Towards an Analytical Framework of Science Communication Models

Abstract

This chapter reviews the discussion in science communication circles of models for public communication of science and technology (PCST). It questions the claim that there has been a large-scale shift from a 'deficit model' of communication to a 'dialogue model', and it demonstrates the survival of the deficit model along with the ambiguities of that model. Similar discussions in related fields of communication, including the critique of dialogue, are briefly sketched. Outlining the complex circumstances governing approaches to PCST, the author argues that communications models often perceived to be opposed can, in fact, coexist when the choices are made explicit. To aid this process, the author proposes an analytical framework of communication models based on deficit, dialogue and participation, including variations on each.Science communication has been telling a story of its own development, repeatedly and almost uniformly, for almost a decade. The story is a straightforward one: science communication used to be conducted according to a 'deficit model', as one-way communication from experts with knowledge to publics without it; it is now carried out on a 'dialogue model' that engages publics in two-way communication and draws on their own information and experiences.This chapter examines the validity of the claim that we have been living through such a fundamental shift in approach, and considers the possibility that several models, including deficit and dialogue models, can coexist. I argue the need for clearer articulation of the choices being made in science communication practice and propose a framework for the structuring of those choices. From Deficit to Dialogue: a Story Too Often Told?The 'grand narrative' in public communication of science and technology (PCST) since the late 1990s has had compelling force. It has been replayed in policy statements, in academic studies, in debates on public communication within scientific communities, and in public debates on science-society relations. We have learned, the story goes, that one-way, top-down communication of packaged scientific information does not work. Now science communication makes it easier for the public to talk back, and scientists need to listen, so that understandings can be developed together.One of the several remarkable features of this story is how broadly it has been adopted, across the continents and by governments, scientific societies, intergovernmental bodies, civil society organizations and many other interests. To give any one illustration would risk misrepresenting the universality of the process by which a key idea has diffused across the world and been naturalized.There are, of course, local and specific variations, for example in the naming of some strategies as 'public engagement', but the main thrust of the argument is clear and it is shared: the old,

Mediating Science and Society in the EU and UK: From Information-Transmission to Deliberative Democracy?

“…In many PEST activities, the deliberative-democratic aspect or objective can get upstaged by other objectives: i.e., exclusively focusing on delivering information, entertainment and/or the building of social capital within and across local communities. Indeed, the events and activities that go by the name of PEST are distributed along a continuum of contrasting motivations, ranging from PUSoriented goals to those associated with deliberative democracy where dialogue is an end in and of itself (Trench 2008). The fluid and heterogeneous make-up of the PEST field, and the attendant difficulty to map and theorize it, are what Hagendijk and Irwin (2006) clearly show through a pan-European study of the deliberative mode of science governance.…”

“…Meanwhile, research on the relationships between experts and publics in PEST contexts has continued to explore the contextual, emergent and the continued privileged status of expert knowledge in PEST practices in ways that support elements of both the contextual and participatory PEST model and what is known as the deficit model (Collins and Evans 2002;Jasanoff 2003;Kerr et al 2007). Thus, despite the overcompensation in some areas of PEST to distinguish engagement models from deficit models, the deficit model nonetheless often resurfaces as a significant element of how contemporary PEST is conceptualized and enacted, as recognized in the more nuanced PEST models mapped more recently (Trench 2008). A sense of unease with the total rejection of the deficit model was echoed repeatedly by a number of STS scholars who, while not rejecting the more participatory and contextual elements of the shift from PUS to PEST, have raised concerns about the need for information in personal and political decision-making processes, the role of expertise and a more complex model of how knowledge is created, distributed and used (Durodie 2003;Sturgis and Allum 2004;Wynne 2006).…”

“…What are we to do if, in the name of democracy in its established majoritarian form (whose legitimacy is rooted in popular suffrage and sovereignty), we were to oppose the pursuit of a given research programme based on their democratically negotiated but non-scientific or science-irrelevant considerations? Perhaps this tension between the nature of knowledge and democratic participation can explain to a certain extent the resistance of the deficit model and its continued presence in the wide spectrum of contemporary PEST concepts and practices noted by several researchers (Trench 2008;Burchill et al 2009). …”

Comunicación pública de la ciencia y la tecnología: una aproximación crítica a su historia conceptual

“…En los últimos años se ha convertido en un paradigma esencial para algunas instituciones de investigación dentro y fuera de Europa, cuya voluntad es obtener el compromiso del público mediante el fomento de actividades científicas (outreach activities) (Bucchi, 2013, p. 905). La diferencia con el modelo anterior es que enfatiza la necesidad de establecer mecanismos que favorezcan el diálogo entre ciencia y sociedad, por ello también se lo conoce como modelo de diálogo (Brossard y Lewenstein, 2010;Trench, 2008;Miller, 2001).…”

“…La segunda expresión, más reciente, pretende destacar las interacciones dialógicas entre ciencia y sociedad, puesto que se entiende la ciencia como una institución social inserida en la sociedad y no independiente de esta, como sí parece sugerir la conjunción copulativa y en la locución clásica (European Commission, 2009;House of Lords, 2000). No obstante, hay expertos en CPCT que cuestionan la existencia de un cambio real de una perspectiva de déficit (ciencia y sociedad) a una de diálogo (ciencia en sociedad), ya que en las actividades basadas en un modelo dialógico persisten muchos de los problemas y ambigüedades del modelo de déficit cognitivo (Tinker, 2013;Trench, 2008). Así, modelos de comunicación que en teoría se sustentan en epistemologías y marcos de acción enfrentados, presentan en la práctica rasgos que pudieran revelar ideologías subyacentes similares, como es el caso de los modelos PAST y PEST (véase § 3).…”