Stories can save lives: Breaking through stigma with video stories

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Stories can save lives: Breaking through stigma with video stories

Author: Robert Inglis – The Yazi Centre for Science and Society in Africa, South Africa

Co-author: Jacob Bor – Boston University School of Public Health

If the HIV and AIDS epidemic has an epicenter, it is southern Africa and the province of KwaZulu-Natal. In the small rural village of Matubatuba, the average life expectancy dropped below 49. Lives were shattered and families torn apart as literally thousands of people died. A generation grew up surrounded by death and disease and little hope for the future.

In 2004, with the introduction of antiretroviral therapy, the situation started to change. Over the past 13 years, life expectancy has been on the rise and the most recent data demonstrates it is now pushing 67 years. But how can this dramatic story be told to the young people who grew up in the shadow of HIV and AIDS? The stigma is massive, and the numerical concepts of average life expectancy, and the physiological details of antiretroviral therapy are complex.

Stories can save lives. Researchers from Boston University who were based at the Africa Health Research Institute in Mtubatuba, partnered with multi-media science communication specialists Jive Media Africa, to film the stories of people who were living long lives due to antiretroviral therapy. It was their hope that the personal narratives of people who had survived and thrived in spite of HIV could be used to encourage young people to see a different future for themselves, and to take steps to secure their futures through HIV testing and treatment. Through mixed methods research the results and impacts of the approach were measured.

Using participatory approaches to create compelling media is the subject of this show, tell and talk presentation. A short excerpt of the video will be screened and the results of the research shared along with insights about the science communication considerations, including critical aspects such as streamlining production processes, securing informed consent and ethical considerations.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Show, tell and talk
Theme: Stories
Area of interest: Investigating science communication practices

Science crowdfunding in Japan – Its characteristics and future problems

Author: Yuko Ikkatai – The University of Tokyo, Japan

Co-author: Hiromi Yokoyama – The University of Tokyo

‘Crowdfunding’ is a process of raising funds on the Internet. In academia, crowdfunding is developing as a way to obtain research funding. In 2012, a donation-based academic crowdfunding platform called Experiment.com was launched in the US. In Japan, the reward-based academic crowdfunding platform, academist, was launched in 2014. As of September 2017, Experiment.com had funded 730 projects, with a total funding of $7,508,114; academist funded 41 projects, providing a total funding of 57,713,294 yen. The sites that crowdfund research funds, where citizens directly support scientific projects, have processes that are quite different from traditional scientific processes, in that no form of expert peer-review is present. In place of this academic requirement, Experiment.com requires collegial endorsement at the time of application. In addition, both Experiment.com and academist are staffed by individuals with scientific backgrounds. In the natural sciences, it is desirable for the result of the funded research to be contributed to a peer-reviewed journal; however, the products of crowdfunding do not necessarily lend themselves to publication in a journal. Other forms of presentation of one’s achievements are available, such as outreach presentations. This paper focuses on the unique characteristics of science crowdfunding. We will discuss why Japanese scientists have challenged science crowdfunding, why those in Japan that support it do so, and what is the perception gap in science crowdfunding in Japan, between scientists and the public.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Individual paper
Theme: Science
Area of interest: Investigating science communication practices

What about climate change? The absence of climate change from science communication in New Zealand national parks

Author: Karen Hytten – Massey University. New Zealand

The visitor centers in New Zealand national parks tell many stories. Stories about how New Zealand separated from Gondwanaland millions of years ago, stories about the life cycles of New Zealand’s many unique plants and animals, stories about Māori taonga (treasured things) and wahi tapu (sacred places), stories about early European settlers, and stories about the impacts of introduced species and effort to address them. However, a story that is almost entirely absent from the science communication in New Zealand national parks is the story of human-induced climate change. Arguably one of the greatest challenges faced by contemporary society, climate change is already having a significant impact on New Zealand’s national parks. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the public education materials in five New Zealand national parks: Egmont, Tongariro, Arthur’s Pass, Westland Tai Poutini and Aoraki/Mt Cook. It was found that while the visitor centers in these parks provide a rich and diverse range of public education materials, there is currently no attempt to communicate climate change science, or the impacts that climate change is having on New Zealand’s ecosystems. It is argued that this is a significant omission which needs to be addressed, and that national parks offer a unique opportunity to communicate about climate change in new and different ways.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Visual talk
Theme: Stories
Area of interest: Investigating science communication practices

