Pub Date : 2024-05-01Epub Date: 2024-02-02DOI: 10.1177/09636625231220219
Helena Machado, Cláudia de Freitas, Amelia Fiske, Isabella Radhuber, Susana Silva, Christian O Grimaldo-Rodríguez, Carlo Botrugno, Ralph Kinner, Luca Marelli
Research about science and publics in the COVID-19 pandemic often focuses on public trust and on identifying and correcting public attitudes. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 209 residents in six countries-Austria, Bolivia, Germany, Italy, Mexico, and Portugal-this article uses the concept of performativity to explore how participants understand, and relate to science, in the COVID-19 context. By performativity, we mean the ways by which participants understand themselves as particular sorts of publics through identification with, and differentiation from, various other actors in matters that are perceived as controversies surrounding science: COVID-19 vaccination, media communication of science, and the interactions between governments and scientists. The criteria used to construct the similarities and differences among publics were heterogeneous and fluid, showing how epistemic beliefs about the nature of, and trust in, scientific knowledge are intermingled with social and cultural memberships embedded in specific contexts and across disparate places.
{"title":"Performing publics of science in the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative study in Austria, Bolivia, Germany, Italy, Mexico, and Portugal.","authors":"Helena Machado, Cláudia de Freitas, Amelia Fiske, Isabella Radhuber, Susana Silva, Christian O Grimaldo-Rodríguez, Carlo Botrugno, Ralph Kinner, Luca Marelli","doi":"10.1177/09636625231220219","DOIUrl":"10.1177/09636625231220219","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Research about science and publics in the COVID-19 pandemic often focuses on public trust and on identifying and correcting public attitudes. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 209 residents in six countries-Austria, Bolivia, Germany, Italy, Mexico, and Portugal-this article uses the concept of performativity to explore how participants understand, and relate to science, in the COVID-19 context. By performativity, we mean the ways by which participants understand themselves as particular sorts of publics through identification with, and differentiation from, various other actors in matters that are perceived as controversies surrounding science: COVID-19 vaccination, media communication of science, and the interactions between governments and scientists. The criteria used to construct the similarities and differences among publics were heterogeneous and fluid, showing how epistemic beliefs about the nature of, and trust in, scientific knowledge are intermingled with social and cultural memberships embedded in specific contexts and across disparate places.</p>","PeriodicalId":48094,"journal":{"name":"Public Understanding of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11056084/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139673348","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-05-01Epub Date: 2023-12-14DOI: 10.1177/09636625231210453
Valerie Berseth, Jennifer Taylor, Jenna Hutchen, Vivian Nguyen, Stephan Schott, Nicole Klenk
Contemporary scientific and technological endeavours face public and political pressure to adopt open, transparent and democratically accountable practices of public engagement. Prior research has identified different ways that experts 'imagine publics' - as uninformed, as disengaged, as a risk to science, and as co-producers of knowledge - but there has yet to be a systematic exploration of how these views emerge, interact and evolve. This article introduces a typology of imagined publics to analyse how publics are constructed in the field of forest genomics. We find that deficit views of publics have not been replaced by co-production. Instead, deficit and co-productive approaches to publics co-exist and overlap, informing both how publics are characterized and how public perceptions are studied. We outline an agenda for deepening and expanding research on public perceptions of novel technologies. Specifically, we call for more diverse and complex methodological approaches that account for relational dynamics over time.
