Project Details
Projekt
Communicating scientific uncertainty of emerging technologies in life sciences
Subject Area
Communication Sciences
Term
from 2009 to 2016
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 123698487
The aim of this project is to analyze the process of public communication about scientific findings in domains in which scientific evidence can be seen as especially uncertain. During the next funding period the work on the overall model of public communication of scientific uncertainties shall be continued and refined. Just as in the last two funding periods, our model will take into account scientists, non-journalistic communicators (representing different interest groups), science journalists, the presentation of scientific uncertainty in mass media, and scientific laypersons as recipients of science communication. Based on the topics analyzed in the last two funding periods (molecular medicine and nanotechnology), we will now broaden our focus to emerging technologies in the field of life science as a thematic domain, allowing for more global interpretations of the results. Based on the state of research (including our own work), and the theoretical assumptions of the theory of planned behavior, we intend to 1) replicate the first findings from explorative analyses concerning the communication behavior of non-journalistic communicators and science journalists with respect to scientific uncertainties. In contrast to the qualitative methods used in the past funding period, the representativeness of the data will be the goal. 2) The data at hand from the two quantitative content analyses of media coverage of molecular medicine (phase1) and nanotechnology (phase 2) will be analyzed in more detail, with a special focus on the journalistic quality of the media reports and the depiction of scientific uncertainty. 3) With respect to scientific laypeople, we will continue to experimentally study the effects of media reports communicating scientific uncertainties on the general beliefs about the nature of science and scientific evidence, also taking into account the impact of interpersonal communication after the reception of the media reports. Additionally, more qualitative analyses will be conducted focusing on individual needs, motives of media use, and appraisals of science media reports. The harmonization of research methods and instruments, as well as the combined interpretation of results across the different studies allows for a global analysis of interdependencies between all involved stakeholders. We are thus able to compare the peer-group specific rationalities of non-journalistic communicators and science journalists concerning the presentation of scientific uncertainty. Furthermore, it is possible to match the assumptions of science communicators about their audience with the factual needs, motives, attitudes, and appraisals of science media by their recipients. By comparing the results from the survey among science journalists with the findings from the content analysis, the relevance and implementation of journalistic quality criteria can be assessed.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
Subproject of
SPP 1409:
Science and the General Public: Understanding Fragile and Conflicting Evidence
International Connection
USA
Participating Person
Professor John C. Besley, Ph.D.
