Communicating Science Effectively: A Research Agenda

by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education

Science and technology are embedded in virtually every aspect of modern life. As a result, people face an increasing need to integrate information from science with their personal values and other considerations as they make important life decisions about medical care, the safety of foods, what to do about climate change, and many other issues. Communicating science effectively, however, is a complex task and an acquired skill. Moreover, the approaches to communicating science that will be most effective for specific audiences and circumstances are not obvious. Fortunately, there is an expanding science base from diverse disciplines that can support science communicators in making these determinations.

Communicating Science Effectively offers a research agenda for science communicators and researchers seeking to apply this research and fill gaps in knowledge about how to communicate effectively about science, focusing in particular on issues that are contentious in the public sphere. To inform this research agenda, this publication identifies important influences – psychological, economic, political, social, cultural, and media-related – on how science related to such issues is understood, perceived, and used.

Genres: Science

147 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 23, 2017

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was introduced to the topic of science communication, or "sci comm" as it is commonly known as, via this term of my graduate school. Anyone can obtain a free PDF version of this book by going to this link:

https://www.nap.edu/catalog/23674/com...

I feel that because we live in such a media heavy world, this topic should be understood by everyone. This is especially important because we are all living in a world of rapid global climate change. This book reads like a psychology text, and goes into a lot of biases and misinformed mental processes that people tend to fall into. It also spends time examining the different roles that science takes on in the world. The best part about this text is that it offers solutions to difficult problems, such as controversy in science communication. I have come to learn that living in the solution instead of the problem is an effective unification tool. This book offers solutions.

[Mohamed Yehia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is not in a well structure form but it was a good reference for my course in a rare topic like this.