Public Communication of Science & Technology

I prefer to call my field “public communication of science and technology” (PCST). But many other people call it “science communication” or #scicomm. I use the terms interchangeably. On this page, I have links to:

• The field of PCST
• Courses in PCST
• Practical information about doing PCST
• Reading about PCST

 

The field of PCST

For general information about science communication with the public, see the website of the International Network on Public Communication of Science and Technology (pcst.network).

For more general resources on science communication that go beyond “public communication,” see www.scidev.net, which has various materials on science communication. They are oriented toward developing countries, but apply to the whole world.

Several collections of resources are oriented mostly towards the United States, but have some links beyond it, and the information they point to is broadly relevant.

• The Link, a program of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science. Mostly looks at ways to connect research on science communication with practice.
• CASWConnector, a project of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing (when founded in 1960, colloquially called “a wholly-disowned subsidiary of the National Association of Science Writers”). Focuses on science journalism and communication.
• REVISE (Reimagining Equity and Values in Informal STEM Education), the latest incarnation of a center to support the US National Science Foundation’s program on “Advancing Informal STEM Learning” (AISL). From REVISE’s Resources and Community Repository pages, many links to resources in the field.
• SciComm Resources, a more informal resource, curated by science communicator Stephanie Deppe, responding to the question “So you want to break into SciComm??”
• TheOpenNotebook, highlighting training and educational materials for journalists who cover science. Though focused on science journalism, many of its stories are useful for the broader field of public communication of science and technology. It publishes many items in Spanish on TON en Español, and also has articles about issues of multilingualism.

Keeping track of these resources is now a fulltime job, so I apologize for lists that I’ve left out. In particular, some European projects have created similar collections of resources – I will update this page with those links in (I hope) the near future. Probably more usefully, I point you towards The SciCommer, a newsletter that highlights current activities, events, literatures, and projects in the field.

 

Courses in PCST

Many of the links above include pointers to course work (from short workshops to certificates to full degree programs). So while I used to provide links to some collections of courses, I’ve left those out now. I have found that looking on your favorite search engine for “science journalism courses” or “science communication courses” yields many useful links.

 

Practical information about doing PCST

This section became too long, so now I have a separate page that focuses on practical information about doing public communication of science and technology. But it’s getting dated, so I encourage you to look throught the links above.

 

Introductory readings for those studying science communication

No list of books and readings in science communication is complete. But here is an initial set of suggestions for people interested in the field. I last updated this about 2021, and many wonderful items have appeared since then — I’ll do my best to update soon.

Introductions to the field

• Bucchi, Massimiano, & Trench, Brian (Eds.). (2014). Handbook of Public Communication of Science and Technology (2nd ed.). London/New York: Routledge.
• Jamieson, Kathleen Hall, Kahan, Dan, & Scheufele, Dietram A. (Eds.). (2017). Oxford Handbook of Science of Science Communication. New York: Oxford University Press.

Conceptual overviews and classic readings

• Broks, Peter. (1996). Media science before the Great War. New York: St. Martin’s Press. [A good historical overview, focused on the United Kingdom]
• Gregory, J., & Miller, S. (1998). Science in Public: Communication, Culture, and Credibility. New York: Plenum. [A classic introduction to the field, a bit dated but still very useful]
• Davies, Sarah R., & Horst, Maja. (2016). Science Communication: Culture, Identity, and Citizenship. London: Palgrave. [A newer, STS-inflected perspective]
• Holliman, R., Thomas, J., Smidt, S., Scanlon, E., & Whitelegg, E. (Eds.). (2009). Practising Science Communication in the Information Age. New York: Oxford. [Prepared for a science communication course in the UK’s Open University]
• Holliman, R., Whitelegg, E., Scanlon, E., Smidt, S., & Thomas, J. (Eds.). (2009). Investigating Science Communication in the Information Age: Implications for Public Engagement and Popular Media. New York: Oxford. [Prepared for a science communication course in the UK’s Open University]
• Nelkin, D. (1995). Selling Science: How the Press Covers Science and Technology (rev. ed.). New York: W. H. Freeman. [A classic examination of science journalism, though now dated somewhat]
• Nisbet, Matthew C., & Scheufele, Dietram. (2009). What’s next for science communication? Promising directions and lingering distractions. American Journal of Botany, 96(10), 1-12. [a nice summary of where the field was in the late 2000s]
• House of Lords. 2000. Science and Society. London: UK House of Lords. (Available at http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld199900/ldselect/ldsctech/38/3801.htm. See also government response at http://www.dti.gov.uk/scienceind/report3response.htm.) [A key text in the shift of focus from “the deficit model” to the “engagement model”]

