Public communicaton of science and technology: Web resources
A brief introduction

By Bruce V. Lewenstein
Associate Professor of Science Communication
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853 USA

Last update: 24 August 2004

For general information about science communication with the public, see the website of the International Network on Public Communication of Science and Technology (www.PCSTNetwork.org), and especially the "links" page there. Sections of the links page currently include:

• Professional organizations
• Scholarly organizations
• Publications
• Information sites
• Meetings

Another excellent source of information is psci-com (psci-com.org.uk) a "gateway to public engagement with science" maintained by the Wellcome Institute in the United Kingdom.

For more general resources on science communication that go beyond "public communication," see www.scidev.net, which has a section on science publishing and an "e-guide" to science communication. Both are oriented toward developing countries, but apply to the whole world.

Two areas for which there is frequent demand: courses and introductory readings. I've put below a few preliminary lists of those items.

Science Writing Courses

• Directory of science communication courses and programs in the United States (a version from the mid-1990s is available in .pdf format from Sharon Dunwoody at the University of Wisconsin; an updated version is scheduled to go online late in 2004)
• Courses for science communicators in the United Kingdom (maintained by the Association of British Science Writers)
• Directory of science communication courses (maintained on psci-com.org)
• I have found that a search on www.google.com for "science journalism courses" or "science communication courses" also yields many useful links.

Introductory readings

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.

Practical advice

• Blum, D., & Knudson, M. (Eds.). (1997). A Field Guide to Science Writing: The Official Guide of the National Association of Science Writers. New York: Oxford University Press. (As of mid-2004, a revised edition is in preparation.)

Conceptual overviews

• Bucchi, M. (1998). Science and the Media: Alternative Routes in Scientific communication. London: Routledge. [Three case studies leading to a general theory.]
• Gregory, J., & Miller, S. (1998). Science in Public: Communication, Culture, and Credibility. New York: Plenum. [An introduction to the field]
• Scanlon, E., Hill, R., & Junker, K. (Eds.). (1998). Communicating Science : Professional Contexts: Reader 1. London: Routledge. [Collected readings, prepared for the Open University]
• Scanlon, E., Whitelegg, E., & Yates, S. (Eds.). (1999). Communicating Science : Contexts and Channels : Reader 2. London: Routledge. [Collected readings, prepared for the Open University]

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.

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.

Particular topics

• National Science Board. 2004. Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Understanding. In Science & Engineering Indicators--2004. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. (Ch. 7). (This report, which draws on regular surveys of science literacy in the United States, is updated every two years, and is available at http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/.)
• Nelkin, D. (1995). Selling Science: How the Press Covers Science and Technology (rev. ed.). New York: W. H. Freeman.
• 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.

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 :-).

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.
• 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.

Theory/conceptual approaches to public understanding of science

• Collins, H. M., & Pinch, T. (1993). The Golem: What Everyone Should Know About Science. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Dierkes, Meinolf and Claudia Von Grote, eds. 2000. Between Understanding and Trust: The Public, Science and Technology. London/New York: Harwood Academic Publishers.
• Hilgartner, S. (1990). The Dominant View of Popularization: Conceptual Problems, Political Uses. Social Studies of Science, 20(3), 519-539.
• 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.)
• 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.
• Lewenstein, Bruce V. 1995. Science and the Media. In Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, edited by S. Jasanoff, G. E. Markle, J. G. Petersen and T. Pinch. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.
• Lewenstein, Bruce V. (2001). Science and Media, International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. London: Elsevier.
• 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

• Friedman, S., Dunwoody, S., & Rogers, C. (Eds.). (1999). Communicating Uncertainty: Media Coverage of New and Controversial Science. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Public participation/public engagement in science

• Joss, Simon [editor]. 1999. Public participation in science and technology [special issue]. Science and Public Policy 26 (5):290-373.
• Einsiedel, Edna, and Deborah L. Eastlick. 2001. Consensus conferences as deliberative democracy: A communications perspective. Science Communication 21 (4):323-343.
• Einsiedel, Edna, Erling Jelsøe, and Thomas Breck. 2001. Publics at the technology table: The consensus conference in Denmark, Canada, and Australia. Public Understanding of Science 10 (1):83-98.

Risk communication

• 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.

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.

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.

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.
• Sturgis, Patrick, and Nick Allum. 2004. Science in Society: Re-evaluating the Deficit Model of Public Attitudes. Public Understanding of Science 13 (1):55-74.

Science education

• American Association for the Advancement of Science. (1993). Benchmarks for Science Literacy. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Bybee, R. W. (1997). Achieving Scientific Literacy: From Purposes to Practices. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
• National Research Council. 1996. National Science Education Standards. Washington: National Academy Press.
• Project 2061. (1989). Science for All Americans. Washington, D.C.: AAAS.

Anyone interested in the field should consult the two scholarly journals that focus on public communication of science and technology, Public Understanding of Science and Science Communication, perhaps by reading through the tables of contents of recent volumes and finding articles of interest.

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.

The page maintained by Bruce V. Lewenstein
Last modified: 24 August 2004

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