A Review on scientific dissemination to the non-academic public
Jhonnatas Gomes Paiva y Laís Nogueira Machado
Abstracto:
The current means of communication make the sharing of information increasingly faster and effective. Thus, the simpler information is received, the greater number of sharing, creating a web of communication that is constantly being altered. It is therefore essential to facilitate the sharing of scientific information, in order to ensure that scientific communication is more accepted and understood by the non-academic public. In this study, we evaluated the interest of lay public in Science, and how the scientific media approach this relationship. Trough research in available databases and interviews with the lay public, we verified that the relationship between the academic and non-academic is little studied, and that the interest of the lay public decreases according to the complexity of the information presented. We concluded that there would be more interest for the lay public if the information were presented in a simpler and more understandable way.
Keywords: scientific communication; lay public; public understanding; Scientific dissemination; effective communication.
- INTRODUCTION
Science communication is a term commonly interchanged by other similar ones, such as public awareness of science, public understanding of science, scientific literacy, or scientific culture, on account of the similarities between them. In this context, Burns, O’Connor, & Stocklmayer (2003) established the Vowel analogy – AEIOU – which defines science communication by representing Awareness (of science); Enjoyment (as a response to science); Interest (in science); Opinions (the forming, reforming or confirming an opinion towards a scientific topic); and Understanding (of science).
Beyond definition, the aims of science communication depend on the circumstances. The complexity of spreading information starts with understanding the type of listening audience, both each person individually and the group as a whole. Each individual has their own beliefs, values, family background, expectations and varying levels of knowledge. It would be difficult, for example, to explain quantum physics to those who do not even have an appropriate knowledge of basic physics, or explaining evolution to a group of extremist religious without due care with how the information is presented.
The effectiveness of the scientific approach varies according to the communicator’s objective, its target audience depending on the way the information is presented so that there is interest and understanding (Mueller & Caribe, 2010). Popularizing scientific information provides a greater range of science in the popular environment, generating greater searches according to the public’s interests.
This article has as objective to evaluate the relationship between the interest of the lay public in science, and how science could reach the public. Since the lack of current scientific information makes the public more discredited of science. Thus, making science something more common, makes it more accepted and recognized.
- METHODS
2.1 Data Collect
Themethodsweredividedintwoparts,thefirstonewasbibliographicresearch, looking for articles that focus on scientific communication to the lay public. The se- condpartwastogatherinformationfromthepublic,byusingathree-questionsurvey.
The bibliographic research was conducted via three databases: Pub- Med Central (PMC), Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) and Google Scholar. The following terms were chosen to select relevant articles: science communication, lay people and public. Electronic searches were conducted up to November 27, 2020. Search results were limited to review and original studies from 2005 or later, and to those written in English or Portuguese.
Two reviewers independently screened the titles and abstracts identified by the search strategy. Studies of potential relevan- ce were grouped according to the topic approached: general importance, the impact of the media, difficulties, and its impact in Brazil.
The second part of the methods was to pose three simple questions on a survey to the public: (1) Do you have or have been interested in scientific rese- arch? (2) Do you usually find articles or something related to science on a daily basis? (3) Would you be interested if science was more popularly arranged?
These questions were asked to 55 people through social media. The first two questions allowed us to know if the lay public has interest or con- tact with science. The third one was crucial to know if people would be more interested in science if it was written in a more common language.
2.2 Data Analysis
Having gathered the answers from the survey, these were separated into three possible answers so as to simplify: “yes”, no” or “sometimes”. The- se answers were analyzed in software RStudio 4.0.1, using the package ggplot2 (Wickham, 2016; R core team 2020). For better data visualization, pie charts were made, thus enabling the perception of which answers are most present.
- RESULTS and DISCUSSION
3.1 Data Research
The articles found with the designated terms (Table 1) were filtered according to its main topic relevance, prioritizing those with more recent publication dates.
Engaging the lay public in the scientific universe is something difficult, few people are interested in consuming scientific information in their daily routine. From the year 2000 to 2016, the highest percentage of the public who said they follow news about science and technology “very closely” was 18 percent. What usually occurs is the search for information in critical situations, for a better understanding of a specific topic that the adult encounters in life, such as people who, after the diagnosis of a disease, seek information trying to understand what is happening in their body (Mitchell, Gottfried, Barthel, & Shearer, 2016; National Science Board. Science and Engineering Indicators, 2014). Porém a informação pública é difusa, e encontrada de maneira mais simples, de forma contrária o conhecimento acadêmico, que poderia gerar informações mais seguras, se en- contra concentrada em fontes específicas. The concentration of scientific data in certain sources, which would not be found without adequate filtering, means that those seeking information do not have a greater desire to search for it.
A 2017 report by The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine projected five main goals for effective communication between the sender and the receiving audience, these being (i) uniquely share recent discoveries, (ii) increase appreciation for science, (iii) increase understanding and knowledge of science, (iv) influence not only people’s opinions but their behavior and policy preferences, and (v) engage diverse perspectives from diverse groups in the se- arch for solutions. Each goal requires a different approach for science communicators, who must also consider the variances in the target audience in their work (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, 2017).
A Japanese study showed that people who participate in scientific outreach activities reflect a significant more positive opinion about science than the general population, which demonstrates the importance of the dialogue between specialists and the wide public (Kato-Nitta, Maeda, Iwahashi, & Tachikawa, 2018). These events are essential not only to exhibit the work done inside universities and laboratories, but also to present how much can affect the listener’s daily life, even though it may seem far from his or her reality. Creating a possible link of information exchange between both sides, bringing the scientific environment closer to the popular.
