Introduction
Society is in need of science in order to achieve economic, political, and social success. At the same time, science lives off the talents, freedom, and the resources made available by the society. Especially in time of crisis such as epidemics, financial crisis, new medicinal information or earthquakes, it is essential to have scientifically based voices be heard and to do so via professional communication – as the risk of having topics not adequately represented in the public, and with that losing their resources, trust and relevance, is rising with each day that they are not communicated well or at all.
In order to be effective, a lot of responsibility actually falls to the researchers themselves when it comes to communicating their findings. Ideally, scientists should not only present their respective findings, but also be prepared to take the public’s needs and views into consideration.
Source: The Power of Science Communication, Jucan 2014
Overall, it can be said that science communication relies heavily on trust – and that goes for both internal and public/external science communication. The recipients of the knowledge need to trust the source itself but also in the chosen medium that is used to communicate the knowledge.
Source: Weingart, P. and Guenther, L. (2016). ‘Science communication and the issue of trust’. JCOM 15 (05), C01.
https://jcom.sissa.it/article/pubid/JCOM_1505_2016_C01/
Development & Challenges
Over the last decades, science communication has transformed into its own industry. The historical roots of its popularization lie in the 19th century, where science started to become so specialized that it needed to be „translated“ for interested parties of the general public, a public that was fascinated by the knowledge science offered, sharing the devotion to generating knowledge for the common good. These popularizers are assumed to have been trusted just as much as science itself.
Nowadays, however, we find ourselves in an entirely different state, no longer profiting as much from scientists, science journalists or professional popularizers who are engaged in relaying information to the public about new discoveries in research and their wider indications and significance for society. Rather, science communication has turned into an arena with various stakeholders battling for attention, seeking the power of definition due to the fact that money is an important factor in the game. Even the term „science communication“ itself has been subject to being battled for in its definition and multiple definitions of it have emerged.
Tools used for it cover an immense range, reaching from science journalism over social media, PR, museum exhibitions, social events, science centers, and much more.
This boom in the field of science communication is thought to have multiple interrelated causes. One of these causes would be the push for democratization of science. An element of this democratization would be the „engagement with the public“, a term that suggests scientists now reaching out to communicate with the common public. The demand for such outreach by scientists to communicate as much as possible with people has been increasing, attaining tremendous popularity as it is appealing to supporters of the principle of democratization and, at the same time, valuable for institutional PR (aimed at reaching as many people as possible) and political legitimation strategies (which strive for a voter majority).
Now, in principle, science is seen as the ultimate reference when it comes to reliable knowledge. Issues, however, arise, when communication of scientific contents is thought to be influenced by interests or tainted with persuasive communication methods, creating an atmosphere where people are suspicious of bias. If an average person comes to doubt the communicated contents, they are no longer able to rely on it and therefore unable to make informed decisions. As an example, if information shared about the benefits and risks of vaccination is no longer relied upon by the public, people will tend to rely on speculation or faith rather than actual knowledge. This leads us to one big challenge in the field of science communication, as with it comes a large responsibility: science communication is an extremely important link between the actual scientific knowledge and the public. How credible science itself is perceived is actually depending massively on the communication of it.
There is an abundance of sources that supplies people with scientific information (e.g. science PR, scientists, science journalists) through different media / channels such as TV, social media, or newspapers. Now one has to remember that there are multiple actors involved in communicating science and it is assumed that these may have own underlying interests in their ways of communication – be it generating interest in the hopes that controversial technological projects are more widely accepted, ensuring legitimacy for expenditure, or politically motivated propagandistic communication. Cases like these also identify some significant groups of stakeholders: on the one hand, there are government officials and administrators, on the other hand, we have event management firms that employ specialists in marketing or exhibition.
Source: Weingart, P. and Guenther, L. (2016). ‘Science communication and the issue of trust’. JCOM 15 (05), C01.
https://jcom.sissa.it/article/pubid/JCOM_1505_2016_C01/
