In this article, we investigate the surge in use of COVID-19-related preprints by media outlets. Journalists are a main source of reliable public health information during crises and, until recently, journalists have been reluctant to cover preprints because of the associated scientific uncertainty. Yet, uploads of COVID-19 preprints and their uptake by online media have outstripped that of preprints about any other topic. Using an innovative approach combining altmetrics methods with content analysis, we identified a diversity of outlets covering COVID-19-related preprints during the early months of the pandemic, including specialist medical news outlets, traditional news media outlets, and aggregators. We found a ubiquity of hyperlinks as citations and a multiplicity of framing devices for highlighting the scientific uncertainty associated with COVID-19 preprints. These devices were rarely used consistently (e.g., mentioning that the study was a preprint, unreviewed, preliminary, and/or in need of verification). About half of the stories we analyzed contained framing devices emphasizing uncertainty. Outlets in our sample were much less likely to identify the research they mentioned as preprint research, compared to identifying it as simply "research." This work has significant implications for public health communication within the changing media landscape. While current best practices in public health risk communication promote identifying and promoting trustworthy sources of information, the uptake of preprint research by online media presents new challenges. At the same time, it provides new opportunities for fostering greater awareness of the scientific uncertainty associated with health research findings.
Twelve researchers from 11 countries used autoethnographic techniques, keeping diaries over 10 weeks of the COVID-19 crisis, to observe and reflect on changes in the role and cultural authority of science during important stages of viral activity and government action in their respective countries. We followed arguments, discussions and ideas generated by mass and social media about science and scientific expertise, observed patterns and shifts in narratives, and made international comparisons. During regular meetings via video conference, the participating researchers discussed theoretical approaches and our joint methodology for reflecting on our observations. This project is informed by social representations theory, agenda-setting, and frames of meaning associated with the rise and fall of expertise and trust. This paper presents our observations and reflections on the role and authority of science in our countries from March 10 to May 31, 2020. This is the first stage of a longer-term project that aims to identify, analyse and compare changes in science-society relationships over the course of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
For many decades, NGOs and social movements have acted as “alternative” science communicators. They have made strategic use of science to promote their ideological stances, to influence political and/or economic decision-making and to motivate civic action. To date, however, our understanding of science communication in activism has received little critical attention. This set of commentaries acts as a starting point for further research and reflection. The different cases and perspectives urge readers to consider the impact, democratic legitimacy, and relevance of alternative science communication, and the challenges that alternative science communicators pose for science communication and society.
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. This Commentary offers a view of EC and SC and their relations that draws on the experiences of the authors, all with a foot in both camps. The Commentary is based on a 'practice reflection' paper and panel the authorsall members of the scientific committee of the PCST, the global network for science communicationpresented at the International Environmental Communication Association conference, COCE 2017. Guided by the maxim that "good fences make good neighbours", the panel sought to clarify differences as well as similarities between EC and SC.We note the considerable interest in both EC and SC in looking across the fences between them. Of 108 research articles published in the journal, Science Communication and 237 published in the journal Public Understanding of Science in 2014-17, 30% and 27%, respectively, were on environmental topics; in both journals just over 60% of these papers on environment were on climate change. With little modification, this material could have been published in an environmental communication journal, though the foci may have been somewhat different.A search in Public Understanding of Science, 2014-17, on 'environmental communication' produces mainly passing mentions or bibliographical or biographical references (journal title, publication title or author's declared research interest). Just one use of the phrase is found in a substantive treatment of environmental communication (Sakellari, 2014), referring to Brulle (2010) on 'environmental melodrama'. A search in Environmental Communication, 2014-17, on 'science communication' produces many passing references, but also several (e.g. Suldovsky et al, 2017;Lee et al, 2017;Burke et al, 2016) that deal with science communication in terms of formal study and theoretical reflection.There is an apparent asymmetry in the respective interest in each other's topic-fields, with SC showing more interest in EC's than vice versa, but also asymmetry in the respective ...
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