Science Communication as an Interdisciplinary Field

In the academic world, the term science communication refers both to a set of professions (such as science journalism and public information work) and to an interdisciplinary scholarly research specialization. Much of this research is aimed at improving our understanding of the best ways to communicate complex information, especially to people who are not scientists. Science communication specialists are concerned with giving people useful information about health, environment, and technologyas well as science itself. In order to do this, we also need to improve our understanding of how people think, form opinions, and process information. We need to identify the best ways to provide the information people actually want and need to know. And we need to understand some very complex issues, involving both the actual science behind both public opinion and the news and the ethical, environmental, and other policy issues it may raise.

Most people who are science communication scholars use the tools and techniques of social and behavioral science or the humanities to analyze messages and arguments and to assess their influence. Like other communication scholars, they are also concerned with the relationship between access to information and better decision making in a democratic society. They may analyze the ethical and policy issues associated with information access and information distribution, such as the relationship between information and power. While studies designed to make messages more effective are often described as instrumental, meaning directed toward a narrow practical purpose in order to make things function more smoothly, science communication research can also be critical, meaning directed more generally toward the analysis of conflicts and problems in society, such as an unfair distribution of power or influence. Issues in science communication often involve areas beyond the science itself, such as research ethics or environmental justice.

In order to ask and answer research questions in these areas, science communication scholars are generally trained in a social science discipline such as communication studies, media studies, sociology, or political science, or in a closely allied humanities field, such as philosophy or rhetoric. Practicing science communicators may be trained in one of these fields or in the professional side of journalism or public relations; they may also be scientists who have decided it is important to devote part or all of their careers to communication activities. As a result, the field is broadly interdisciplinary, which makes it all the more interesting.

Media Theory and Research About Science Communication

Like other communication scholars, science communication scholars generally rely on media theory to understand the influence of media messages or other media content. They take concepts such as agenda setting and cultivation, often derived from studies in political communication or from media effects work, and then apply them to science communication problems and cases. They use typical social and behavioral science research methods such as surveys, experiments, focus groups, interviews, and observations to improve our knowledge in this area. They may also analyze the rhetoric of messages or study their ethical and political implications. Case study research may focus on important historical events, such as the near nuclear disaster at Three Mile Island, for the lessons they may provide. Another group of science communication scholars looks at the history of science [Page xxvi]communication and science journalism, including the efforts by well-known scientists to draw public attention to their findings.

Sometimes work originating in social sciences other than communication is directly relevant to the field, such as sociological studies of the nature of social movements. For example, theory and research derived from the study of social movements, such as resource mobilization theory or actor network theory, helps us to understand how the environmental movement came into being, as well as how more recent and more specific movements concerned with chemicals, food additives, or technologies thought to be harmful arise. Theory and research derived from the study of political and advertising campaigns helps us to understand how to design campaigns in public health, such as the promotion of vaccination or smoking cessation or the avoidance of exposure to HIV/AIDS or food-borne illnesses. This literature is also used in the design of campaigns (both pro and con) surrounding the adoption of controversial science or technology, such as stem cell research or nuclear power generation.

One specialized area of theory and research that is largely unique to science communication is the area of risk communication. People often have trouble understanding information expressed in probabilities, yet they are generally very aware that almost all new technologies have risks as well as benefits. Weighing the risks against the benefits of a new technology is at least as much a matter of applying social values as it is a matter of numerical calculation, but it is still important to know how to help people start with solid scientific information where it is available. Knowing the social psychology of how people react to information about risk expressed in probabilities can facilitate the achievement of this goal.

Professional Practice in Science Communication

Alongside these important issues in scholarship are equally important issues having to do with questions that are of primary interest to professional practitioners in science communication, rather than scholars. These involve both strategic and ethical decisions, sometimes closely connected to the concerns and insights of scholars and sometimes not. For example, how should reporters cover the issue of climate change? Should the views of scientists who do not believe that climate change has been caused by human activity be included alongside the views of those who do, in order to give a balanced story, or does this mislead the public into thinking that both of these positions are equally accepted within the scientific community? Should the opinions of maverick scientists promoting unpopular theories be publicizedafter all, it may sometimes turn out they are rightor should only widely accepted science that has already been published by peer-reviewed journals be reported as news? Scholars study these issues, but it is members of the professional community who must decide what to do.

