scholarly journals From the margins to the mainstream: deconstructing science communication as a white, Western paradigm

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (01) ◽  
pp. C02
Author(s):  
Summer May Finlay ◽  
Sujatha Raman ◽  
Elizabeth Rasekoala ◽  
Vanessa Mignan ◽  
Emily Dawson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Communication Practices ◽  
Mainstream Science

In this commentary we are concerned with what mainstream science communication has neglected through cultural narrowness and ambient racism: other practitioners, missing audiences, unvalued knowledge, unrecognised practices. We explore examples from First Nations Peoples in the lands now known as Australia, from Griots in West Africa and from People's Science Movements in India to help us reimagine science communication. To develop meaningfully inclusive approaches to science communication, we argue there is an urgent need for the ‘mainstream’ to recognise, value and learn from science communication practices that are all too often seen as at ‘the margins’ of this field.

scholarly journals “A matter of time”: Evidence-making temporalities of vaccine development in the COVID-19 media landscape

2021 ◽  
pp. 0961463X2110322
Author(s):  
Mia Harrison ◽  
Kari Lancaster ◽  
Tim Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
News Media ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Development Time ◽  
Vaccine Development ◽  
Efficacy And Safety ◽  
Calendar Time ◽  
Public Science ◽  
Communication Practices ◽  
Epistemic Object

This article investigates how evidence of the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines is enacted in news media via a focus on the temporality of vaccine development. We argue that time constitutes a crucial object of and mechanism for knowledge production in such media and investigate how time comes to matter in vaccine evidence-making communication practices. In science communication on vaccine development, the vaccine object (along with the practices through which it is produced) undergoes a material-discursive shift from an imagined “rushed” product to being many years in the making and uninhibited by unnecessarily lengthy processes. In both these enactments of vaccine development, time itself is constituted as evidence of vaccine efficacy and safety. This article traces how time (performed as both calendar time and as a series of relational events) is materialized as an affective and epistemic object of evidence within public science communication by analyzing the material-discursive techniques through which temporality is enacted within news media focused on the timeline of COVID-19 vaccine development. We contend that time (as evidence) is remade through these techniques as an ontopolitical concern within the COVID-19 vaccine assemblage. We furthermore argue that science communication itself is an important actor in the hinterland of public health practices with performative effects and vital evidence-making capacities.

scholarly journals Who Speaks for Science?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Allchin
Keyword(s):  
Science Teachers ◽  
Media Literacy ◽  
Scientific Literacy ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Digital Information ◽  
Epistemic Dependence ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
The Core ◽  
Communication Practices

AbstractIronically, flat-Earthers, anti-vaxxers, and climate change naysayers trust in science. Unfortunately, they trust the wrong science. That conundrum lies at the heart of scientific literacy in an age of well-funded commercial and ideological interests and overwhelming digital information. The core question for the citizen-consumer is not philosophically “why trust science?” (Oreskes 2019) but sociologically “who speaks for science?” Teachers can help students learn how to navigate the treacherous territory of inevitably mediated communication and the vulnerabilities of epistemic dependence. Students need to understand the role of science communication practices (media literacy) and the roles of credibility, expertise and honesty and the deceptive strategies used by imitators of science to seem like credible voices for science.

scholarly journals Do we know the value of what we are doing?

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (01) ◽  
pp. E ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Trench
Keyword(s):  
Science Communication ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Global Spread ◽  
Communication Practices

The demand for evaluation of science communication practices and the number and variety of such evaluations are all growing. But it is not clear what evaluation tells us - or even what it can tell us about the overall impacts of the now-global spread of science communication initiatives. On the other hand, well-designed evaluation of particular activities can support innovative and improved practices.

Conflating scholarly and science communication practices: the production of open letters on climate change

2020 ◽  
Vol 76 (6) ◽  
pp. 1359-1375
Author(s):  
Carin Graminius
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Scholarly Communication ◽  
Professional Community ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Academic Science ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Communication Practices

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore and analyse interfaces between scholarly and science communication practices by using the production of open letters on climate change as a point of departure. Furthermore, the paper highlights an understudied form of science communication – open letters.Design/methodology/approachThe material consists of nine open letters on climate change, written and signed by academics and published in 2018–2019, as well as 13 semi-structured interviews with the initiators and co-authors of the letters. The interviews were analysed by qualitative thematic analysis and grouped into thematic clusters.FindingsThe study finds that three practices used in scholarly communication – more specifically: peer review, professional community building and, to a certain extent, communication as “merit-making” – are central in the making of the open letters, illustrating an integration of scholarly communication practices in academic science communication activities.Social implicationsThe study suggests that the conflation of communication practices needs to be seen in relation to larger structural changes in the academic working environment, as well as in relation to the specific environment in which communication about climate change occurs.Originality/valueThis study contends that the proposed conflation between scholarly and science communication concerns not only texts and genres but also practices integral to contemporary science, thereby conflating the forms of communication at a practical level.

scholarly journals Science communication practices at the National Autonomous University of Mexico

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (05) ◽  
pp. C05
Author(s):  
Ana Claudia Nepote ◽  
Elaine Reynoso-Haynes
Keyword(s):  
Mexico City ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Botanical Gardens ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Professional Science ◽  
Communication Practices ◽  
Training Professional

The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) is one of the world's single largest employers of science communicators, with over 350,000 students and 40,000 staff. Its science communication activities include five museums (Universum, Museo de la Luz, the Geology Museum, Museo de la Medicina Mexicana and Musem of Geophysics), botanical gardens, as well as a wide range of cultural and outreach activities. It has several programmes for training professional science communicators. The science communication staff are spread across the campuses in Mexico City and four other cities, including writers, explainers, researchers, evaluators, who produce exhibitions, magazines, books, theatre, screenings and science cafés. This activity is diverse and sometimes operates to different agendas.

