Communicating Science

New Agendas in Communication

LeeAnn Kahlor, Patricia Stout, LeeAnn Kahlor, Patricia Stout

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781135269791
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This volume explores the evolution of science communication, addressing key issues and offering substance for future study. Harnessing the energies of junior scholars on the forefront of science communication, this work pushes the boundaries of research forward, allowing scholars to sample the multiple paradigms and agendas that will play a role in shaping the future of science communication. Editors LeeAnn Kahlor and Patricia Stout challenge their readers to channel the energy within these chapters to build or continue to build their own research agendas as all scholars work together – across disciplines – to address questions of public understanding of science and communicating science.

These chapters are intended to inspire still more research questions, to help aspiring science communication scholars locate their own creative and original research programs, and to help veteran science communication scholars expand their existing programs such that they can more actively build interdisciplinary bridges. Crossing methodological boundaries, work from quantitative and qualitative scholars, social scientists and rhetoricians is represented here.

This volume is developed for practitioners and scholars alike – for anyone who is concerned about or interested in the future of science and how communication is shaping and will continue to shape that future. In its progressive pursuit of interdisciplinary research streams – of thinking outside methodological and theoretical boxes – this book inspires science communication scholars at all levels to set a new standard for collaboration not just for science communication, but for communication research in general.

Part I
Merging Theory and Practice

Models and Frameworks

Chapter 1
A Critical Appraisal of Models of Public Understanding of Science

Using Practice to Inform Theory

Dominique Brossard and Bruce V. Lewenstein

Complex scientific issues are an inherent part of modern societies and are continuously debated in the public sphere. Stem-cell research, biotechnology, and global warming—these all require regulations and, as a result, necessitate scientific as well as societal considerations. Subsequently, a basic understanding of these complex issues should be made possible for all individuals living in societies that value and respect their citizens’ views. In these democratic societies, public understanding of science is central to sound processes for policy making related to controversial scientific issues.

Recognizing the importance of the ethical, legal, and social dimensions of new scientific developments, the federal government over the last 20 years has made outreach activities and public understanding of science a mandatory component of federally funded projects. The essential assumption behind these outreach projects is that greater access to information will lead to more knowledge about ethical, legal, and social issues, which in turn will lead to enhanced ability on the part of individuals and communities to deal with these issues when they encounter them. Over the same period of time, new concepts of “public understanding of science” have emerged in the theoretical realm, moving from a “deficit” or linear dissemination of popularization, to models stressing lay-knowledge, public engagement, and public participation in science policy making (Lewenstein, 2003). In the public arena, calls for “better science communication” are routinely heard.

The present study turns to the Department of Energy-funded educational projects related to the Human Genome Project, specifically the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) component of that research program, to explore the ways that information about a new and emerging area of science—one that is intertwined with public issues—has been used in educational public settings to affect public understanding of science. We aim to use real-world settings to investigate if discussions taking place in the theoretical realm can be translated into practice. In other words, we will use a case-study approach as a basis to test theoretical models of science outreach in order to assess to what extent those models accord with real-world outreach activities.

This chapter is organized in the following fashion: after placing theoretical models of public communication of science in a historical and conceptual context, we will discuss the methods we used to identify and analyze real-world outreach activities as related to these models. We will conclude by discussing the lessons to be learned from our investigation and their relevance to science communication research, and by challenging a strict use of the current theoretical models in public opinion and public understanding of science-related research.

Theoretical Background

“Public understanding of science,” or PUOS, is a relatively new field of scholarly inquiry that has developed since the 1980s. PUOS-related projects can roughly be placed in two broad categories: (1) projects that aim at improving the understanding the public(s) have of a specific area of science; (2) projects that aim at exploring the interaction of the public and science. Recent efforts have focused on integrating these two by linking research findings with outreach activities. Such efforts have aimed at building conceptual models of public communication of science that could give a comprehensive view of the frameworks that are at play for research in the field, one implicit goal of which is to implement these models systematically in the practical realm of outreach.

The Deficit Model

Not surprisingly, most discussions of public understanding of science emerge from within the scientific community itself. The primary concern there has been, since at least the middle of the 19th century, the lack of intellectual public support for scientific ways of thinking and material public support for scientific work—the funds for research (Burnham, 1987; LaFollette, 1990). By the mid-1970s, these concerns led to efforts by the National Science Board that attempted to measure public knowledge of and attitudes toward science and technology (Miller, 1983a, 1983b). These surveys show that in 2002, only 10% of Americans can define “molecule,” and that more than half believe that humans and dinosaurs lived on the Earth at the same time (National Science Board, 2002). Combining these factual questions with ones about the process of science and the institutional place of science has yielded measures of “science literacy” that show, depending on the year and the particular method of interpretation, that only 5% of the American public is scientifically literate, and only 20% are interested and informed. The rest, by formal definition, are “residual” (National Science Board, 1991, 1993, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002).