A few scientific journals will not allow scientific results to be discussed in public and reported before the review process is complete and the journal issue has been published. This helps avoid the problem of untested results receiving wide publicity, especially important if it may persuade someone to change their diet, medical treatment, or behavior in some way that could turn out to damage their health (or at least their pocketbook). But it also slows down the process through which new findings will reach the public and diminishes the transparency of science. Insights into these sorts of professional and policy dilemmas may come from science communication scholarship, but in the end these policy decisions cannot usually be resolved by research.

Some critics have argued that science and environmental journalists should let scientists review their stories prior to publication, or even that these journalists should be licensed to practice their trade, but to others these proposals seem inconsistent with freedom of the press. On the other hand, there is increasing pressure on weather reporters to have at least some training in the science of meteorology. Should science journalists, in general, have scientific training? Or is this a conflict of interest because it might make them less likely to lean toward one side in situations where science can become controversial? It is quite natural for those with scientific education to feel positive about most scientific advances; does this make them better journalists because they are sympathetic, or less adequate ones because they are less able to be critical?

Those practicing science communication are not just science journalists, however. Physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals who wish to communicate better with their patients on an interpersonal basis are also science communicators. So are public information specialists working for government, public relations specialists working for universities or science-oriented corporations, and environmental advocates working for nonprofit nongovernmental organizations. As traditional newsgathering organizations around the globe undergo economic restructuring, our societies continue to have economies and ways of life that are highly dependent on science and technology, the range of science communication professions is likely to increase in ways presently not fully imagined. A global call for increased public engagement in science and science policy has also expanded our thinking about the best ways to practice science communication.

Making good use of scientists as sources and scientific information as a resource in professional work takes special skills. A bewildering maze of government agencies, as well as universities and research institutions, are in the business of providing this informationand like other types of sources, these organizations often have agendas of their own they are trying to promote. Around the world, the state of science development varies tremendously, and different policy approaches to governing science, technology, and associated risks are in place. These development and policy differences can be important things to understand in analyzing international trends and issues involving science. The science itself can also be daunting, alongside its ethical and legal implications and the social and policy issues it forces us to confront.

What This Encyclopedia Offers

This encyclopedia tries to provide as much information as possible on this entire range of interrelated issues in one place. While much of this information may have been published elsewhere, it is scattered across many different parts of the library, from science, engineering, and medicine to the social and behavior sciences and humanities to the professional fields of journalism and public relations. It is the goal of this encyclopedia to make as much information as possible available in a single source, with clear pointers suggesting where to begin the search for more.

Users of this volume will include undergraduate and graduate students in journalism (including those in specialized courses in science journalism and environmental journalism, but also those in general journalism courses) who have been assigned a story or other project on a science-related topic; communication, mass communication, and media studies students at any level who are writing a term paper or designing a research project and are interested in finding out more about this interdisciplinary field; and working journalists, public infor mation officers, and public relations specialists who may or may not be science specialistsor who may be just starting out in the fieldand are looking for quick information and guidance available in a single place.

Entries range from those illustrating the application of media theory and research to problems in science, technology, environment, and health; to case studies of controversial issues in science and technology and biographies of well-known scientist-communicators; to studies of how science journalism is actually done and the problems it faces; and to guidance on using scientific sources, plus helpful descriptions of the missions and structure of prominent science-related agencies and organizations (especially those in the United States, although entries are also included that discuss the state of science and science communication in Africa, Australia, Canada, East Asia, Europe, India, Latin America, and Mexico). By putting this unique collection of science communication material together in a single place, it is my hope that the field will be advanced and that newcomers to it will start to find their way around it with somewhat less difficulty.

Interdisciplinary fields are inherently challenging, but also inherently interesting. Problems of communication across disciplinary boundaries are substantial, but also quite fascinating, in part because they tend to cause us to question our assumptions about the natural order of things. I hope that users of this collection will rise to the challengesand learn to relish the complexities and nuances of those challenges.