{"title":"Constructing the public in public perceptions research: A case study of forest genomics.","authors":"Valerie Berseth, Jennifer Taylor, Jenna Hutchen, Vivian Nguyen, Stephan Schott, Nicole Klenk","doi":"10.1177/09636625231210453","DOIUrl":"10.1177/09636625231210453","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Contemporary scientific and technological endeavours face public and political pressure to adopt open, transparent and democratically accountable practices of public engagement. Prior research has identified different ways that experts 'imagine publics' - as uninformed, as disengaged, as a risk to science, and as co-producers of knowledge - but there has yet to be a systematic exploration of how these views emerge, interact and evolve. This article introduces a typology of imagined publics to analyse how publics are constructed in the field of forest genomics. We find that deficit views of publics have not been replaced by co-production. Instead, deficit and co-productive approaches to publics co-exist and overlap, informing both how publics are characterized and how public perceptions are studied. We outline an agenda for deepening and expanding research on public perceptions of novel technologies. Specifically, we call for more diverse and complex methodological approaches that account for relational dynamics over time.</p>","PeriodicalId":48094,"journal":{"name":"Public Understanding of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11056085/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138812354","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-05-01Epub Date: 2024-01-20DOI: 10.1177/09636625231223425
Laila Mendy, Mikael Karlsson, Daniel Lindvall
Despite scientific consensus on climate change, climate denial is still widespread. While much research has characterised climate denial, comparatively fewer studies have systematically examined how to counteract it. This review fills this gap by exploring the research about counteracting climate denial, the effectiveness and the intentions behind intervention. Through a systematic selection and analysis of 65 scientific articles, this review finds multiple intervention forms, including education, message framing and inoculation. The intentions of intervening range from changing understanding of climate science, science advocacy, influencing mitigation attitudes and counteracting vested industry. A number of divergent findings emerge: whether to separate science from policy; the disputed effects of emotions and the longitudinal impacts of interventions. The review offers guiding questions for those interested in counteracting denialism, the answers to which indicate particular strategies: identify the form of climate denial; consider the purpose of intervention and recognise one's relationship to their audiences.
{"title":"Counteracting climate denial: A systematic review.","authors":"Laila Mendy, Mikael Karlsson, Daniel Lindvall","doi":"10.1177/09636625231223425","DOIUrl":"10.1177/09636625231223425","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Despite scientific consensus on climate change, climate denial is still widespread. While much research has characterised climate denial, comparatively fewer studies have systematically examined how to counteract it. This review fills this gap by exploring the research about counteracting climate denial, the effectiveness and the intentions behind intervention. Through a systematic selection and analysis of 65 scientific articles, this review finds multiple intervention forms, including education, message framing and inoculation. The intentions of intervening range from changing understanding of climate science, science advocacy, influencing mitigation attitudes and counteracting vested industry. A number of divergent findings emerge: whether to separate science from policy; the disputed effects of emotions and the longitudinal impacts of interventions. The review offers guiding questions for those interested in counteracting denialism, the answers to which indicate particular strategies: identify the form of climate denial; consider the purpose of intervention and recognise one's relationship to their audiences.</p>","PeriodicalId":48094,"journal":{"name":"Public Understanding of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11056086/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139514020","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-05-01Epub Date: 2023-12-23DOI: 10.1177/09636625231217081
Ángel Arrese
The COVID-19 pandemic was accompanied by an infodemic in which trust in news played an essential role. This article analyzes how this trust can be divided into two components, institutional and non-institutional, which are differentially related to beliefs about COVID-19 and perceptions of receiving misinformation and disinformation. Based on a survey conducted in three European countries (Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom), the study confirms that higher levels of institutional news trust (the trust dimension correlated more with trust in the news media, government, politicians, national and global health organizations, and scientists) are a good predictor of both better knowledge of COVID-19 myths and misstatements, and lower perceptions of being surrounded by false and misleading information about the virus. The research also highlights the special role of media and political sources in strengthening the institutional dimension of news trust.
{"title":"Institutional and non-institutional news trust as predictors of COVID-19 beliefs: Evidence from three European countries.","authors":"Ángel Arrese","doi":"10.1177/09636625231217081","DOIUrl":"10.1177/09636625231217081","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The COVID-19 pandemic was accompanied by an infodemic in which trust in news played an essential role. This article analyzes how this trust can be divided into two components, institutional and non-institutional, which are differentially related to beliefs about COVID-19 and perceptions of receiving misinformation and disinformation. Based on a survey conducted in three European countries (Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom), the study confirms that higher levels of institutional news trust (the trust dimension correlated more with trust in the news media, government, politicians, national and global health organizations, and scientists) are a good predictor of both better knowledge of COVID-19 myths and misstatements, and lower perceptions of being surrounded by false and misleading information about the virus. The research also highlights the special role of media and political sources in strengthening the institutional dimension of news trust.</p>","PeriodicalId":48094,"journal":{"name":"Public Understanding of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138886264","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-05-01Epub Date: 2024-01-20DOI: 10.1177/09636625231217080
Jarim Kim, Jiyeon Lee, Jinha Baek, Jiyeon Ju
This study examined how uncertainty affects information seeking and avoidance behaviors via information insufficiency in the COVID-19 vaccination context. It also investigated how trust in science, government, and society moderate the effects of information insufficiency. An online experiment with 131 Korean adults showed that uncertainty indirectly affects information seeking intentions via information insufficiency, which is moderated by science trust and governmental trust. It also showed that uncertainty indirectly affects information avoidance intentions via information insufficiency, which is moderated by social trust.