Therefore, it is crucial to broaden the audience, by bringing other portions of the society closer to the scientific context and to accomplish that determining the proper way of informing is decisive. For instance, Cooke et al. (2017) genera- ted a list containing the 16 most important considerations to an effective science communication, which includes (i) knowing and listening the target audience, (ii) being creative in the communication, (iii) communication through a diverse but coordinated portfolio, (iv) understanding and focusing on the science part of the communication and (v) being prepared to evaluate and adapt to the situations.
With the advent of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in 2020, the search for information has increased. People are constantly looking for news about the virus and, more importantly, looking for different ways to prevent and identify symptoms. This also opened up space for scientists around the world to stop focusing only on their laboratories and starting to have greater contact with the general public. This accessible knowledge influences positively the interest and involvement of hard-to-reach populations in medical research (Nature Medicine, 2020).
Unfortunately, the search for quick information allows “fake news” to be easily distributed as truths. People take the opportunity to spread conspiracy theories that, with the help of social networks such as twitter, facebook and whatsapp, are promptly shared, thus generating confusion, discontent and fear in the population. This points out that science should not be lightly spread, the verification of the information veracity is essential in a way that the advantages of rapid communication in the 21st century are not overcome by its disadvantages (Koerber, 2021).
3.2 Survey results
For the first question, 75.93% of the interviewed said that they have or have had interest in scientific research, contrasted to 24.07% who have not (A). The second question resulted in three possible answers, of which 53.70% do not have contact with scientific articles or any other science-related object daily. The remaining 46.30% have little or no contact with science daily, being 9.26% little and 37.04% no contact respectively (B). For the last question, 90.75% would be more interested in science if it were communicated with a simpler and easier language, being more accessible to non-academics. The other 9.25% would not (C). (Fig. 1).
According to our results, a large part of science is still restricted to the aca- demic environment, despite the public’s interest. What seemed to be a major obstacle when talking to the public is the fact that many do not understand that science is present in their lives (Barber & Bernal, 2014). When asked whether people would handle articles or something related to science on a daily basis, most did not know how to recognize that science is part of everyday life. Science is singly related to articles that follow a structure and use expressions common to the scientific field (Burns et al., 2003). Hence, because of the language’s unfamiliarity to the external public, a more popular language would turn science more palpable for lay people.
Another providence that could make scientific dissemination more effective would be scientific alphabetization, which would require more time and educational structure (Mueller & Caribe, 2010). Therefore, implementing interest in science in elementary education would make science more accepted, and simpler to be understood. This measure could make the public more questioning, which generates more questions about the news received, allowing the public to identify and differentiate true information from false information.
Currently, the public of interest in science remains restricted to certain areas and their specificities, having a clear perception of the scientific method (Mueller & Caribe, 2010). On the other hand, the interest of the public who has no prior knowledge about a particular area is still ignored, which occurs even within the academic environment, where a professional from a particular area does not understand information from an area different from his own because it has a language for a specific audience. This specificity in scientific language creates barriers within the academic environment, and between the academic and po- pular. The lack of public science articles creates a barrier of disinterest given that the interest decreases as complexity increases. As a consequence, science has a shorter reach, making people more prone to misleading information, which is shared quickly and does not require complex understanding (Taddicken & Wolff,2020). There is a small number of researches aimed at the relationship between science and the lay public, indicating that there has not yet been a real bridge that connects both sides.
Characterizing science as something inherent of day-to-day life could turn this more interesting to the non-scientific public. Therefore, science would be more appealing when articles get transformed into more popular information inasmuch as the quality of the information is maintained, by using analogies and a more popularized language.
- CONCLUSIONS
The relationship between the non-academic public and the scientific environment still requires adjustments to make science more accessible and interesting to the non-academic public. Since the lay public is interested in science, the adaptation of scientific language without losing the quality of information becomes essential for the non-academic public to understand the importance of science in their daily lives. Moreover, making the sharing or distribution of articles simpler would make science more appealing to the public, since even for academics some articles are not easily found. Communicating science in a way that is available for adaptation to a popular language could be an effective approach to disseminate information.
References
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Este artículo ha sido desarrollado en el 1er Taller de Inglés Científico, una alianza entre la Prorrectoría de Posgrado e Investigación (ProPPG-UENF), la Asesoría de Asuntos Internacionales e Institucionales (ASSAII-UENF) y el Programa de Estudios Científicos y Tecnológicos. Iniciación (PIBi).
Título: Una revisión sobre la divulgación científica al público no académico
T ipo de publicación: Revisión de literatura
Nombre: Jhonnatas Gomes Paiva & Laís Nogueira Machado
Nombre editorial: PAIVA, JG & MACHADO, LN
Campo de estudio: Ciencias naturales
Institución y plazo: Universidad Estatal del Norte Fluminense Darcy Ribeiro (UENF)
Sobre el Autor
Licenciada en Ciencias Biológicas por la UENF. Actualmente trabajo con la evaluación de la citotoxicidad de un compuesto cúprico sobre linajes neoplásicos en el Laboratorio de Biología del Reconocimiento (LBR), bajo la co-supervisión de la Dra. Marina Barreto Silva y la asesoría del Dr. Milton Masahiko Kanashiro.
Contacto
Sobre el Autor
Es un estudiante de pregrado en Ciencias Biológicas (BA) en la UENF, actualmente investiga la relación entre el medio ambiente y los atributos de especies ampliamente distribuidas. Jhonnatas fue asesorado por el Prof. José Luis Alves Silva.
Contacto
Jhonnat as.paiva@gmail. con
