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Scientific debates in modern societies often blur the lines between the science that is being debated and the political, moral, and legal implications that come with its societal applications. This manuscript traces the origins of this phenomenon to professional norms within the scientific discipline and to the nature and complexities of modern science and offers an expanded model of science communication that takes into account the political contexts in which science communication takes place. In a second step, it explores what we know from empirical work in political communication, public opinion research, and communication research about the dynamics that determine how issues are debated and attitudes are formed in political environments. Finally, it discusses how and why it will be increasingly important for science communicators to draw from these different literatures to ensure that the voice of the scientific community is heard in the broader societal debates surrounding science.

This essay examines the societal dynamics surrounding modern science. It first discusses a number of challenges facing any effort to communicate science in social environments: lay publics with varying levels of preparedness for fully understanding new scientific breakthroughs; the deterioration of traditional media infrastructures; and an increasingly complex set of emerging technologies that are surrounded by a host of ethical, legal, and social considerations. Based on this overview, I discuss four areas in which empirical social science helps clarify intuitive but sometimes faulty assumptions about the social-level mechanisms of science communication and outline an agenda for bench and social scientists—driven by current social-scientific research in the field of science communication—to guide more effective communication efforts at the societal level in the future.

Concerns about public misinformation in the United States—ranging from politics to science—are growing. Here, we provide an overview of how and why citizens become (and sometimes remain) misinformed about science. Our discussion focuses specifically on misinformation among individual citizens. However, it is impossible to understand individual information processing and acceptance without taking into account social networks, information ecologies, and other macro-level variables that provide important social context. Specifically, we show how being misinformed is a function of a person's ability and motivation to spot falsehoods, but also of other group-level and societal factors that increase the chances of citizens to be exposed to correct(ive) information. We conclude by discussing a number of research areas—some of which echo themes of the 2017 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Communicating Science Effectively report—that will be particularly important for our future understanding of misinformation, specifically a systems approach to the problem of misinformation, the need for more systematic analyses of science communication in new media environments, and a (re)focusing on traditionally underserved audiences.

Scientific debates in modern societies often blur the lines between the science that is being debated and the political, moral, and legal implications that come with its societal applications. This manuscript traces the origins of this phenomenon to professional norms within the scientific discipline and to the nature and complexities of modern science and offers an expanded model of science communication that takes into account the political contexts in which science communication takes place. In a second step, it explores what we know from empirical work in political communication, public opinion research, and communication research about the dynamics that determine how issues are debated and attitudes are formed in political environments. Finally, it discusses how and why it will be increasingly important for science communicators to draw from these different literatures to ensure that the voice of the scientific community is heard in the broader societal debates surrounding science.

The idea of interpersonal discussions among citizens being the "soul of democracy" has been treatedalmost as a truism in recent research on media, interpersonal communication, and democratic citizenship. Without a doubt, there is strong evidence to support the notion that interpersonal discussion of politics is a key antecedent of political participation. This study proposes that the relationships between hard news media use, interpersonal discussion of politics, and participatory behavior are far more complex than previously assumed. Specifically, it is expected that hard news media use has an overall positive main effect on political participation. This main effect, however, cloaks significantly different effects for people who talk to others about politics rather frequently and those who do not. National survey data support the differential gains model for newspaper andtelevision hardnews use. This article explores explanations for this phenomenon and implications for future research and policy.

Discussion among citizens has long been identified as a necessary condition for a healthy and functioning democracy. This study uses telephone survey data to examine empirically Michael Schudson's assumption that discussion is not singular, but actually a concept involving social conversation and political talk. It operationalizes the concepts of political talk and conversation and examines their implications for indicators of democratic citizenship. Findings show that indeed there is a conceptual distinction between talk and conversation. Hard news media use was more strongly related to political talk than to sociable conversations. Similarly, people who talked about politics more frequently also displayed higher levels of political factual knowledge and political participation. These findings suggest interesting directions for further research about discussion and democracy.

Examines people's willingness & ability to engage in various forms of public discussion, which is operationalized along two distinctively different dimensions: rational exchange of ideas or arguments among citizens or deliberation, on the one hand; & opinion expression under situations of social pressure or perceived pressure, on the other. Based on 1996 presidential election campaign survey data (total N = 348 WI telephone interviewees), the two dimensions are examined. To ascertain why respondents (Rs) engage in specific types of public discussion, ordinary least squares & logistic regression techniques & structural equation modeling are employed to examine more carefully the processes that link explanatory variables & dimensions of public discussion. Results provide some support for Joseph Schumpeter's (1943) assumption that an informed & rational citizen does not exist, at least not in the political realm. Among friends & family, the discussion of political issues is driven by cognitive factors, communication variables, & civic skills. If Rs are faced with an anonymous & potentially hostile environment, however, affective variables like majority pressures & fear of isolation become the dominant factors. Implications for future research are outlined & policy recommendations formulated. 2 Tables, 1 Figure, 27 References. Adapted from the source document.

"A Revisionist Perspective on Framing Effects" published on by Oxford University Press.

Public opinion data from the last two decades document a crisis of confidence in America. Citizens are expressing lower levels of trust in government and in others. To what extent are variations in political and social trust a function of media use? Using data from the 1996 American National Election Study, we find that media use affects only social trust. Reading newspapers and watching television entertainment content enhanced social trust, while watching television news undermined trust in others. We discuss the implications of these findings for the healthy functioning of democratic systems.

Studies of Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann's (1974) spiral of silence theory draw on different conceptualizations, employ inconsistent operationalizations, & give short shrift to important macroscopic variables. Such inconsistencies potentially account for substantial proportions of the variance in spiral of silence effects. Here, these three areas are examined in greater detail. Key assumptions & theoretical statements of the spiral of silence are reviewed. How these conceptual issues translate into operational ones is investigated. Areas that have remained largely unexplored over the last 25 years are outlined. Specifically, it is contended that spiral of silence studies in different cultures have failed to consider culture-specific variables that may mitigate the importance of opinion perceptions as predictors of individual behavior or attitudes. In other words, cross-cultural differences are key factors in predicting speaking out, the key dependent variable in spiral of silence research. As a result, a call is made for the return to a more macroscopic focus in spiral of silence research. 1 Figure, 115 References. Adapted from the source document.

In an encyclical released in June of 2015, Pope Francis cast the need to address climate change as a moral imperative. Using nationally-representative surveys with supplemental samples of Catholics, we investigate changes in the U.S. public's post-encyclical attitudes about climate change and the Catholic pontiff. People who were aware of the encyclical held more polarized attitudes toward climate change than those who were unaware of it. Whereas encyclical-aware liberals expressed heightened concerns about climate change, encyclical-aware conservatives expressed lower levels. Cross-pressured by the inconsistency between the pontiff's views and those of their political allies, conservative Catholics devalued the Pope's credibility on climate change. These findings have important implications for communication about climate change in polarized opinion environments.