Public Understanding of Science最新文献

On Wikipedia, editors daily negotiate edits to an entry that summarizes climate change to a global audience. The outcome of their efforts is an encyclopedic entry with a conspicuous lack of temporal clarity that circumvents the question of whether climate change is an immediate crisis or merely a potential future phenomenon. This qualitative discourse analysis of editors' debates around climate change on Wikipedia argues that their hesitancy to "declare crisis" is not a conscious editorial choice as much as an outcome of a friction between the folk philosophy of science Wikipedia is built upon, editors' own sense of urgency, and their anticipations about audience uptake of their writing. This friction shapes a group style that fosters temporal ambiguity. Hence, the findings suggest that in the Wikipedia entry on climate change, platform affordances and contestation of expertise foreclose a declaration of climate crisis.

Science communication has diversified in the wake of the digital transformation of communication and media ecosystems. Social media enable universities, but also academics and institutions affiliated with them, to expand their communication. This leads to increasing plurivocality of universities, yet the many different voices remain largely unexplored. This study develops a typology to conceptually distinguish eight voices by their representational role, hierarchical embeddedness, type, and affiliation. Based on a quantitative content and social network analysis of more than 600 Twitter accounts linked to a research university, it identifies six types of voices empirically. The study compares interactions among these voices, showing differences between central and decentral, as well as institutional and individual voices, and highlighting closer exchanges between voices within the same disciplinary communities. It also examines topics and tonality, revealing that decentral institutional voices engage most in science-related topics, and that only current and former students express critical views.

A meta-analysis was conducted to quantify the overall effect of health misinformation exposure on shaping misbelief. Aggregation of results from 28 individual randomized controlled trial studies (n = 8752) reveals a positive but small average effect, d = 0.28. Moderation analyses suggest that adults who are younger and female tend to develop higher misbelief if exposed to health misinformation. Furthermore, media platform, message falsity, and misbelief measurements also contribute to the exposure effect. These findings offer nuanced but crucial insights into existing misinformation literature, and development of more effective strategies to mitigate the adverse impacts of health misinformation.

Advancements in New Plant Breeding Techniques have emerged as promising tools for enhancing crop productivity, quality, and resilience in the face of global challenges, such as climate change and food security. However, the successful implementation of these techniques relies also on public acceptance of this innovation. Understanding what shapes public perception and acceptance of New Plant Breeding Techniques is crucial for effective science communication, policymaking, and the sustainable adoption of these innovations. The objective of this systematic review was to synthesize existing research on the public perception of New Plant Breeding Techniques applied to food crops and explore the psychosocial determinants that influence acceptance. Twenty papers published between 2015 and 2023 were included on various New Plant Breeding Techniques and their reception by the general public. Determinants affecting the acceptance of food crops derived from New Plant Breeding Techniques were categorized into six areas: sociodemographic factors, perceived benefits and risks, attitudes toward science, communication strategies, personal values, and product characteristics.

This article examines the visions of citizens' ideal practices regarding technoscientific affairs in a democratic society, namely "imaginaries of model citizens," that underlie three science and public initiatives: public understanding of science, public engagement in science, and citizen science. While imaginaries of citizens are performative and necessary to these initiatives, they are often relegated to the background. I argue that such imaginaries are the result of a complex of perceptions on the nature of science, the role of democracy in scientific activities, and the form of "democratizing" science. The imaginary of model citizens in public understanding of science is of literate citizens who should know science sufficiently, use it in daily life, and support science; in public engagement in science, the model citizen is a responsible one who should engage in the governance of technoscientific issues; and in citizen science, a contributive one who should partake in and enjoy creating scientific knowledge.

To examine whether different types of disclosure made by climate scientists on social media influence perceived source credibility (i.e. competence, integrity, benevolence) and likability, we conducted a 2 (self-disclosure type: personal vs political) × 3 (proportion of posts including a self-disclosure: 20% vs 50% vs 80%) × 2 (gender identity of scientist: male vs female) between-subjects experiment (N = 734). We found that people liked the scientist more for a personal than political disclosure, rated them as being more competent for a political disclosure, and liked a female scientist more than a male scientist. However, scientist's gender did not moderate the effect of disclosure type or the effect of participants' gender. Our results suggest distinct benefits when scientists deliver different types of messages on social media, although disclosure is unlikely to have substantial effects on lay judgments of scientists' credibility.

This article demonstrates-based on an interpretive discourse analysis of three types of memes (Rabid Feminists, Women's Bodies, Policy Ideas) and secondary thread discourse on 4chan's "Politically Incorrect" discussion board-two key findings: (1) the existence of a gendered hate based scientific discourse, "science fan fiction," in online spaces and (2) how gender "science fan fiction" is an outcome of the male supremacist cosmology, by producing and justifying resentment against white women as being both inherently untrustworthy (politically, sexually, intellectually) and dangerous. This perspective-which combines hatred and distrust of women with white nationalist anxieties about demographic shifts, racial integrity, and sexuality-then motivates misogynist policy ideas including total domination of women or their removal. 4chan users employ this discourse to "scientifically" substantiate claims of white male supremacy, the fundamental untrustworthiness of white women, and to argue white women's inherent threat to white male supremacist goals.

Organizations involved with gene editing may engage with the public to share information and address concerns about the technology. It is unclear, however, if the information shared aligns with what people want to know. We aimed to understand what members of the public want to know about gene editing in animals by soliciting their questions through an open-ended survey question and comparing them with questions posed in Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) webpages developed by gene editing stakeholder organizations. Participants (338 USA residents) asked the most questions about gene editing in general and animal welfare. In contrast, FAQ webpages focused on regulations. The questions survey participants asked demonstrate a range of knowledge and interests. The discrepancy between survey participant questions and the information provided in the FAQ webpages suggests that gene editing stakeholders might engage in more meaningful public engagement by soliciting actual questions from the public and opening up opportunities for real dialogue.

In the context of science communication, complexity is often reduced. This study employs a 2 × 2 experimental design (N = 432) to investigate how two factors, namely the communication of complexity (reduced vs not reduced) and the provision of suggestions for concrete action (suggested vs not suggested), influence individuals' productive engagement with the socio-scientific topic of sustainable energy. Measured variables include topic-specific intellectual humility, judgements of source trustworthiness, willingness to act, anxiety, and hope. As expected, communication of complexity led to higher topic-specific intellectual humility, higher epistemic trustworthiness and higher anxiety. When a concrete action was communicated, participants reported lower topic-specific intellectual humility. Participants' willingness to act was not significantly affected by the experimental manipulation. The results of the study imply that the communication of complexity does not hinder people's productive engagement with science.

Scientific findings can be overturned when new evidence arises. This study examines how communicating and explaining uncertainty around scientific findings affect trust in the communicator when findings change. In an online experiment (N = 800, convenience sample), participants read a fictitious statement from a public health authority announcing that there was no link between a new COVID-19 vaccine and heart muscle inflammation. The authority communicated (1) no uncertainty, (2) uncertainty without giving a reason, (3) uncertainty due to imprecision, or (4) uncertainty due to incomplete accounting of patients. Participants were then informed that the authority's statement was no longer correct as new data showed a link between the vaccine and heart muscle inflammation. Participants rated the authority's trustworthiness before and after the evidence update. Our findings indicate that communicating uncertainty buffers against a loss of trust when evidence changes. Moreover, explaining uncertainty does not appear to harm trust.