Yin-Yueh Lo

Shih Hsin University · Department of Communications Management

While many studies have shown that scientists frequently share knowledge with the public or participate in public debates, few have looked at differences between research fields. Some studies show that social scientists engage more frequently with the public than scientists from natural science. However, studies about science communication in Taiwan have mostly focused on natural science so far. Little is known about how social scientists communicate with the public and how they perceive their role as science communicators or experts. This study aims to close this gap. The research questions of this study ask how scientists in different research fields communicate with the public, what their beliefs about public communication are, and how their communication practices and beliefs differ across research disciplines and with the basic or applied character of their research. Results this study may broaden our understanding of science communication by moving beyond generalizing claims and focusing on relevant distinctions between research areas. The study will identify the particular challenges and prospects of different research areas and thus lead to specific conclusions about how to improve the communication between scientific communities and society.

An increasing number of communicators in Taiwan engage in public communication of science. One of the reasons is that successful science communication and positive public relations are believed to increase public support for science and help gain research grants. Meanwhile, the media landscape has dramatically changed in the last decades. The development of internet media greatly bears down the barriers in access to the public for the communication of science. Individual scientists, science educators, scientific organizations, as well as government have committed themselves to convey scientific knowledge to society. Websites and other social media are used for science communication. While many science communication studies focused on individual experts' involvement in public communication or on science journalism, few studies have analyzed science communication in organizational contexts. Only relatively recently have scholars noticed the relevance of organization's public relation strategies in science communication, and that public communication of science has increasingly become a responsibility of the management. Goals of this study are to understand how the management of scientific organizations view communication with the public about science, how the communication of scientific knowledge is included in public relation strategies and how the management works with individual scientists. Two research questions guide our proposed study: What kind of scientific content is presented on the organizations' homepages? How do the public relations officers perceive their role, in particular regarding the dissemination of scientific knowledge? To tackle these questions, a content analysis of the scientific organizations' homepages and a survey of public relations officers will be conducted. Results of this study will enable an evidence-based assessment of benefits and pitfalls of organizations' involvement in science communication and contribute to the development of an organizational culture in Taiwan that encourages science communication.