Studies such as these—along with anecdotes common among the scientific community about the public’s inability to understand even basic ideas of probability, skepticism, and evidence—have led to cries about the lack of knowledge, and then to new programs for providing information to fill the gap of knowledge (Royal Society, 1985; U.S. National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983). This approach has become known as the “deficit” model, since it describes a deficit of knowledge that must be filled, with a presumption that after fixing the deficit, everything will be “better” (whatever that might mean) (Ziman, 1991, 1992). Vast and important projects to address science literacy have emerged, perhaps most notably the National Science Education Standards in the United States (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993; National Research Council, 1996).

However, scholars have identified a series of difficulties with the Deficit Model. Most notably, many of the questions are asked without providing a context (Wynne, 1995). In what situation with personal relevance, for example, does a non-scientist need to know the definition of DNA? Learning theory has shown that people learn best when facts and theories have meaning in their personal lives (Bransford, National Research Council Committee on Learning Research and Educational Practice, 2000); for example, research has shown that in communities with water-quality problems, even people with limited education can quickly come to understand highly complex technical information (Fessenden-Raden, Fitchen, & Heath, 1987). In addition, the interpretation that labels many people “sci-entifically illiterate” or “residual,” while based on good political theory, highlights the power relationships between those with the particular knowledge measured by the surveys and those without. There has been little attention to other forms of knowledge that may be relevant to individuals in their real, everyday lives (Irwin & Wynne, 1996). Another critique is that, after nearly 30 years of gathering data on the public understanding of science, and after many more years of active attempts to affect public knowledge, the numbers seem remarkably stable. Approaching the problem from the perspective of “filling the deficit” doesn’t seem to have been a successful approach.

As a result of these concerns, at least three other models have been developed in response to the Deficit Model: the Contextual Model, the Lay Expertise Model and the Public Engagement Model. These models are frameworks for understanding what “the problem” is, how to measure the problem, and how to address the problem. Next, we discuss the Contextual Model of public communication of science.

The Contextual Model

The Contextual Model acknowledges that individuals do not simply respond as empty containers to information, but rather process information according to social and psychological schemas that have been shaped by their previous experiences, cultural context, and personal circumstances. One common area in which the Contextual Model has been applied is risk perception and risk communication (Krimsky & Plough, 1988; National Research Council (U.S.) Committee on Risk Perception and Communication, 1989; Slovic, 1987). The model acknowledges that individuals receive information in particular contexts, which then shape how they respond to that information. Personal psychological issues may affect the context, such as stage in life or personality type (fearful, aggressive), as may the social context in which information is received (a trusting relationship with an old friend versus a confrontational relationship with a distrusted employer, for example). The Contextual Model also recognizes the ability of social systems and media representations to either dampen or amplify public concern about specific issues (Kasperson et al., 1988).

Newer approaches to the Contextual Model have attempted to use modern marketing segmentation approaches to identify populations with differing underlying attitudes toward science, without necessarily tying those groups to particular risk contexts or to levels of “science literacy” (Office of Science and Technology & Wellcome Trust, 2000). At the practical level, the Contextual Model provides guidance for constructing messages about science relevant to individuals in particular contexts, such as using messages about addiction and brain structure as a vehicle for teaching reading to low-literacy adults (who often come from personal or social settings in which drugs and addiction are common) (Baker, 1995).

The Contextual Model has been criticized for being merely a more sophisticated version of the Deficit Model: it acknowledges that audiences are not mere empty vessels but nonetheless conceptualizes a “problem” in which individuals respond to information in ways that seem inappropriate to scientific experts (Wynne, 1995). The Contextual Model recognizes the presence of social forces, but nonetheless focuses on the response of individuals to information; it highlights the psychological component of a complex social psychological setting. The recent use of marketing and demographic approaches has also raised concern that Contextual Model research is intended as a tool for manipulation of messages to achieve particular aims; the goal might not be “understand-ing” but “acquiescence.”

In response to the Deficit and Contextual Models, researchers expressed concern th...

Table of contents

• New Agendas in Communication
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Foreword Building a Context for the Next Century of Science Communication Research
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part I Merging Theory and Practice
• Part II Characterization and Meaning-Making
• Part III The Future
• Contributors
• Index