Presentation made at PCST-2018, International Network on Public Communication of Science & Technology, University of Otago, Dunedin, NZ, 3 April 2018. Includes bibliography.

1. The Past, Present, and Future (!) of
Science Communication Research
Bruce V. Lewenstein
Professor of Science Communication
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853 USA
b.lewenstein@cornell.edu
Presented at PCST 2018 Science Communication Career Skills, Knowledge
and Networking Workshop, Univ. of Otago, Dunedin, NZ, 3 April 2018
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

2. Lab/
Field Formal paper
Preprints
Meetings Policy
documents,
etc.
Textbooks
Media (web, TV
magazines, radio
newspapers, blogs,
Twitter, books, etc.)
Is this science communication?
Grant proposals

3. Sphere of Science Communication
From: Lewenstein, Bruce V. (2011). Experimenting with Engagement. Commentary on "Taking Our Own Medicine:
On an Experiment in Science Communication."Science And Engineering Ethics, 17(4), 817-821.

9. Deutsches Museum, Munich
Chicago Museum of
Science & Industry
Franklin Institute, Philadelphia

13. Issues in PCST, 1
Defining “it,” whatever “it” is, before we
can do research
– Science literacy
– Public understanding of S&T
– Public awareness of S&T
– Public engagement in S&T
– Public communication of S&T
– Culture scientifique
– Apropiación social de la ciencia
– Etc.

14. Issues in PCST, 2
What is the topic?
– Basic information/education about S&T
– Breaking news about S&T
– Information about social/political issues
involving S&T
– Entertainment using S&T
» Or using entertainment for the first three items on
the page?
» Including exciting people (and potential students)
about science

15. Issues in PCST, 3
Understanding audience needs and interests
– Information, education, and entertainment
– People focus or science focus?

16. Issues in PCST, 4
Institutional needs
– Media (journalism): attract audience, sell ads
– Media (entertainment): attract audience, sell
tickets
– Museums: attract audience, sell admissions
– Scientists: recruit young people, get money
from government
[Notice the pattern?]

17. What’s missing?

18. The past and
(almost) present of research

19. PCST Hist
Sci
SSS Sci Ed Sci
jour
Sci
mus
Vis
stud
Risk
Comm
Other
Pre
1940
x x
1940s x
1950s x x x
1960s xxx x xx x
1970s xxx xxxx xxx x xx xx
1980s xxxx xxxxx
xxx
xxxxx x xxxxx xx xxxx xx
1990s xxxx xxx xxxx xxx xxxx xxxx xx xxxx xx
2000s xxxx xxx xxx xxx xxxx xx xxxx xx
2010s xxxx xxx xxx xxx xxxx x xx xxxx xx

20. Major categories of literature
Public comm of S&T (PCST)
History of science
Social studies of science
Science education
Science journalism
Science museums
Visitor studies
Risk communication
Environmental, health, citizen science, etc.

21. History of science
Public context for development of
systematic research in 19th century
Public responses to science issues in 20th
century
Many cases of scientists interacting with
publics as scientists sought resources and
authority

22. Social studies of science
Science as public knowledge
Mechanisms of public display to create
knowledge
Political uses of knowledge display; public
knowledges vs. expert knowledge
Acquisition of authority by new groups
(citizen science, responsible research and
innovation); Shaping of research by
demands of public science (medialization)

23. Science education
1958: 1st definition of science literacy
Occasional attempts to define
Since 2000s: Adding “informal science
education” to educational research
“Learning science in informal
environments”

24. Science journalism
Institutional contexts and forces
– Differences between scientists and journalists
Distribution of topics: change over time
Accuracy
– Sins of omission rather than commission
Creation and training of (science)
journalists
– Identification with scientific community

25. Science museums
Eternal tension between research and
education
Relation of knowledge display to
knowledge production
Changing audiences
[And note that we’re seeing overlaps – e.g.
with informal science education]

26. Visitor studies
Free choice
Importance of families/groups
Interactivity
Attention to social diversity

27. Risk communication
Psychological components: trust,
fear/dread, knowledge
Social amplification and attenuation of risk
In case you missed it: Trust!

28. Other (an un-ending list)
Environmental comm, health comm, citizen
science
Science of science communication
– Political context matters
– Behavior change instead of knowledge and
attitude change
– Changing media environment
Learning by doing – both learning science
and learning politics

29. PCST: Recurring themes, 1
Recording what exists
Individual knowledge
– Needed for action
– Relationship to attitudes and emotions
– Mechanisms and contexts for learning
Institutions and people for PCST
– Their needs and goals
– Creating and training them
Interactivity, dialogue

30. PCST: Recurring themes, 2
Role of public communication in
production of reliable knowledge
Public authority of expert knowledge
– And resistance to delegation of expertise
Trust

31. Missing (mostly) themes
Collective knowledge
– Families, communities
Role of politics and activism in both
individual and collective knowledge
Literary/narrative analysis
Gender, class, race, and other dimensions of
diversity
These exist in other literatures; we just
haven’t brought them in well

32. Present and future (!)
Listen to the others at this workshop and
conference!
Integrate the themes, find others
Future: Fill in the missing areas!

33. The following bibliography expands on the
chart above that I use in some talks showing the
history of research on “public communication
of science and technology” (PCST). The
bibliography is not intended to be complete, or
representative, or indeed anything other than a
tool for glimpsing the wide range of research
traditions that have contributed directly to
contemporary research on PCST. (For example,
the citations below do not precisely match those
listed in the attached chart – as I compiled this
list, I discovered errors in the chart and a few
references I felt I should have added as
exemplars.) Researchers interested in the field
might use these citations to begin finding more
comprehensive understandings of these research
traditions.
--- Bruce Lewenstein, 17 April 2018
Public understanding of science/PCST
(Bucchi & Trench, 2008, 2014; Cheng, Metcalfe, &
Schiele, 2006; Davis, 1958; Fischhoff & Scheufele, 2013;
Goodell, 1977; Lewenstein, 1992; Miller, 1983; Miller,
Prewitt, & Pearson, 1980; National Science Board, 1991;
Royal Society, 1985; Schiele, 1994; Shen, 1975; Snow,
Dibner, & Committee on Science Literacy and Public
Perception of Science, 2016)
History of Science
(Kevles, 1978; Shapin, 1974; Shapin & Barnes, 1977;
Tobey, 1971) (Turner, 1980) (Cooter, 1984; Cooter &
Pumfrey, 1994) (Robert W Rydell, 1984; Robert W.
Rydell, 1993) (Sheets-Pyenson, 1985, 1988) (Boyer,
1985) (A. Secord, 1994; J. A. Secord, 1985) (Burnham,
1987) (Bensaude-Vincent & Rasmussen, 1996)
(Lightman, 2007)
Social Studies of Science
(Gerald Holton, 1974; G. Holton, 1965) (Garvey, 1979)
(J. M. Ziman, 1968) (Meltsner, 1979) (Shinn & Whitley,
1985) (Clemens, 1986) (Collins, 1987, 1988) (Irwin &
Wynne, 1996; Wynne, 1989) (Hilgartner, 1990) (J. Ziman,
1991) (Irwin, 1995) (Rödder, Franzen, & Weingart, 2012)

34. Other (including extension, environmental
communication, public health communication, citizen
science, etc.)
(Griffiths, 1960) (Hungerford & Lemert, 1973)
(Schoenfeld, Meier, & Griffin, 1979) (Brossard,
Lewenstein, & Bonney, 2005) (Bonney, Phillips, Ballard,
& Enck, 2016)
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