{"title":"Communicating uncertainties regarding COVID-19 vaccination: Moderating roles of trust in science, government, and society.","authors":"Jarim Kim, Jiyeon Lee, Jinha Baek, Jiyeon Ju","doi":"10.1177/09636625231217080","DOIUrl":"10.1177/09636625231217080","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study examined how uncertainty affects information seeking and avoidance behaviors via information insufficiency in the COVID-19 vaccination context. It also investigated how trust in science, government, and society moderate the effects of information insufficiency. An online experiment with 131 Korean adults showed that uncertainty indirectly affects information seeking intentions via information insufficiency, which is moderated by science trust and governmental trust. It also showed that uncertainty indirectly affects information avoidance intentions via information insufficiency, which is moderated by social trust.</p>","PeriodicalId":48094,"journal":{"name":"Public Understanding of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139514010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-05-01Epub Date: 2024-01-17DOI: 10.1177/09636625231216054
Donya Alinejad, Ali Honari
This study investigates how scientific knowledge is politicized on Twitter. Identifying discursive modes of online politicization and analyzing how they relate to different online issue publics allows us to weigh in on the scholarly debate about when the politicization of science on social media becomes problematic in a democratic context. This is a complicated question in "knowledge societies" where increasing science-politics confluence means that some degree of politicization is necessary for science-informed policymaking and (online) public debate. We look at how pandemic science was politicized through becoming discursively linked with an already highly politicized science issue on Twitter, namely, climate change. Our mixed-methods analysis demonstrates that some politicizations of science seek to contest science-informed policy while others are better characterized as ideological science rejection. We argue for the advantages of this approach of identifying science rejection over approaches that seek to distinguish information from dis-/misinformation.
{"title":"Online politicizations of science: Contestation versus denialism at the convergence between COVID-19 and climate science on Twitter.","authors":"Donya Alinejad, Ali Honari","doi":"10.1177/09636625231216054","DOIUrl":"10.1177/09636625231216054","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study investigates how scientific knowledge is politicized on Twitter. Identifying discursive <i>modes of online politicization</i> and analyzing how they relate to different online issue publics allows us to weigh in on the scholarly debate about when the politicization of science on social media becomes problematic in a democratic context. This is a complicated question in \"knowledge societies\" where increasing science-politics confluence means that some degree of politicization is necessary for science-informed policymaking and (online) public debate. We look at how pandemic science was politicized through becoming discursively linked with an already highly politicized science issue on Twitter, namely, climate change. Our mixed-methods analysis demonstrates that some politicizations of science seek to contest science-informed policy while others are better characterized as ideological science rejection. We argue for the advantages of this approach of identifying science rejection over approaches that seek to distinguish information from dis-/misinformation.</p>","PeriodicalId":48094,"journal":{"name":"Public Understanding of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11056079/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139479507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-27DOI: 10.1177/09636625221098462
{"title":"Retraction notice: Hans Peter Peters: ‘Each research design in our field is a political statement as it assumes and reinforces a particular position on the science–society relationship . . .’","authors":"","doi":"10.1177/09636625221098462","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09636625221098462","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48094,"journal":{"name":"Public Understanding of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140812390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-25DOI: 10.1177/09636625241245030
L. Ferris, M. Hornsey, J. Morosoli, T. Milfont, Fiona Kate Barlow
Lay beliefs about human trait heritability are consequential for cooperation and social cohesion, yet there has been no global characterisation of these beliefs. Participants from 30 countries (N = 6128) reported heritability beliefs for intelligence, personality, body weight and criminality, and transnational factors that could influence these beliefs were explored using public nation-level data. Globally, mean lay beliefs differ from published heritability (h2) estimated by twin studies, with a worldwide majority overestimating the heritability of personality and intelligence, and underestimating body weight and criminality. Criminality was seen as substantially less attributable to genes than other traits. People from countries with high infant mortality tended to ascribe greater heritability for most traits, relative to people from low infant mortality countries. This study provides the first systematic foray into worldwide lay heritability beliefs. Future research must incorporate diverse global perspectives to further contextualise and extend upon these findings.
