The fields of science education and science communication are said to have developed as disparate fields of research and practice, operating based on somewhat different logics and premises about their audiences. As the two fields share many of the same goals, arguments have been made for a rapprochement between the two. Drawing inspiration from a historical debate between the scholars John Dewey and Walter Lippmann, the present article is a case-oriented theoretical contribution applying models from science education and science communication in relation to a current socio-scientific issue
The KQED science digital media team continue their research on gender disparity of their YouTube series Deep Look.
Can videos with titles that pertained to health/home and sex/mating, on average, attach a higher proportion of female viewers?
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Sue Ellen McCannSevda ErisAsheley LandrumSarah MohamadOthello RichardsKristina JanétKelsi OpatSarah MohamadGabriela Quiros
Media researchers from Texas Tech University, evaluators at Rockman et al, and KQED, a public media organization serving the San Francisco Bay Area, set out to understand the COVID-19 information needs of its community to assist KQED science journalists with their health coverage. This is a summary of what we learned.
This is the fourth and final installment of a multi-part series describing experiences, lessons, and reflections of the San Francisco public-media based KQED Science news team during a year of reporting on and living through an unprecedented series of disasters.
This is the third installment of a multi-part series describing experiences, lessons, and reflections of the San Francisco public-media based KQED Science news team during a year of reporting on and living through an unprecedented series of disasters.
This is the second installment of a multi-part series describing experiences, lessons, and reflections of the San Francisco public-media based KQED Science news team during a year of reporting on and living through an unprecedented series of disasters.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Sue Ellen McCannSevda ErisAsheley LundrumSarah MohamadScott Burg
This is the first installment of a multi-part series describing experiences, lessons, and reflections of the San Francisco public-media based KQED Science news team during a year of reporting on and living through an unprecedented series of disasters.
The popularity of the anti-vax movement in the United States and elsewhere is the cause of new lethal epidemics of diseases that are fully preventable by modern medicine [Benecke and DeYoung, 2019]. Creationism creeps into science classrooms with the aim of undermining the teaching of evolution through legal obligations or school boards’ decisions to present both sides of a debate largely foreign to the scientific community [Taylor, 2017]. And one simply has to turn on the TV and watch so-called science channels to be bombarded with aliens, ghosts, cryptids and miracles as though they are
The last three decades have seen extensive reflection concerning how science communication should be modelled and understood. In this essay we propose the value of a cultural approach to science communication — one that frames it primarily as a process of meaning-making. We outline the conceptual basis for this view of culture, drawing on cultural theory to suggest that it is valuable to see science communication as one aspect of (popular) culture, as storytelling or narrative, as ritual, and as collective meaning-making. We then explore four possible ways that a cultural approach might
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Sarah DaviesMegan HalpernMaja HorstDavid KirbyBruce Lewenstein
One part personal reflection, one part literature synthesis. This essay reflects on official statistics, common misunderstandings, and the COVID-19 numbers we're all becoming increasingly familiar with. The author calls on news audiences and journalists alike to become more knowledgeable about what official statistics can and can't do -- and to question the epistemic priority that so many people reflexively give to numbers by paying attention to what is not included.
From a strategic communication perspective, for any communication to be effective, it must be audience-centered, with content and delivery channels that are relevant to its intended target. When trying to reach culturally specific communities or other groups that are not otherwise connected with science research, it is crucial to partner with community members to co-create content through media that is appealing and culturally competent. This commentary considers some examples including storytelling through ‘fotonovelas’ and radio stories, community drama and serious games.