Is science communication its own field?

Abstract

The present comment examines to what extent science communication has attained the status of an academic discipline and a distinct research field, as opposed to the common view that science communication is merely a sub-discipline of media studies In his review How to establish PCST. Two handbooks on science communication (JCOM 7(4) December 2008), Alessandro Delfanti queries a claim in the bookCommunicating science in social contexts that science communication already 'is a distinct research field'. He sees in both books 'an explicit effort to establish PCST as an independent academic field, different from both science and technology studies and communication and media theory'.After pondering the question of whether we really need the creation of a new discipline such as public communication of science, Delfanti concludes that despite the growing strength and quality of the field, PCST still has some work to do if it is to distinguish itself as separate from fields such as science and technology studies, and media and communication studies. JCOM has asked the editors of the books to respond: "Starting from the experience of your book, it would be interesting for us to have a contribution concerning what is "specific" of science communication research. What does distinguish it from something that could be considered a sub-discipline of media studies, sociology of science or history of science? In addition, which is the relation between research in science communication and the more general field of Science and Technology Studies? In other words, why does science communication deserve a special attention as an academic discipline?'We may not be able to demonstrate to everyone's satisfaction that science communication has attained the status of 'a discipline'. Apart from anything else, the definitions are varied and the ground is hotly contested. What we can do, though, is to chart the progress science communication has made as an emerging subject over the last 50 years in terms of a number of measures.Science communication has established an identity over the last 50 years. In the aftermath of WW2, governments increasingly regarded science as important. At the same time they recognised their own lack of skills in the area, so appointed special advisors to lead presidents and politicians through science-based issues.James Killian was appointed in 1957 as Special Assistant to the US President for Science and Technology, followed in 1965 by Sir Solly Zuckerman's appointment as Chief Scientific Adviser in the UK 1 . These were the first two advisers and others followed, all performing a classic communication role of translating the significance of research results for a lay audience. A little earlier, "science communication (or popularization)" had been enshrined in the constitutions of both India and China. So the subject had a political imperative.

Brazilian science communication research: national and international contributions

“…This cross-disciplinary approach (Gascoigne et al 2010) will help resolve challenging issues concerning the most effective ways of enabling science to be harnessed by society in a manner which society understands, discusses and appreciates.…”

“…Five papers were commissioned by Journal of Science Communication, and broadly concluded that science communication was both interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary, that it fell short of meeting the requirements for being a discipline, and is more properly regarded as a "field of study" (Gascoigne et al 2010, Trench and Bucchi 2010, Bell 2010, Priest 2010.…”

Innovation in Citizen Science – Perspectives on Science-Policy Advances

“…To date, however, the role of science communication in citizen science has only started to be systematically assessed. Citizen science and science communication are both relatively young and highly inter-and transdisciplinary fields of research (Gascoigne et al 2010, Jordan et al 2015) that could be more intertwined for mutual exchange and benefit. There is need for changing the reference frame that leads people's understanding from a passive knowledge transfer to active two-way knowledge exchange.…”

Science communication as a field of research: identifying trends, challenges and gaps by analysing research papers

“…Bauer and Howard, 2013;Borchelt, 2012]. However, the bibliographic characteristics of science communication research outputs have rarely been analysed in a systematic way, despite the view that such overviews of research fields are important in identifying trends and challenges [Schäfer, 2012], or for defining a discipline [Gascoigne et al, 2010].…”