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The maker movement has risen to recent public prominence, imagined by governments, industry, and educators as leading to economic growth. This article examines this movement through analysis of the figure of the hacker and the way in which scientific citizenship is represented through it. Hacking and making's widely claimed salience to public policy, education, and social enterprise has been enabled by a public imagination of hackers as ideal (scientific) citizens. By using political theory concerning the role and value of silence in citizenship, the article explores what is rendered other through this promotion of the figure of the hacker, suggesting that practices of care, watching and waiting, thinking and reflecting, and sitting with are all valuable aspects of citizenship that are elided in contemporary accounts. The argument has implications for the maker movement, wider conceptions of scientific citizenship, and public imaginations of innovation: by focusing on the "noise" of active participation and personal responsibility, we miss the "silence" of other ways of being.

The rise of a "maker movement," located in hacker and makerspaces and involving the democratization of technologies of production and support of grassroots innovation, is receiving increasing attention from science and technology studies (STS) scholarship. This article explores how hacking is characterized by users of hacker and makerspaces and relates this to broader discussion of the maker movement as, for instance, promoting innovation, engaged in countercultural critique, or as accessible to anyone. Based on an interview study of users of twelve hacker and makerspaces across the United States, it argues that for these users, hacking is not about politics, commercial innovation, or critique. Rather, it is understood as a lifestyle one subscribes to, a meaningful leisure activity, or as providing access to a welcoming and close-knit community. Contrary to expectations of the maker movement as heralding social change, the benefits of hacking were viewed as personal rather than political, economic, or social; similarly, democratization of technology was experienced as rather incidental to most hackers' and makers' experiences.

This book describes current practices in science communication, from citizen science to Twitter storms, and celebrates this diversity through case studies and examples. However, the authors also reflect on how scholars and practitioners can gain better insight into science communication through new analytical methods and perspectives. From science PR to the role of embodiment and materiality, some aspects of science communication have been under-studied. How can we better notice these? Science Communication provides a new synthesis for Science Communication Studies. It uses the historical literature of the field, new empirical data, and interdisciplinary thought to argue that the frames which are typically used to think about science communication often omit important features of how it is imagined and practised. It is essential reading for students, scholars, and practitioners of science education, science and technology studies, museum studies, and media and communication studies

AbstractThe Collingridge dilemma—the problem of reacting to emerging technology either "too early" or "too late"—is one that is readily recognized by developers and promoters of nanotechnologies. One response can be found in the rise of a discourse of "responsible development" in the science and innovation policy landscape. While a number of commentators have discussed the potential of such initiatives, it remains unclear how responsible development is actually being configured "on the ground," in private sector nanotechnology. This paper addresses this question by analyzing empirical engagements in Europe and the United States in order to map industry operationalizations of "responsibility" in these contexts. We show that a number of different articulations of "responsibility" are present, including as a response to public lack of trust and perceived public pressure, and as the management of risk. We close by relating these findings to the theoretical literature on responsibility, other contemporary accounts of the ways in which responsible development can be operationalized, and the possibilities that these articulations of responsibility may open up.

In this article, we draw from our experiences as UK and US-based 'dialogue event' practitioners and researchers/ evaluators to suggest that these existing evaluative criteria are insufficient to explore the role and value of ISI-based 'dialogue events'. Instead, we suggest that it may be productive to research and evaluate these ISI-based 'dialogue events' as sites of learning. Secondly, however, we show through a discussion of our own research frameworks that understanding these 'dialogue events' as sites of learning does not intuitively provide a framework for understanding what counts as success for these efforts. Instead, research on the role of 'dialogue' within the educational literature – and the connections between 'dialogue' and competing understandings of the nature of science and society – offers a multiplicity of approaches to defining the terms and goals of these events. Finally, we identify two broader implications of researching and evaluating these 'dialogue events' as sites of learning for ISIs and all efforts to increase public engagement with science and technology.