Science museums

• Chittenden, Dave, Graham Farmelo, and Bruce Lewenstein, eds. 2004. Creating Connections: Museums and the Public Understanding of Current Research. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press
• Falk, John H. and Lynn D. Dierking. 2000. Learning from Museums: Visitor Experiences and the Making of Meaning. American Association for State and Local History Book Series. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press.
• Farmelo, Graham, and Janet Carding. 1997. Here and now: Contemporary science and technology in musuems and science centres. London: Science Museum.
• Rader, Karen A., & Cain, Victoria. (2014). Life on Display: Revolutionizing Museums of Natural History and Science in America, 1910-90. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [historical overview that gives good context for contemporary issues]

Informal learning

• Falk, John H. and Lynn D. Dierking. 2002. Lessons without limit : how free-choice learning is transforming education. Walnut Creek, CA ; Oxford: AltaMira Press.
• Bell, P., Lewenstein, B. V., Shouse, A., & Feder, M. (Eds.). (2009). Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
• Dawson, Emily. (2019). Equity, Exclusion, and Everyday Science Learning: The Experiences of Minoritised Groups. London: Routledge. [New and more focused than the Falk et al. or Bell et al. books, but opens up a critical area not previously much addressed]

Public knowledge of and attitudes toward science

Every two years, the U.S. National Science Board includes a chapter on this topic in its “Science and Engineering Indicators” series.  These chapters often include comparative information about other countries as well.  The most recent full edition is:

• National Science Board. 2018. Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Understanding. In Science & Engineering Indicators–2018. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. (link to overall report download page; link to pdf of chapter on public attitudes)

Starting in 2020, the individual sections (including the one on public attitudes and understanding) have been released separately. Here is the current overall report page; here is the May 2020 public attitudes report.

The science of science communication

In recent years, researchers have brought together much of the research on science communication, especially quantitative social science research. The best summary is the Handbook of Science of Science Communication referred to above; you can also find related material at the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s page on the science of science communication. While I have concerns about whether public communication can be “managed” in the way that much of this strand of literature suggests (see my chapter on “Controversies” in the Handbook), no serious conversation on the topic can proceed without knowing this material.

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Scholarly works

Finally, for those who wish to push deeper into the field: This section is a bit more eclectic, and is less (in fact, probably not at all) likely to be of interest to people just getting started in the field. But it includes books and articles in addition to those above that I’d be annoyed (for a variety of reasons) to discover that my graduate students don’t know about (those students — yes, I’m looking at you! — should also skim my CV; my students should know what I’ve written!). It’s in no particular order.

History of public understanding of science

• Burnham, John. (1987). How Superstition Won and Science Lost: Popularizing Science and Health in the United States. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
• Cooter, Roger. 1984. The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science: Phrenology and the Organization of Consent in Nineteenth Century Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• LaFollette, M. C. (1990). Making Science Our Own: Public Images of Science, 1910-1955. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• LaFollette, M. C. (2008). Science on the air : popularizers and personalities on radio and early television. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• LaFollette, M. C. (2009). Scientific and Technical Publishing in the United States, 1880-1950. In A History of the Book in America (1880-1950) (Vol. 4, 1880-1950). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
• LaFollette, Marcel Chotkowski. (2012). Science on American Television: A History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Lightman, Bernard V. (2007). Victorian popularizers of science : designing nature for new audiences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Lewenstein, Bruce V. 1992. The Meaning of ‘Public Understanding of Science’ in the United States After World War II. Public Understanding of Science 1 (1):45-68.
• Lewenstein, B. V. (2009). Science Books Since 1945. In D. P. Nord, J. S. Rubin & M. Schudson (Eds.), The Enduring Book: Print Culture in Postwar America (pp. 347-360). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Theory/conceptual approaches to public understanding of science