What science story do they tell? A comparative study of how science was presented in three different types of Taiwan’s TV programs

Author: Chun-Ju Huang – General Education Center, National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan

Co-authors:
Miao-Ju Jian – Department of Communication, National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan
Yin-Yueh Lo – General Education Center, National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan

Merging science into everyday life is the key reference for science communication. To understand whether science has been integrated into our daily life, popular culture has played the role of a boundary object whilst also being regarded as a sensor probe. A TV program is one of the most common channels for popular culture. This study explores what science has been regarded as to elements in Taiwan’s TV programs, and examines the implication through the comparison of different types of TV genres.

This study focuses on a medical issue. Based on different proportion of scientific knowledge in TV programs, we identified three types of genres: “Medical knowledge program”, “medical TV drama series” and “soap opera related to medicine”. We sampled six episodes for every genre, each of around 60 minutes, as per the types of genres of the analyzed targets. All the episodes were divided into different “scenes” as analysis units, and we adopted the thematic content analysis method to investigate science images shown in the three programs. With the theoretical background, the four categories included the technoscience knowledge, collective emotion, personal mood, and the human cultural environment, which were then developed as the framework to explore the features of the different genres.

The preliminary conclusions suggest: With the different science knowledge proportion within the three genres, they will focus on the different aspects of medical activities. “Medical knowledge program” will accompany with less emotion, context, culture, and vice versa than “medical TV drama series” and “soap opera related to medicine”. Thus, how to adjust the appropriate science images among the preciseness of science knowledge, the authenticity of the medical activity, and the attraction for the public, will also be addressed in this paper.

Presentation type: Visual talk
Theme: Stories
Area of interest: Investigating science communication practices

Does the big natural science metanarrative exist?

Author: Markéta Hrabánková – Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic

Does the big natural science metanarrative exist? Are there any trends in publicity, what topics are journalists interested in and the public consumes? Media content as a way of defining of the Czech natural sciences.

Science communication is a wide communication field which can be differently perceived and practiced country from country. Narration and storytelling are crucial pillars of science communication from practical as well as theoretical point of view. This work is focused on the science communication practiced in the Czech Republic and its reflection in Czech media landscape. The main research questions are: Do any trends exist in media publicity of natural sciences in the Czech Republic? Is it possible to discover any specific topics/stories repeatedly used by media? Among others this paper describes the Czech media landscape and media opportunities for the topic of science. This knowledge supports the research goal – the effort to find out the way how are the natural sciences presented through chosen Czech media. Main research method was quantitative content analysis aimed at investigating potentially existing publicity trends as well as most often media topics. Qualitative narrative analysis was chosen as a method whose objective was among others to give an answer on the third research question: Do the natural sciences have their own big metanarrative or is this term just a relic of the narratology? Detailed reading of generated media contents leads us to an existing narratives displayed by media which resulted in a statement about existence or nonexistence of the big natural sciences metanarrative. Findings of this paper can be transferred to the practice of science communication of variable natural science institutions as well as scientists. They have a potential to support an efficacy and attractivity of content presenting science to a wider audience.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Individual paper
Theme: Stories
Area of interest: Applying science communication research to practice

Crowdsourcing the storytelling: Competitions in quantum film and fiction

Author: Jenny Hogan – National University of Singapore, Singapore

Co-authors:
Michael Brooks
Ariane Koek

Quantum Shorts is an annual competition that has run since 2012, alternating between calls for short films and flash fiction that draw on the ideas and themes of quantum physics. Organised by the Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore as a public engagement initiative, Quantum Shorts aims to inspire and encourage learning about quantum physics. The contest exists through a website that hosts resources and submissions. Film entries have also been presented at live events.

We will tell the story of how the contest has built reach through partnerships and share results of a survey of 121 participants. To investigate how the contest affected attitudes, we asked people how Quantum Shorts stories and films made them feel. Of 377 selections from a set list, 69% were for impacts associated with being inspired, curious, and interested in further study. Less than 2% were for negative impacts, namely feeling confused about quantum physics or pessimistic about technology.

