In this article, we look at the perspectives of a community of practice in astronomy communication regarding (relations with) their public(s). Most participants in this study consider that public(s) have several deficits and vulnerabilities. Moreover, practitioners have little to no contact with (and therefore make no use of) academic research on science communication. We argue that collaboration between science communication researchers and practitioners could benefit the science-public relationship and that communities of practice may be critical to that purpose.

The effects of social identity threat and social identity affirmation on laypersons’ perception of scientists

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (7) ◽  
pp. 754-770 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Nauroth ◽  
Mario Gollwitzer ◽  
Henrik Kozuchowski ◽  
Jens Bender ◽  
Tobias Rothmund
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Identity Threat ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Identity Threat ◽  
Public Engagement With Science ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Social Identity Approach

Public debates about socio-scientific issues (e.g. climate change or violent video games) are often accompanied by attacks on the reputation of the involved scientists. Drawing on the social identity approach, we report a minimal group experiment investigating the conditions under which scientists are perceived as non-prototypical, non-reputable, and incompetent. Results show that in-group affirming and threatening scientific findings (compared to a control condition) both alter laypersons’ evaluations of the study: in-group affirming findings lead to more positive and in-group threatening findings to more negative evaluations. However, only in-group threatening findings alter laypersons’ perceptions of the scientists who published the study: scientists were perceived as less prototypical, less reputable, and less competent when their research results imply a threat to participants’ social identity compared to a non-threat condition. Our findings add to the literature on science reception research and have implications for understanding the public engagement with science.

Mundane science use in a practice theoretical perspective: Different understandings of the relations between citizen-consumers and public communication initiatives build on scientific claims

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bente Halkier
Keyword(s):  
Public Engagement ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Public Understanding Of Science ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Engagement With Science ◽  
Scientific Claims ◽  
Understanding Of Science

Public communication initiatives play a part in placing complicated scientific claims in citizen-consumers’ everyday contexts. Lay reactions to scientific claims framed in public communication, and attempts to engage citizens, have been important subjects of discussion in the literatures of public understanding and public engagement with science. Many of the public communication initiatives, however, address lay people as consumers rather than citizens. This creates specific challenges for understanding public engagement with science and scientific citizenship. The article compares five different understandings of the relations between citizen-consumers and public issue communication involving science, where the first four types are widely represented in the Public Understanding of Science discussions. The fifth understanding is a practice theoretical perspective. The article suggests how the public understanding of and engagement in science literature can benefit from including a practice theoretical approach to research about mundane science use and public engagement.

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