• Bauer, M. W., Allum, N., & Miller, S. (2007). What can we learn from 25 years of PUS survey research? Liberating and expanding the agenda. Public Understanding of Science, 16(1), 79-95.
• Cheng, D., Claessens, M., Gascoigne, T., Metcalfe, J., Schiele, B., & Shi, S. (Eds.). (2008). Communicating Science in Social Contexts: New Models, New Practices. Brussels: Springer, for the European Commission. [Overview articles]
• Hilgartner, S. (1990). The Dominant View of Popularization: Conceptual Problems, Political Uses. Social Studies of Science, 20(3), 519-539.
• Irwin, A. (1995). Citizen science : a study of people, expertise, and sustainable development. London ; New York: Routledge.
• Lewenstein, Bruce V. 1995. From Fax to Facts: Communication in the Cold Fusion Saga. Social Studies of Science 25 (3):403-436.
• Miller, Steve. (2001). Public understanding of science at the crossroads. Public Understanding of Science, 10(1), 115-120.
• Schiele, Bernard, ed. 1994. When Science Becomes Culture: World Survey of Scientific Culture. Boucherville, Quebec: University of Ottawa Press.
• Shinn, Terry, and Richard Whitley, eds. 1985. Expository Science: Forms and Functions of Popularisation. Vol. 9, Sociology of the Sciences. Dordrecht/Boston/Lancaster: D. Reidel.
• Wynne, Brian. 1989. Sheep Farming After Chernobyl: A Case Study in Communicating Scientific Information. Environment Magazine 31 (2):10-15, 33-39.
• Wynne, Brian. 1991. Knowledges in Context. Science, Technology & Human Values 16 (1):111-121.
• Wynne, Brian (1995). Public Understanding of Science. In S. Jasanoff & G. E. Markle & J. C. Petersen & T. Pinch (Eds.), Handbook of Science and Technology Studies (pp. 361-388). Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Sage.
• Ziman, John. 1991. Public Understanding of Science. Science, Technology & Human Values 16 (1 (Winter)):99-105.
• Ziman, John. 1992. Not Knowing, Needing to Know, and Wanting to Know. In When Science Meets the Public, edited by B. V. Lewenstein. Washington: American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Science journalism

• Bauer, Martin, & Bucchi, Massimiano (Eds.). (2007). Journalism, Science and Society: Science Communication Between News and Public Relations. London: Routledge.
• Friedman, Sharon M., Dunwoody, Sharon, & Rogers, Carol L. (Eds.). (1986). Scientists and Journalists: Reporting Science as News. New York: The Free Press. [dated, but a classic]
• Friedman, S., Dunwoody, S., & Rogers, C. (Eds.). (1999). Communicating Uncertainty: Media Coverage of New and Controversial Science. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Rödder, Simone, Franzen, Martina, & Weingart, Peter (Eds.). (2012). The sciences’ media connection : public communication and its repercussions. Dordrecht ; New York: Springer.

Public participation/public engagement in science

• Fisher, Erik. (2011). Editorial Overview [special issue on public engagement]. [10.1007/s11948-011-9331-x]. Science And Engineering Ethics, 17(4), 607-620.
• Lewenstein, Bruce V. (initiator). (2012-). Wiki page: Public Engagement in Science, from http://informalscience.org/research/wiki/Public-Engagement.
• McCallie, Ellen, Bell, Larry, Lohwater, Tiffany, Falk, John, Lehr, Jane H., Lewenstein, Bruce V., Needham, Cynthia, Wiehe, Ben. (2009). Many Experts, Many Audiences: Public Engagement with Science and Informal Science Education.  A CAISE Inquiry Group Report (pp. 83). Washington, DC: Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education. [Download from here]

• Bauer, Martin W. (2014). A word from the Editor on the special issue on ‘Public Engagement’. [introduction to special issue.] Public Understanding of Science, 23(1), 3. doi: 10.1177/0963662513518149

Science museums

• Beetlestone, John G., Colin H. Johnson, Melanie Quin, and Harry White. 1998. The Science Center Movement: contexts, practice, next challenges. Public Understanding of Science 7 (1):5-26.
• Bradburne, James M. 1998. Dinosaurs and white elephants: the science center in the twenty-first century. Public Understanding of Science 7 (3):237-253.
• Persson, Per-Edvin. 2000. Science centers are thriving and going strong! Public Understanding of Science 9 (4):449-460.
• Schiele, B., & Koster, E. H. (Eds.). (2000). Science Centers for this Century. St. Foy, Quebec: Editions Multimondes.
• Rader, Karen A., & Cain, Victoria. (2014). Life on Display: Revolutionizing Museums of Natural History and Science in America, 1910-90. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Citizen science

The literature in this area is growing rapidly.  Some entry points are:

• Bonney, Rick, Ballard, Heidi, Jordan, Rebecca, McCallie, Ellen, Phillips, Tina, Shirk, Jennifer, & Wilderman, Candie C. (2009). Participation in Scientific Research: Defining the Field and Assessing Its Potential for Informal Science Education CAISE Inquiry Group Reports. Washington, DC: Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education. [Download free from here.]
• Dickinson, Janis L., & Bonney, Rick (Eds.). (2012). Citizen science : public participation in environmental research. Ithaca: Comstock Pub. Associates.
• Shirk, Jennifer L., Ballard, Heidi L., Wilderman, Candie C., Phillips, Tina, Wiggins, Andrea, Jordan, Rebecca, McCallie, Ellen, Minarchek, Matthew, Lewenstein, Bruce V., Krasny, Marianne E., Bonney, Rick. (2012). Public Participation in Scientific Research: A Framework for Intentional Design. Ecology and Society, 17(2), 29-48. doi: 10.5751/ES-04705-170229

• Bonney, Rick, Shirk, Jennifer L., Phillips, Tina B., Wiggins, Andrea, Ballard, Heidi L., Miller-Rushing, Abraham J., & Parrish, Julia K. (2014). Next Steps for Citizen Science. Science, 343(6178), 1436-1437. doi: 10.1126/science.1251554

The Citizen Science Association, formed in 2014 (and, as of June 2023, planning to adopt a new name featuring “participatory sciences”) publishes the journal: Citizen Science: Theory and Practice, which is a key passage point for access to the literature.

The journal JCOM: Journal of Science Communication published two special issues on citizen science  in January and April 2016; I co-edited the first one.

The U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine issued a report on Learning Through Citizen Science: Enhancing Opportunities by Design in 2018 (I was a member of the committee that produced the report). You can download for free.

Science literacy

Below are two lists of readings on science literacy: general and detailed. But a 2016 report from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences summarizes and advances the topic so far that I that think one is best served by starting there. Use the additional readings for background if this is a topic of particular interest to you.

Snow, C. E., Dibner, K. A., & Committee on Science Literacy and Public Perception of Science (Eds.). (2016). Science Literacy: Concepts, Contexts, and Consequences. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. [Available at http://www.nap.edu/23595] [Full disclosure: Two of my former students, John Besley and Dominique Brossard, served on the committee that produced this report]

• Science literacy: general
  • Bauer, Henry H. Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992.
  • Miller, Jon D. 1983. Scientific Literacy: A Conceptual and Empirical Review. Daedalus 112 (2):29-48.
  • Roth, Wolff-Michael, and Angela Calabrese Barton. 2004. Rethinking scientific literacy. New York ; London: RoutledgeFalmer.\
  • Shamos, Morris H. The Myth of Scientific Literacy. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1995.
  • Shen, B. S. P. (1975). Science Literacy and the Public Understanding of Science. In S. Day (Ed.), Communication of Scientific Information (pp. 44-52). Basel: Karger. [This is a classic and still one of my favorites]

• Science literacy: detailed studies and debates on measurement
  • Bauer, Martin. 2000. ‘Science in the media’ as cultural indicator: contextualising surveys with media analysis. In Between understanding and trust: the public, science and technology, edited by M. Dierkes and C. Von Grote. Reading: Harwood Academic Publishers.
  • Bauer, Martin W., K. Petkova, and P. Boyadjjewa. 2000. Public knowledge of and attitudes to science – alternative measures. Science, Technology & Human Values 25 (1):30-51.
  • Bauer, Martin W., and Ingrid Schoon. 1993. Mapping Variety in Public Understanding of Science. Public Understanding of Science 2 (2):141-155.
  • Godin, B., & Gingras, Y. (2000). What is scientific and technological culture and how is it measured? A multidimensional model. Public Understanding of Science, 9(1), 43-58.
  • Kallerud, Emil, and Inge Ramburg. 2002. The order of discourse in surveys of public understanding of science. Public Understanding of Science 11 (3):213-224.
  • Miller, Jon D.1992. Toward a Scientific Understanding of the Public Understanding of Science and Technology. Public Understanding of Science 1 (1):23-26.
  • Miller, Jon D. 1998. The measurement of civic scientific literacy. Public Understanding of Science 7 (3):203-223.
  • Miller, Jon D., and Linda G. Kimmel. 2001. Biomedical Communications: Purposes, Audiences, Strategies. New York: Academic Press.
  • Miller, Jon D., R. Pardo, and F. Niwa. 1997. Public Attitudes Toward Science and Technology: A Comparative Study of the European Union, the United States, Japan, and Canada. Madrid: BBV Foundation.
  • Miller, Jon D., K. Prewitt, and R. Pearson. 1980. The Attitudes of the U.S. Public Towards Science and Technology. Chicago: National Opinion Research Center.
  • Office of Science and Technology, and Wellcome Trust. 2000. Science and the Public: A Review of Science Communication and Public Attitudes to Science in Britain. London: Wellcome Trust.
  • Sturgis, Patrick, and Nick Allum. 2004. Science in Society: Re-evaluating the Deficit Model of Public Attitudes. Public Understanding of Science 13 (1):550-74.

