The American public remains unfamiliar with nanotechnology despite more than a decade of investment and development. Nanoscientists have an opportunity to contribute to public conversations about their work, and its potential implications, through their engagement with lay audiences and media professionals. Indeed, the leaderships of many professional scientific organizations have placed a renewed focus on the public communication of science, particularly in the light of drastic changes in the information landscape and the increasing politicization of many technological and scientific issues. However, we have a limited understanding of nanoscientists' perceptions and behaviours regarding their participation in public communication. Here, we report survey results that provide an examination of the public communication behaviours of nanoscientists affiliated with the National Science Foundation's (NSF) National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN), an integrated partnership of US research institutions designed to facilitate nanoscale research and development. Our results suggest that nanoscientists are relatively frequent public communicators who commonly associate their communication efforts with positive impacts on their professional success. We also identify a handful of characteristics that drive nanoscientists' intentions to communicate with the public about nanotechnology.
As nanotechnologies permeate our daily lives, it is increasingly important that we understand the ethical considerations of these innovations and to what extent scientists attend to these considerations. Guided by the theory of reasoned action and an extended version of that model that includes prior knowledge, sense of responsibility, and ethics involvement, we surveyed a sample of nanoscientists to explore their ethics information seeking and sharing. Path analyses support the theory of reasoned action as a useful framework. Findings suggest that making ethics information more available to scientists and redoubling social pressure to seek and share ethics information may help close the ethics-to-practice gap that exists today.
This study identifies challenges that microbiologists who study built environments face in their efforts to increase public understanding and visibility associated with their research. More specifically, it offers an empirical assessment of these scientists’ perceptions of what people need to understand – specific research terms and concepts are noted – and what needs to be considered when communicating with key decision-makers in agencies that fund research. The results of semi-structured interviews with 79 U.S. scientists highlight several themes, terms, and concepts that require improved understanding among laypeople, policy-makers, and funding agencies. The results also imply that these scientists are willing communicators who are often called upon by laypeople to answer questions about microbial issues and research related to built environments. Suggestions are made to aid this research community’s future public communication efforts.
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