{"title":"A 30-nation investigation of lay heritability beliefs.","authors":"L. Ferris, M. Hornsey, J. Morosoli, T. Milfont, Fiona Kate Barlow","doi":"10.1177/09636625241245030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09636625241245030","url":null,"abstract":"Lay beliefs about human trait heritability are consequential for cooperation and social cohesion, yet there has been no global characterisation of these beliefs. Participants from 30 countries (N = 6128) reported heritability beliefs for intelligence, personality, body weight and criminality, and transnational factors that could influence these beliefs were explored using public nation-level data. Globally, mean lay beliefs differ from published heritability (h2) estimated by twin studies, with a worldwide majority overestimating the heritability of personality and intelligence, and underestimating body weight and criminality. Criminality was seen as substantially less attributable to genes than other traits. People from countries with high infant mortality tended to ascribe greater heritability for most traits, relative to people from low infant mortality countries. This study provides the first systematic foray into worldwide lay heritability beliefs. Future research must incorporate diverse global perspectives to further contextualise and extend upon these findings.","PeriodicalId":48094,"journal":{"name":"Public Understanding of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140654625","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-24DOI: 10.1177/09636625241246076
Sangwon Lee, Marshall A Taylor, Saifuddin Ahmed, Won-Ki Moon
Numerous studies have been conducted to identify the factors that predict trust/distrust in science. However, most of these studies are based on closed-ended survey research, which does not allow researchers to gain a more nuanced understanding of the phenomenon. This study integrated survey analysis conducted within the United States with computational text analysis to reveal factors previously obscured by traditional survey methodologies. Even after controlling for political ideology-which has been the most significant explanatory factor in determining trust in science within a survey framework-we found those with concerns over boundary-crossing (i.e. concerns or perceptions that science overlaps with politics, the government, and funding) were less likely to trust science than their counterparts.
{"title":"Going beyond political ideology: A computational analysis of civic trust in science.","authors":"Sangwon Lee, Marshall A Taylor, Saifuddin Ahmed, Won-Ki Moon","doi":"10.1177/09636625241246076","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09636625241246076","url":null,"abstract":"Numerous studies have been conducted to identify the factors that predict trust/distrust in science. However, most of these studies are based on closed-ended survey research, which does not allow researchers to gain a more nuanced understanding of the phenomenon. This study integrated survey analysis conducted within the United States with computational text analysis to reveal factors previously obscured by traditional survey methodologies. Even after controlling for political ideology-which has been the most significant explanatory factor in determining trust in science within a survey framework-we found those with concerns over boundary-crossing (i.e. concerns or perceptions that science overlaps with politics, the government, and funding) were less likely to trust science than their counterparts.","PeriodicalId":48094,"journal":{"name":"Public Understanding of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140665827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-24DOI: 10.1177/09636625241246084
Aaron M. Houck, Aaron S. King, J. B. Taylor
How can scientists best inform the public and change attitudes? Does the message or the messenger matter more? We test the effect of scientific expert messengers and messages in a preregistered, nationally representative survey experiment in the United States. Consistent with our hypotheses, scientists can move public attitudes in areas where knowledge is based on a non-ideological misperception to a greater extent than the same science-based message from another source. Although we focus on political science as a field and Congressional term limits in the United States as a topic area, our findings have broader implications for science communication with policymaking relevance given the persistence of misperceptions among the public across all natural and social science research fields.
{"title":"The effect of experts on attitude change in public-facing political science: Scientific communication on term limits in the United States.","authors":"Aaron M. Houck, Aaron S. King, J. B. Taylor","doi":"10.1177/09636625241246084","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09636625241246084","url":null,"abstract":"How can scientists best inform the public and change attitudes? Does the message or the messenger matter more? We test the effect of scientific expert messengers and messages in a preregistered, nationally representative survey experiment in the United States. Consistent with our hypotheses, scientists can move public attitudes in areas where knowledge is based on a non-ideological misperception to a greater extent than the same science-based message from another source. Although we focus on political science as a field and Congressional term limits in the United States as a topic area, our findings have broader implications for science communication with policymaking relevance given the persistence of misperceptions among the public across all natural and social science research fields.","PeriodicalId":48094,"journal":{"name":"Public Understanding of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140663953","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}