A majority of Americans rely on general outlets for science news but more say specialty sources get the facts right about science. This report presents findings from a survey conducted among a nationally representative sample of 4000+ adults from May 30-June 12, 2017. The survey asked about a range of issues from how the public encounters science news and assesses what and who to trust to other ways that people engage with science information in everyday life, including participation in citizen science research projects, hobbies, and consumption of entertainment programming built around
This article examines certain guiding tenets of science journalism in the era of big data by focusing on its engagement with citizen science. Having placed citizen science in historical context, it highlights early interventions intended to help establish the basis for an alternative epistemological ethos recognising the scientist as citizen and the citizen as scientist. Next, the article assesses further implications for science journalism by examining the challenges posed by big data in the realm of citizen science. Pertinent issues include potential risks associated with data quality
Computational social science represents an interdisciplinary approach to the study of reality based on advanced computer tools. From economics to political science, from journalism to sociology, digital approaches and techniques for the analysis and management of large quantities of data have now been adopted in several disciplines. The papers in this JCOM commentary focus on the use of such approaches and techniques in the research on science communication. As the papers point out, the most significant advantages of a computational approach in this sector include the chance to open up a range