Thanks for the warning about that stuff. Much appreciated.
My first question: what is a discipline?
Then there is the problem that the text on offer is replete with
incomprehensible guff. I will refrain from fingerpointing.
When people whose topic is 'communication' indulge in such gobbledygook, it
is all too easy to throw up your hands in despair.
MK
PS Apologies for using such real-world terms as guff and gobbledygook. They
just show that I am incapable of 'academic speak'.
-----Original Message-----
From: psci-com: on public engagement with science
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of R.M.Holliman
Sent: 22 September 2010 09:11
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [PSCI-COM] Is science communication a discipline? - JCOM 9(3) - new
issue - September 2010
The September 2010 issue of the open access JCOM - Journal of Science
Communication - (issue 3 volume 9) includes a number of commentaries that
explore the question of whether science communication is a discipline.
Details are included below, including an overview from the editor, Nico
Pitrelli.
COMMENT
Road maps for the 21st-century research in Science Communication
Nico Pitrelli
This is an introduction to the essays from the Jcom commentary devoted to
the statute and the future of research in science communication. The authors
have a long experience in international research in this domain. In the past
few years, they have all been committed to the production of collective
works which are now the most important references for science communication
research programmes in the next few years.
What topics should science communication research focus on and why? What is
its general purpose? What is its real degree of autonomy from other similar
fields of study? In other words, is science communication its 'own' field?
These are some of the questions addressed by the in-depth discussion in this
Jcom issue, with the awareness that science communication is a young,
brittle research field, looking for a shared map, but also one of the most
stimulating places of the contemporary academic panorama.
http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/03/Jcom0903%282010%29C01/
**********
Notes from some spaces in-between
Alice R. Bell
Science communication is less a community of researchers, but more a space
where communities of research coexist to study and deal with communities of
researchers. It is, as a field, a consequence of the spaces left between
areas of expertise in (late) modern society. It exists to deal with the
fragmentations of expertise in today's society. In between those fragments
is where it lives. It's not an easy position, but an awareness of this
unease is part of how science communication scholars can be most effective;
as we examine, reflect, debate and help others manage the inescapable
cultural gaps of post/late modern knowledge communities.
http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/03/Jcom0903%282010%29C01/Jcom0903%282010%29C
02
**********
Brian Trench, Massimiano Bucchi
Science communication, an emerging discipline
Several publications have sought to define the field of science
communication and review current issues and recent research. But the status
of science communication is uncertain in disciplinary terms. This commentary
considers two dimensions of the status of discipline as they apply to
science communication - the clarity with which the field is defined and the
level of development of theories to guide formal studies. It argues that
further theoretical development is needed to support science communication's
full emergence as a discipline.
http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/03/Jcom0903%282010%29C01/Jcom0903%282010%29C
03
**********
Toss Gascoigne, Donghong Cheng, Michel Claessens, Jenni Metcalfe, Bernard
Schiele, Shunke Shi
Is science communication its own field?
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, sociology of science or history of science.
Against this background, the authors of this comment chart the progress
science communication has made as an emerging subject over the last 50 years
in terms of a number of measures. Although discussions are still ongoing
about the elements that must be present to constitute a legitimate
disciplinary field, we show here that science communication meets four key
elements that constitute an analytical framework to classify academic
disciplines: the presence of a community; a history of inquiry; a mode of
inquiry that defines how data is collected; and the existence of a
communications network.
http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/03/Jcom0903%282010%29C01/Jcom0903%282010%29C
04
**********
Richard Holliman
From analogue to digital scholarship: implications for science communication
researchers
Digital media have transformed the social practices of science
communication. They have extended the number of channels that scientists,
media professionals, other stakeholders and citizens use to communicate
scientific information. Social media provide opportunities to communicate in
more immediate and informal ways, while digital technologies have the
potential to make the various processes of research more visible in the
public sphere. Some digital media also offer, on occasion, opportunities for
interaction and engagement. Similarly, ideas about public engagement are
shifting and extending social practices, partially influencing governance
strategies, and science communication policies and practices. In this paper
I explore this developing context via a personal journey from an analogue to
a digital scholar. In so doing, I discuss some of the demands that a
globalised digital landscape introduces for science communication
researchers and document some of the skills and co
mpetencies required to be a digital scholar of science communication.
http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/03/Jcom0903%282010%29C01/Jcom0903%282010%29C
05
**********
Coming of age in the academy? The status of our emerging field
Susanna Hornig Priest
Science communication is certainly growing as an academic field, as well as
a professional specialization. This calls to mind predictions made decades
ago about the ways in which the explosion of scientific knowledge was
envisioned as the likely source of new difficulties in the relationship
between science and society. It is largely this challenge that has inspired
the creation of the field of science communication. Has science
communication become its own academic subdiscipline in the process? What
exactly does this entail?
http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/03/Jcom0903%282010%29C01/Jcom0903%282010%29C
06
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