Science communication
Science communication encompasses a wide range of activities that connect science and society. Common goals of science communication include informing non-experts about scientific findings, raising the public awareness of and interest in science, influencing people's attitudes and behaviors, informing public policy, and engaging with diverse communities to address societal problems. The term "science communication" generally refers to settings in which audiences are not experts on the scientific topic being discussed, though some authors categorize expert-to-expert communication as a type of science communication. Examples of outreach include science journalism and health communication. Since science has political, moral, and legal implications, science communication can help bridge gaps between different stakeholders in public policy, industry, and civil society with trust-building playing a central role in this process.
Science communicators are a broad group of people: scientific experts, science journalists, science artists, medical professionals, nature center educators, science advisors for policymakers, and everyone else who communicates with the public about science. They often use entertainment and persuasion techniques including humour, storytelling, and metaphors to connect with their audience's values and interests.
Science communication also exists as an interdisciplinary field of social science research on topics such as misinformation, public opinion of emerging technologies, and the politicization and polarization of science. For decades, science communication research has had only limited influence on science communication practice, and vice-versa, but both communities are increasingly attempting to bridge research and practice.
Historically, academic scientists were discouraged from spending time on public outreach, but that has begun to change. Research funders have raised their expectations for researchers to have broader impacts beyond publication in academic journals. An increasing number of scientists, especially younger scholars, are expressing interest in engaging the public through social media and in-person events, though they still perceive significant institutional barriers to doing so.
Science communication is closely related to the fields of informal science education, citizen science, and public engagement with science, and there is no general agreement on whether or how to distinguish them. Like other aspects of society, science communication is influenced by systemic inequalities that impact both inreach and outreach.
Motivations
Writing in 1987, Geoffery Thomas and John Durant advocated various reasons to increase public understanding of science, or scientific literacy. More trained engineers and scientists could allow a nation to be more competitive economically. Science can also benefit individuals. Science can simply have aesthetic appeal. Living in an increasingly technological society, background scientific knowledge can help to negotiate it. The science of happiness is an example of a field whose research can have direct and obvious implications for individuals. Governments and societies might also benefit from more scientific literacy, since an informed electorate promotes a more democratic society. Moreover, science can inform moral decision making.In 1990, Steven Hilgartner, a scholar in science and technology studies, criticized some academic research in public understanding of science. Hilgartner argued that what he called "the dominant view" of science popularization tends to imply a tight boundary around those who can articulate true, reliable knowledge. By defining a "deficient public" as recipients of knowledge, the scientists get to emphasize their own identity as experts, according to Hilgartner. Understood in this way, science communication may explicitly exist to connect scientists with the rest of society, but science communication may reinforce the boundary between the public and the experts. In 2016, the scholarly journal Public Understanding of Science ran an essay competition on the "deficit model" or "deficit concept" of science communication and published a series of articles answering the question "In science communication, why does the idea of a public deficit always return?" in different ways; for example, Carina Cortassa's essay argued that the deficit model of science communication is just a special case of an omnipresent problem studied in social epistemology of testimony, the problem of "epistemic asymmetry", which arises whenever some people know more about some things than other people. Science communication is just one kind of attempt to reduce epistemic asymmetry between people who may know more and people who may know less about a certain subject.
Biologist Randy Olson said in 2009 that anti-science groups can often be so motivated, and so well funded, that the impartiality of science organizations in politics can lead to crises of public understanding of science. He cited examples of denialism to support this worry. Journalist Robert Krulwich likewise argued in 2008 that the stories scientists tell compete with the efforts of people such as Turkish creationist Adnan Oktar. Krulwich explained that attractive, easy to read, and cheap creationist textbooks were sold by the thousands to schools in Turkey due to the efforts of Oktar. Astrobiologist David Morrison has spoken of repeated disruption of his work by popular anti-scientific phenomena, having been called upon to assuage public fears of an impending cataclysm involving an unseen planetary object—first in 2008, and again in 2012 and 2017.
Methods
Science popularization figures such as Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson are partly responsible for the view of science or a specific science discipline within the general public. However, the degree of knowledge and experience a science popularizer has can vary greatly. Because of this, some science communication can depend on sensationalism. As a Forbes contributor put it, "The main job of physics popularizers is the same as it is for any celebrity: get more famous." Another point in the controversy of popular science is the idea of how public debate can affect public opinion. A relevant and highly public example of this is climate change. A science communication study appearing in The New York Times proves that "even a fractious minority wields enough power to skew a reader's perception of a story" and that even "firmly worded disagreements between commenters affected readers' perception of science." This causes some to worry about the popularizing of science in the public, questioning whether the further popularization of science will cause pressure towards generalization or sensationalism.Marine biologist and film-maker Randy Olson published Don't Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style. In the book he describes how there has been an unproductive negligence when it comes to teaching scientists to communicate. Don't be Such a Scientist is written to his fellow scientists, and he says they need to "lighten up". He adds that scientists are ultimately the most responsible for promoting and explaining science to the public and media. This, Olson says, should be done according to a good grasp of social science; scientists must use persuasive and effective means like story telling. Olson acknowledges that the stories told by scientists need not only be compelling but also accurate to modern science—and says this added challenge must simply be confronted. He points to figures like Carl Sagan as effective popularizers, partly because such figures actively cultivate a likeable image.
At his commencement address to Caltech students, journalist Robert Krulwich delivered a speech entitled "Tell me a story". Krulwich says that scientists are actually given many opportunities to explain something interesting about science or their work, and that they must seize such opportunities. He says scientists must resist shunning the public, as Sir Isaac Newton did in his writing, and instead embrace metaphors the way Galileo did; Krulwich suggests that metaphors only become more important as the science gets more difficult to understand. He adds that telling stories of science in practice, of scientists' success stories and struggles, helps convey that scientists are real people. Finally, Krulwich advocates for the importance of scientific values in general, and helping the public to understand that scientific views are not mere opinions, but hard-won knowledge.
Actor Alan Alda helped scientists and PhD students get more comfortable with communication with the help of drama coaches.
Matthew Nisbet described the use of opinion leaders as intermediaries between scientists and the public as a way to reach the public via trained individuals who are more closely engaged with their communities, such as "teachers, business leaders, attorneys, policymakers, neighborhood leaders, students, and media professionals". Examples of initiatives that have taken this approach include Science & Engineering Ambassadors, sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences, and Science Booster Clubs, coordinated by the National Center for Science Education.
Evidence based practices
Similar to how evidence-based medicine gained a foothold in medical communication decades ago, researchers Eric Jensen and Alexander Gerber have argued that science communication would benefit from evidence-based prescriptions since the field faces related challenges. In particular, they argued that the lack of collaboration between researchers and practitioners is a problem: "Ironically, the challenges begin with communication about science communication evidence."The overall effectiveness of the science communication field is limited by the lack of effective transfer mechanisms for practitioners to apply research in their work and perhaps even investigate, together with researchers, communication strategies, Jensen and Gerber said. Closer collaboration could enrich the spectrum of science communication research and increase the existing methodological toolbox, including more longitudinal and experimental studies.
Evidence-based science communication would combine the best available evidence from systematic research, underpinned by established theory, as well as practitioners' acquired skills and expertise, reducing the double-disconnect between scholarship and practice. Neither adequately take into account the other side's priorities, needs and possible solutions, Jensen and Gerber argued; bridging the gap and fostering closer collaboration could allow for mutual learning, enhancing the overall advancements of science communication as a young field.