Satire has long offered social and political commentary while entertaining audiences. Focusing on a Canadian stage play and its local reception, this article considers some of the key benefits and challenges of using satire to promote public engagement with climate change science. It demonstrates that satire can promote active and positive engagement with climate change debates. However, using satire risks confining representations to the humorous realm and requires communicators to consider the humor preferences of different publics. The article proposes recommendations for using satire in science communications.
Survey data on 1217 adults living in Alberta, Canada were collected by Ipsos Reid Public Affairs and made available to us for analysis. The survey questioned participants on issues related to science including their perceived knowledge of science, attitudes toward science, and trust in science and technology. We developed a structural equation model to account for the causal relations implied by the correlations among the variables in the data set. Results show that trust in generalized science and technology is a large determiner of trust in specific technologies, but that trust in specific technologies is not a determinant of overall trust in science and technology. We also found that attitudes towards science have an effect on trust in generalized science and technology whereas perceived knowledge does not. Education and gender contribute to attitudes supporting an increased personal attachment to science, which was the strongest predictor of trust in our model.
This article examines the dramadoc genre's potential to enhance public understanding of science. It focuses on a case study of the UK dramadoc If…Cloning Could Cure Us, which employed a combination of fictionalised drama, documentary interviews and interactive features to explore uses of human cloning in stem cell research. The author conducted 20 focus group screenings of the programme to examine the impact that the dramadoc had on people's knowledge and opinions. Results show that although critics claim that the genre's combination of fact and fiction will lead audiences to misunderstandings, the dramadoc also has the potential to increase people's scientific understandings. New understandings, however, do not necessarily translate into more favourable attitudes towards the topic. The article concludes by arguing that in spite of the programme's achievements in improving public understanding of science, the dramadoc could have gone further to engage audiences in genuine dialogue about the new technology.
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