We seek to exchange ideas with organisers of similar events about the opportunities and pitfalls of using fiction for communication and techniques to evaluate the impact of such outreach.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Visual talk
Theme: Stories
Area of interest: Investigating science communication practices

You need to shut up: Research silencing and its implications for public health policy

Author: Dr Jacqui Hoepner – The Australian National University, Australia

This paper investigates responses to enquiry that disrupts normative public health positions and the implications of these attacks for public health policy.

Qualitative interviews were conducted with 16 researchers whose work elicited controversy and silencing attempts from public health proponents and interest groups. A mixed-methods analysis of the data was used to determine shared themes, discourses and characteristics within the dataset.

Silencing attempts reveal limits to data-driven policy, as maintaining a ‘unified voice’ on contentious public health positions matters more than data. Silencing responses were primarily intitiated by academic colleagues, and ranged from private cautioning, spreading misinformation in peer reviewed journals and mainstream media, to research misconduct allegations and conflict of interest claims.

While public health policy is increasingly data-driven, particularly controversial research–around e-cigarettes, obesity, sugar and addiction, among others–can be deemed so dangerous that evidence no longer matters. The selected cases share a seemingly visceral response characterised by an inability to engage with evidence in a critical or rational manner. The reaction is one of silencing or shutting down the offending research, not understanding or consolidating knowledge. This shutting down can severely impede evidence-based policy, as ‘conventional wisdom’ and ‘status quo’ takes precedence.

Attempts to silence unpalatable findings can severely curtail researchers’ ability to shift public health policies, despite rigorous, compelling data. When research challenges a public health ‘status quo’, existing players will employ silencing tactics to punish the rulebreaker: truth is the first casualty of war.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Individual paper
Theme: Society
Area of interest: Influencing policies through science communication

Engaging the STEM-excluded: Critical perspectives on broadening participation

Author: Matthew Hickman – Wellcome Trust, United Kingdom

Co-authors:
Bronwyn Bevan – University of Washington
Robert Inglis – Jive Media Africa
Craig Tomlinson – BBC Children in Need
Graham Walker – Australian National University

The aim of the session is to share and explore participants’ different ways of including diverse audiences in STEM. We want to collectively develop a shared understanding of the wisdom from and problems with practice, and use research to support the design and implementation of experiences and settings that reach the STEM-excluded.

People who do not typically attend our institutions or events may face many obstacles, both socioeconomic and cultural, that can influence if and how they engage with STEM (including workforce participation, learning, civic discussion). The nature of the obstacles will vary according to country, ethnic heritage, socioeconomic background, and much more besides. Yet these factors operate in most countries to consistently and persistently exclude some audiences from STEM.

Traditionally, those working in science engagement have struggled to reach people excluded from science, and can sometimes exacerbate their exclusion. For example, in high-income countries, the burden of expectation is typically on the audiences to choose to engage with an intervention of some form. It’s now clear that this approach only reaches discrete groups of people – usually, those who are already interested in the topic being explored – and marginalizes those experiencing disadvantage.

In this session, you will be invited to explore the nature of the obstacles your intended audiences face and the outcomes you want to achieve with them. By sharing our experiences we will consider, together, how to make science and science communication more inclusive. It will provide the opportunity for critical reflection and constructive discussion, with a view to:

  1. embedding opportunities to engage with science in existing programs and venues (rather than creating new ones)
  2. designing asset-based programs that are relevant, building on the cultural and intellectual resources of the target audience and
  3. empowering disadvantaged groups to create, drive and deliver their own content and/or programs.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Roundtable discussion
Theme: Science
Area of interest: Comparing science communication across cultures

Understanding ‘trusted intermediaries’ in order to broaden participation

Author: Matthew Hickman – Wellcome Trust, United Kingdom

Wellcome is keen that people of all backgrounds should be able to engage with science on their own terms. In recent years, we have focused on working with organisations and individuals who have established relationships with the audiences that we would like to reach; in particular, children and young people affected by socioeconomic disadvantage. This seems to be an effective way of reaching more diverse audiences, as compared with simply asking or funding established science communicators to do ‘more’/extend their reach.

This presentation will share findings from two pieces of research we recently commissioned:

  1. How we need to frame ‘science’ to youth workers across the UK so that they include it in their activities with children and young people, taking into account youth workers’ circumstances and motivations.
  2. The impact on children and young people affected by disadvantage when we train youth workers on how to deliver science engagement activities.