Science education

Science education is a huge field and I make no claim to understanding its literature. Nor have I reviewed it since about 2010. Some sources I’ve found useful include:

• Abell, S. K., & Lederman, N. G. (Eds.). (2007). Handbook of Research on Science Education. New York: Routledge.
• American Association for the Advancement of Science. (1993). Benchmarks for Science Literacy. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Bransford, John, Brown, Ann L., & Cocking, Rodney R. (Eds.). (2000). How people learn: brain, mind, experience, and school (Expanded ed.). Washington, DC: National Academies Press. [download for free from NAS website]
• Bybee, R. W. (1997). Achieving Scientific Literacy: From Purposes to Practices. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
• Duschl, Richard A., Schweingruber, Heidi A., & Shouse, Andrew W. (Eds.). (2007). Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching cience in Grades K-8. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. [download for free from NAS website]
• National Research Council. 1996. National Science Education Standards. Washington: National Academy Press. [superceded by “Next Generation Science Standards]
• Next Generation Science Standards (www.nextgenscience.org), which are based on National Research Council. (2012). A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas. Washington, DC: National Academies Press [download for free from NAS website].
• Project 2061. (1989). Science for All Americans. Washington, D.C.: AAAS.

A few authors have tried to cross the boundaries between public communication and science education. Some places to start:

• Terzian, Sevan. (2013). Science education and citizenship: fairs, clubs and talent searches for American youth, 1918-1958. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Baram-Tsabari, Ayelet, & Osborne, Jonathan. (2015). Bridging science education and science communication research. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 52(2), 135-144. doi:10.1002/tea.21202

Risk communication

Risk communication is another huge field, which I don’t claim to know well. Below are a few classics that I know about. People interested should consult more thorough reviews available elsewhere.

• Douglas, M., and A. Wildavsky. 1982. Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technical and Environmental Dangers. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Fischhoff, Baruch. 1995. Risk perception and communication unplugged: Twenty years of process. Risk Analysis 12:137-145.
• National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Risk Perception and Communication. 1989. Improving risk communication. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
• Pidgeon, Nick F., Roger E. Kasperson, and Paul Slovic, eds. 2003. The social amplification of risk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Slovic, Paul. 1987. Perception of Risk. Science 236 (17 April):280-285.

Development communication

So…it’s increasingly clear to me that literature on development communication (including issues of community participation, participatory action research, and democracy and engagement) is relevant to studying public communication of science and technology. But I don’t know that literature, so I don’t know what to list. But you should go look for it! (In an attempt to find this literature, in 2016 I taught a seminar course on development communication; as a place to start, the syllabus for it might be useful.)

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The scholarly literature in this field is widespread. Anyone interested in the field should begin by consulting the scholarly journals that focus on public communication of science and technology, perhaps by reading through the tables of contents of recent volumes and finding articles of interest. I’m on the editorial advisory boards of four of them: Public Understanding of Science (I was editor in 1998-2003), Science Communication, International Journal of Science Education, Part B: Communication and Public Engagement, and the open-access journal JCOM: Journal of Science Communication. But you should also look at other journals in Communication and in Science & Technology Studies. And don’t forget other languages and locations! Some possibilities: JCOM América Latina (in Spanish and Portuguese), Studies on Science Popularization (in Chinese), and the Indian Journal of Science Communication.

In addition, the social media world is now full of science communication discussions, both practical and academic. Personally, I (used to) follow the Twitter hashtag #scicomm, but I’m not the most adept social media user — other hashtags may be more useful for your interests (for example, in 2019, I learned of #scicommevidence). With the move away from Twitter (or do I mean “X”?) after its purchase by Elon Musk, I’m not sure what to suggest.

In closing, I repeat: the lists above are my own and undoubtedly leave out resources, books, articles, or other materials that some readers believe should be here. I would be glad for suggestions of additions. Nonetheless, I think these lists are as good a starting place as any.

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P.S. Pardon the varying formats for bibliographic cites — I’ve cut and pasted from various sources.

[Last modified: 1 August 2023]