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Science communication research
Themes and challenges
Massimiano Bucchi and Brian Trench
Science and society: a theatrical dialogue1 and an introduction
A lane in a European city, one afternoon in early spring.
SOCIETY: (Walks along, talking on his mobile.)
SCIENCE: (Approaches, out of breath, with an armful of papers and a laptop.)
SOCIETY: (Puts away his mobile.) Hey, Science, is it really you? I didn’t recognise you without your white coat … Where are you off to?
SCIENCE: Oh, hello … excuse me, I’m in a bit of a hurry. I’m on my way to an international symposium in Sweden. We are going to discuss the construction of a new particle accelerator.
SOCIETY: Another one? Didn’t you set one up a little while ago in Geneva? The famous experiment in which the Earth was to disappear down a black hole? But there wasn’t really a black hole, was there?
SCIENCE: Nothing escapes you, does it! But you know, the black hole was the usual press hype … And remember, traffic to the physics institutes’ websites broke all records at the time …
SOCIETY: Well, they will have been interested too because it brought a lot of publicity … I remember reading an interview with that famous physicist … whatshisname … you know who I mean … But tell me about this new accelerator: what’s it for exactly?
SCIENCE: What’s it for, what’s it for … excuse me, but what’s your auntie for? It’s used for experiments with neutrons that help us to understand the nature of certain materials better, with extremely important theoretical implications and applications … but why waste time explaining things to you? You don’t listen to me, you don’t understand me, you have never understood me! We’ve known each other for 400 years, and our relationship just gets worse and worse! At least I have the courage to admit it: you are not really interested in me! And you are a little bit frightened of me too, aren’t you?
SOCIETY: Frightened, me? I listen to your talks at the Science Festival every year! And on television, I never miss a science programme, not one …
SCIENCE: All right … but you are more resistant than staphylococcus when it comes to getting your wallet out …
SOCIETY: Listen … well, what about you, eh? I already have to perform miracles just to balance the books. I should like to see you paying for health, education, social security … And it’s not true that I don’t spend money on research … do you know how much the nanotechnologies cost, in Europe as a whole? Well, do you? Give me a figure …
SCIENCE: I know, I know … but you must understand that the money you spend on me is money well spent … I bring innovation, development, jobs, technology …
SOCIETY: I am sure you do … By the way, I have read that research in genetics may extend life, people may live to the age of 150 … is it true?
SCIENCE: Well, yes, we are working on it but it will take years of work, investment, resources …
The relationship between science and society is often represented in terms of misunderstandings, gaps to be filled and bridges to be built. This traditional stereotype posits science as distinct and separate from society in terms of content, organisational practices, institutional aims and communication processes. In this light, some translation is required to establish connection between science and society at large, making elements of the science domain approachable, understandable and eventually appealing.
This traditional vision has some historical grounds and still bears the influence of socio-historical processes which, between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, defined science as a distinctive social institution with increasing political, economic and cultural relevance (BenDavid 1971; Merton 1973; Ezrahi 1990).
However, during the last few decades scholars and commentators have pointed to relevant transformations in research practice and organisation as well as in its dynamic interaction with society (Ziman 2000; Metlay 2006; Bucchi 2014). In particular, recent research and reflection have drawn attention to the increasing intersection and permeability of boundaries between science and society. For example, in areas like biomedicine or information technology, heterogeneous networks connecting scientific experts with non-experts and quasi-experts (patient organisations, citizen groups, users) are increasingly replacing traditional expert communities (Callon 1999; Callon et al. 2001; Bucchi 2009; see also Einsiedel in this volume).
These transformations encompass and reflect the very dynamics of science communication. Later, we outline some of the challenges these transformations present to researchers, but first, we offer a highly synopsised review of the current state of the art through an examination of the usage of terms that recur frequently as demanding the attention of practitioners and researchers.