In each instance, the clear message is that ‘context matters’. Youth workers’ activities are driven by the different and complex needs of the children and young people that they work with. While for the young people themselves, the relationship between how the science is presented and their own ‘science background’ is central to understanding their response to the topic.

Much of this work is underpinned by Archer’s work around science capital. In this framing, we are motivated by the opportunity that Wellcome has to influence the ‘field’ that encompasses children and young people affected by disadvantage.’

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Individual paper
Theme: Society
Area of interest: Applying science communication research to practice

Science Learning: Understanding the value of informal science experiences

Author: Matthew Hickman – Wellcome Trust, United Kingdom

In 2014, Wellcome, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) launched the $12 million / £7.5 million Science Learning+ initiative. Science Learning+ seeks to make a transformational step to improve the knowledge base and practice of informal science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning (ISL), to better understand, strengthen, and coordinate STEM engagement and learning. One of the key aims of Science Learning+ is to help facilitate relationships between those who deliver STEM public programs and engagement activities (“practitioners”) and those who undertake research into those activities (“researchers”).

We initially funded 11 small-scale, ‘Planning Grant’ projects with the intent of helping the development of new ideas around improving our understanding of ISL and forging partnerships between researchers and practitioners, and US and UK/Irish organisations.

In 2017 we made larger Partnership Grant awards to five projects. Each project is a collaboration between researchers and practitioners and between organisations based in the US and the UK/Ireland. The projects are investigating a range of ISL experiences and their impacts, including:

  • youth educators in science visitor attractions
  • the role of embodied cognition in developing interactive science exhibits aimed at young children
  • different ways of engaging audiences via citizen science
    leveraging interest in other topics (like the arts) to build interest in science
  • how ISL experiences can help underrepresented youth to navigate STEM pathways.

These are all 3-5 year projects in their early stages and this presentation will be an opportunity to find out more about the projects and the work of Wellcome, NSF and ESRC in supporting understanding about ISL.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Visual talk
Theme: Science
Area of interest: Building a theoretical basis for science communication

Building knowledge infrastructures for citizen science: The quest for reciprocity

Author: Per Hetland – University of Oslo, Norway

This paper focuses on building knowledge infrastructures for citizen science, and the importance of reciprocity. Knowledge infrastructures facilitate collaboration between scientists, volunteers, and administrators across disciplines and organizational boundaries. In Norway, the establishment of species observation (SO) gave a new opportunity for volunteers to participate in a national mapping activity and has facilitated bridging activities between science and different publics in new manners. With SO, a successful knowledge infrastructure has been established between the scientific community, the volunteers, and conservation authorities. The mapping of biodiversity has been made into a very large collaborative enterprise.

This paper reports on a web survey about SO with 404 respondents and answers the following research question: How do volunteers perceive their engagement in citizen science and how does one build knowledge infrastructures that facilitate reciprocity?

Within citizen science, the participants’ motivation to participate is much studied. However, we will claim that by building knowledge infrastructures that facilitate reciprocity, one builds a long-lasting relationship between the participants and the activity undertaken. These kinds of relationships do not primarily build on a one-way motivation to contribute, but on a reciprocal relationship where all parties gain something.

Two findings are crucial. First, the new knowledge infrastructure facilitates both uploading and downloading information; downloading information is a very important activity—examples are private field diaries, searching for information, looking at recent records, looking at statistics, and looking at catalogues. Second, the users emphasize both individual interests and collective action. Individual interests include competition, displaying their own pictures, studying others’ pictures, learning something new, spending more time outdoors, increasing their own knowledge, and most importantly, keeping track of their own records. Collective action includes contributing to species mapping, contributing to research, and collaborating with other naturalists.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Individual paper
Theme: Society
Area of interest: Investigating science communication practices

Questions from Brazil – Children and adults interaction at a science exhibition

Author: Rosicler Neves – Museum of Life Fiocruz, Brazil

Co-authors:
Luisa Massarani – Museum of Life/Fiocruz
Shawn Rowe – Oregon State University