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

2009 ◽  
Vol 08 (02) ◽  
pp. A04 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Claude Roland
Keyword(s):  
Practice Guidelines ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Quality Criteria ◽  
Scientific Writing ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
Communication Practices ◽  
Explicit Criteria

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.

scholarly journals Drawing Spirits in the Sand: Performative Storytelling in the Digital Age

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 492
Author(s):  
David I. Tafler
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Oral Storytelling ◽  
Digital Devices ◽  
Nations People ◽  
The People ◽  
Communication Practices ◽  
First Nations People ◽  
Global Arena

For First Nations people living in the central desert of Australia, the performance of oral storytelling drawing in the sand drives new agency in the cultural metamorphosis of communication practices accelerated by the proliferation of portable digital devices. Drawing on the ground sustains the proxemic and kinesthetic aspects of performative storytelling as a sign gesture system. When rendering this drawing supra-language, the people negotiate and ride the ontological divide symbolized by traditional elders in First Nations communities and digital engineers who program and code. In particular, storytelling’s chronemic encounter offsets the estrangement of the recorded event and maintains every participants’ ability to shape identity and navigate space-time relationships. Drawing storytelling demonstrates a concomitant capacity to mediate changes in tradition and spiritual systems. While the digital portals of the global arena remain open and luring, the force enabled by the chiasmic entwinement of speech, gesture and sand continues to map the frontier of First Nations identity formation and reformation.

scholarly journals Religious and Traditional Belief Systems Coexist and Compete with Science for Cultural Authority in West Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-22
Author(s):  
Bankole Falade
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Ebola Virus ◽  
Virus Disease ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Vaccination Campaigns

This study examines the coexistence of science with Christian, Islamic and African religious beliefs and its implications for science communication. Using Moscovici's social representations theory and focusing on his accommodation hypothesis, the paper draws from experiences in mental health care, vaccination controversies and viral epidemics using case studies from West Africa. It also draws similarities from historical vaccination controversies around the world and the Zika virus epidemic in Brazil. The paper shows that Moscovici's accommodation hypothesis of cognitive polyphasia better explains the coexistence of science and religious belief, which can, however, be double-edged. It also shows that coexistence can lead to a positive cross-referral system, as in the case of mental health in Ghana; can have initial negative outcomes, as in vaccination campaigns in Nigeria and Cameroon; or can aid the spread and eventual containment of disease, as experienced during the Ebola virus disease epidemic in West Africa. Thus, while science remains a reference beacon in all controversies, its coexistence with religious belief can lead to an initial plunge in authority from which it eventually recovers. The choice of authority is also complicated by the dual role of some scientists as religious leaders and by previous untoward experiences with science, conspiracy theories and rumours about Western interventions in Africa.

Communication Ecologies: Analyzing Adoption of False Beliefs in an Information-Rich Environment

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 650-668 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Walter ◽  
Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach ◽  
Yu Xu ◽  
Garrett M. Broad
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Feasibility Study ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Vaccine Safety ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
Communication Ecology ◽  
Current Article ◽  
Communication Practices ◽  
Practical Implications

The continued fragmentation of information and the proliferation of communication resources necessitate a shift toward perspectives that situate communication practices in a multilevel ecosystem. The current article offers a method to map and analyze communication ecologies—defined as the networks of communication connections that individuals depend on in order to construct knowledge and achieve goals—as social networks. To demonstrate the potential of communication ecologies as an analytical tool in science communication, we report on the results of a feasibility study ( N = 654) in the context of climate science and vaccine safety. The article discusses the theoretical and practical implications of the communication ecology approach.

scholarly journals Observing and drawing the Sun: research-based insights to assess science communication practices aimed at children

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (04) ◽  
pp. A03
Author(s):  
Sara Anjos ◽  
Alexandre Aibeo ◽  
Anabela Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
Science Communication ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
First Grade ◽  
Graphical Representations ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Children's Drawings ◽  
Knowing How ◽  
Children’S Drawings ◽  
Communication Practices ◽  
Over Time

Knowing how specific publics understand and experience science is crucial for both researchers and practitioners. As learning and meaning-making develop over time, depending on a combination of factors, creative possibilities to analyze those processes are needed to improve evaluation of science communication practices. We examine how first grade children's drawings expressed their perceptions of the Sun and explore their views of a major astronomical body within their social, cultural and personal worlds. We then examine how the observation of the Sun through a telescope led to changes in graphical representations, and how learning and meaning evolved after several months.

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