A conceptual review in ten keywords
This conceptual review of theoretical reflections and research in science communication is presented through an exploration of ten frequently used terms: popularisation; model; deficit; dialogue; engagement; participation; publics; expertise; visible scientists; scientific culture. We outline how these terms have acquired a range of meanings, including distinctly different meanings, some of which coexist in current usage. With a firm fix on these terms, and an appreciation of how they may be deployed normatively, descriptively or analytically, the reader should be able to navigate much of the field of science communication research. It will be seen that all of these terms recur at different places through the other chapters of this Handbook. In many cases, the nuances of these concepts have been explored further. We have included some references to the literature but it would have made for very difficult reading if we had attached references at all possible points to our observations on the spread and trend of discussion. Readers may find this section useful as a resource or dictionary to consult for general conceptual clarification when reading the following chapters.2
Popularisation is the term with the longest tradition among those used to describe a wide range of practices in making scientific information accessible to general, non-expert audiences. Early examples of popularisation include Fontenelle’s Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (1686), a series of conversations between a philosopher and a marquise. During the eighteenth century, science popularisation gradually defined itself as a distinctive narrative genre, often targeting, in particular, female readers as supposedly ignorant and curious – ‘symbols of ignorance, goodwill and curiosity’ (Raichvarg and Jacques 1991: 39) – as in the classic Algarotti’s Newtonianism for Ladies (1739) or de Lalande’s L’Astronomie des Dames (1785). Other relevant channels of popularisation emerged later with scientific discoveries frequently featured in the daily press, science museums, public lectures and the great exhibitions and fairs that showed visitors the latest marvels of science and technology. Particularly during the second half of the nineteenth century, popularisation and popularisers profited from changes in the publishing business and the increasing reading audience to become influential voices, but their success also testified to the increasing relevance of science as a cultural force. The sales figures of books like Brewer’s Guide to the Scientific Knowledge of Things Familiar (195,000 copies up to 1892) are impressive even by contemporary standards. Through their books and public lectures, popularisers (showmen of science) like J. H. Pepper and J. G. Wood in England or Paolo Mantegazza in Italy became public celebrities of their time (Lightman 2007). In the following century and particularly after World Wa r II, the new global and policy landscape redefined popularisation in conceptual and even ideological terms, particularly in the US and western Europe. With science’s social and political role significantly captured by Vannevar Bush’s metaphor of the goose laying golden eggs (e.g. delivering economic wealth, social progress and military power if appropriately fed), popularisation was expected to ‘sell science’ to the broader public to strengthen social support and legitimation (Lewenstein 2008).3 This fuelled the development of new popularisation strategies and channels, including interactive science centres and partnerships between science institutions and Hollywood studios. When a new phase of critical reflection on the role of science in development and (more broadly) in society opened, the concept of popularisation also came under criticism as embodying a paternalistic, diffusionist conception of science communication (Hilgartner 1990).4 More recent conceptualisations have reappraised the term, considering it suitable to describe specific types and contexts of communicative interactions among science and the public.5 In China, for example, popularisation is the preferred term to refer to a wide range of science-in-society activities.
Model of communication is one of the key theoretical concepts in science communication. Despite that, very few explicit models of science communication have been designed and proposed. Over 20 years ago, sociologists and communication scholars identified problems of theory and conceptualisation in the dominant science popularisation practices of the time (e.g. Dornan 1991; Wynne 1991). They referred, in this context, to the model of communication underlying such practices, meaning the mental construction of relations between the actors in the communication process. They identified the dominant model in terms such as top-down and hierarchical and pointed to the assumption that the target public was defined by a deficit (see Deficit below) of some kind.
Over the past two decades, science communication communities in research and practice have sustained a discussion about the limits of inherited models and the characteristics of models that are more appropriate for the present day. Part of that discussion and research has been explicitly prescriptive and binary: it labels some models of communication as old and discredited and others as new and appropriate. In this context, the shift in preferences from one model to another is represented as evolutionary and irreversible.
But another part of that discussion and research is more descriptive and analytical: it has been aimed at understanding better the range of possible models, how different models are applied, how the language used to describe a practice may disguise the model that effectively shapes the practice (Wynne 2006), how different models can coexist (Miller 2001; Sturgis and Allum 2005) and what governs the choices made among them. Some attempts have been made to set out a wide spectrum of models, incorporating more narrowly defined options that might apply in specific and changing circumstances (Trench 2008b).
Deficit is a central concept in identifying the intellectual (or ideological) foundations of certain science-in-society ideas and practices and enabling their critique. Two assumptions often underlie this concept: public opinion and political decision-makers are misinformed about science and the issues raised by its development; this misinformation is fuelled by inadequate and sensationalist media coverage of technoscientific topics. This situation is seen as being exacerbated by poor training in basic science and a general disinterest among the institutions and the cultural intelligentsia in scientific research. Consequently, citizens and political decision-makers are seen to fall prey to irrational fears which fuel their hostility and suspicion towards entire sectors of research and technological innovation (e.g. nuclear energy, GM foods, stem cells).
From this perception arises the need to propose initiatives covering the gap between experts and the general public, reversing public attitudes towards science and technology or at least attenuating their hostility. Such emphasis on the public’s inability to understand the achievements of science – according to a model of linear, pedagogical and paternalistic communication – has warranted the label of ‘deficit model’ to this view of the public understanding of science (e.g. Wynne 1991; Ziman 1991).
From the early 1990s, several scholars have criticised the deficit approach by highlighting the weak empirical foundations of its assumptions and the limited results achieved by the communicative actions it has inspired. Critics of the ...
