Twenty years ago, science communication in Ireland was barely a recognisable phenomenon. That began to change in the mid-1990s and science communication is now a well-recognised field of professional practice and of voluntary effort, involving state agencies, government departments, academic societies, higher education institutions and many more. A broadly similar process has been under way across scores of countries in all continents. The analyses and reflections collected here are elements of a case study of the rapid evolution of science communication in one country among many.
Over nearly three decades, science communication has become established as a subject of teaching and research in universities across the world. Its standing as an academic discipline continues to be debated, but graduate degree programmes and doctoral research in the field are increasing. Partly reflecting its inherent multi- and interdisciplinary content, science communication is embedded in different institutions in different ways. These developments have been driven mainly by individual champions, but in some cases also by institutional and government policies. The diversity of science communication programmes reflects in part the various histories and institutional affiliations of the programmes. The diversity can be seen as a sign of the subject's vitality but it is also a condition of its vulnerability. Many science communication teaching programmes have given rise to consultancies, applied research, publishing and, perhaps most notably, doctoral research, but information from the promoters of science communication programmes indicates that some programmes are particularly exposed to the rationalisation affecting higher education institutions in many countries. Science communication's position between and across disciplines and departments may mean it is not always well equipped to defend itself just when its need is most apparent.
"Communicating science and technology is a high priority of many research and policy institutions, a concern of many other private and public bodies, and an established subject of training and education. In the past few decades the field has developed and expanded significantly, both in terms of professional practice, and in terms of research and reflection. At the same time, particularly in recent years, interactions between science and society have become a topic of heated public and political debates touching issues like quality and credibility of information, trust in science and scientific actors and institutions and the roles of experts in crises and emergencies. This book provides a state-of-the-art review of this fast-growing and increasingly important area, through examination of research done on the main actors, issues and arenas involved. The third edition of the Handbook brings the reviews up-to-date and deepens the analysis. As well as substantial re-working of many chapters, it includes four new chapters addressing enduring themes (science publics, science-media theories), recent trends (art-science interactions) and new proposed insights on science communication as culture and as "the social conversation around science". New contributors are added to the group of leading scholars in the field featured in the previous editions. The Handbook is a student-friendly resource, but its scope and expert contributions will equally appeal to practitioners and professionals in science communication. Combining the perspectives of different disciplines and of different geographical and cultural contexts, this original text provides an interdisciplinary as well as global approach to public communication of science and technology. It is a valuable resource, notably an indispensable guide to the published work in the field, for students, researchers, educators and professionals in science communication, media and journalism studies, sociology, history of science, and science and technology studies"--
University-based scientists began to display an unprecedented militancy during 1993. The newly formed Irish Research Scientists Association (IRSA) complained of cutbacks In the already low level of state funding for basic research projects. IRSA members highlighted the inadequate grants for postgraduate students and the need for more money to equip their laboratories. They argued that the erosion of scientific research was inhibiting the long-term vitality of Irish industry and lobbied government ministers for a change of policy. By early 1994 the IRSA campaign had achieved results. In particular, when Minister of State Seamus Brennan' established a new advisory body - the Science, Technology and Innovation Council - he acknowledged the persuasiveness of the lobbyists.
Scientists are increasingly expected to engage in public communication, though they frequently report that they feel inadequately prepared for such activity. The necessary training for such activity has barely been discussed in the science communication literature. Drawing on country reports from the Monitoring Policy and Research Activities on Science in Society in Europe (MASIS) report, this paper reviews initiatives across Europe to support scientists' public communication. It examines these within a framework that distinguishes between training oriented to dissemination or dialogue, and to capacity-building of scientists or professionalisation of science communicators. It traces the uneven spread and diverse character of such supports and identifies the four principal groups of policy actors who play distinct roles and, in the case of higher education institutions, sometimes internally contradictory roles. The paper draws on the authors' own experiences to underline the value of communication training that is oriented to dialogue and stimulates reflexivity.
While science-in-the-media is a useful vehicle for understanding the media, few scholars have used it that way: instead, they look at science-in-the-media as a way of understanding science-in-the-media and often end up attributing characteristics to science-in-the-media that are simply characteristics of the media, rather than of the science they see there. This point of view was argued by Jane Gregory and Steve Miller in 1998 in Science in Public. Science, they concluded, is not a special case in the mass media, understanding science-in-the-media is mostly about understanding the media (Gregory and Miller, 1998: 105). More than a decade later, research that looks for patterns or even determinants of science-in-the-media, be it in press or electronic media, is still very rare. There is interest in explaining the media's selection of science content from a media perspective. Instead, the search for, and analysis of, several kinds of distortions in media representations of science have been leading topics of science-in-the-media research since its beginning in the USA at the end of the 1960s and remain influential today (see Lewenstein, 1994; Weigold, 2001; Kohring, 2005 for summaries). Only a relatively small amount of research has been conducted seeking to identify factors relevant to understanding how science is treated by the mass media in general and by television in particular. The current study addresses the lack of research in this area. Our research seeks to explore which constraints national media systems place on the volume and structure of science programming in television. In simpler terms, the main question this study is trying to address is why science-in-TV in Europe appears as it does. We seek to link research focussing on the detailed analysis of science representations on television (Silverstone, 1984; Collins, 1987; Hornig, 1990; Leon, 2008), and media research focussing on the historical genesis and current political regulation of national media systems (see for instance Hallin and Mancini, ...
This commentary considers the separate but interconnected evolution of science communication and environmental communication as fields of research and practice, and argues for better mutual understanding between the fields, including an understanding of necessary differences. It notes that the repertoires of science communication and environmental communication overlap but have different emphases. Environmental communication emphasises public allegiances with a view to persuasion; science communication has focussed on public understanding and appreciation of science. The potential and the need for closer cooperation are growing as the authority of science is challenged in political arenas. Both fields recognise the important contributions of science to public sense-making and informed decision-making on major issues. Increasing engagement with the science that underpins environmental issues could benefit environmental communicators. In political contexts, science communication could learn from environmental communication's greater attention to advocacy and symbolic representations.