Science museums are important spaces for communicate and discuss science issues in Brazil, especially for children and their families from low-income communities. Unfortunately, there are still few initiatives in Latin American aiming to study learning at these places. Using image and audio recording of 13 families’ visits at an interactive exhibition, we intent to study young children and adults behavior and interactions. The exhibition, located in one of the poorest areas of Rio de Janeiro, is specifically developed for children and stimulate visitors to solve challenges about Brazilian biodiversity. Data included all the visits registered through fixed cameras inside the exhibition and mini-mobile cameras coupled to a helmet, used by an adult and a child. A “clip”, an edited excerpt from the videos of each visit stage, constituted the unit of analysis of the research. The sample consisted of 137 clips, analyzed with a protocol elaborated specifically for this purpose, considering sociocultural perspectives. We identified patterns of behave and use of interactive exhibits. Adults had difficulties to understand instructions, demanding guidance. We also observed that adults, in general, present ambivalent postures: they both stimulate children to freely explore the exhibition and control them. However, in some point, several children end up taking the lead of the group, engaging the adults to discuss and enjoy the exhibition activities. Several activities have prompted exchange of information and conversations between different generations, particularly when the exhibition addresses issues related to local challenges, such as children’s lack of knowledge of animal and plant species and illegal hunting. Our study suggests that children exhibitions that encourage adult participation have great potential to stimulate discussion between generations. The study also indicates the need to deeper the discussion on how design for science learning and to be more inclusive.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Individual paper
Theme: Science
Area of interest: Investigating science communication practices

Science communication and socio-environmental problems: The case of water and forests

Author: Susana Herrera – Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente (ITESO), Mexico

Co-authors:
James G. Cantrill – Department Head, Communication and Performance Studies Northern Michigan University, Marquette, MI
Alexander Gerber – Chair, International Science Communication, Rhine-Waal University (RWU)
Jennifer Metcalfe – Director, Econnect Communication, Brisbane
Ana Claudia Nepote – Associated Professor/National School of Higher Education National Autonomous University of Mexico

The main purpose of this roundtable is to raise concern about the challenge science communication faces when the object of communication is contemporary socio-environmental problems, specifically those related to water and forests. Forests have a close relationship with water, they are very valuable water reservoirs and therefore humans depend on them. Socio-environmental issues demand interdisciplinary approaches and the articulation between global, regional and local scales. They acquire different forms and manifestations in different geographical areas with specific biophysical configurations and social contexts.

The evidence of the transformations in the balance of planetary ecosystems derived from human interventions situate the social-environmental problems as a central subject in public space. These demands not only the articulation of scientific knowledge coming from diverse disciplines, both natural and social, but also the need to relate it to specific cultural, economic and political contexts. The links between forest, water, and social life are complex. They are related to phenomena, projects and actions that affect the ecosystem’s balance, the hydrological and geohydrologic cycle, and that have an impact on social life, human health, food sufficiency, and production processes, both in rural and urban context. However, they are presented worldwide in different ways in each region, and the communicators of science face different kinds of challenges.

Our aim is to give an account of these challenges faced by the communicators of different regions and latitudes involved in these problems. How to identify and define the “communicable” to non-specialized social groups? How to articulate scientific knowledge from different disciplines to account for complex socio-environmental phenomena? How to incorporate the biophysical and socio-cultural particularities of phenomena and problems?

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Roundtable discussion
Theme: Society
Area of interest: Investigating science communication practices

Adoption and implementation of scientific knowledge into peatland policy – does it work?

Author: Rosmarie Katrin Neumann – Impact Dialog and University of Newcastle, Germany

Co-authors:
Jeremy Phillipson – Newcastle University
Mark Reed – Newcastle University

Evidence-based policy development is important to ensure up-to-date and robust knowledge is integrated into environmental legislation. To ensure that scientific evidence is taken into account for environmental policy-making, science-policy communication, exchange and its co-production is vital. Two case studies of science-policy dialogue around peatland ecosystem services (UK and Germany) were studied and analysed via literature review, social network analysis (SNA), Bayesian network, questionnaires, participatory observation and stakeholder workshops. Within the social network and Bayesian network analysis, all actors in the two case studies were interviewed and the social network was analysed according to characteristics of knowledge exchange and relationships between the actors. Proxies for trust and effectiveness of communication were used. Stakeholder workshops for each case study enabled triangulation of data and allowed for social learning amongst participants through discussions to reflect on lessons learnt. Questionnaires were sent to ~ 100 international peatland policy makers to study their perspective on effective stakeholder communication. Results of the study show that the one-way model of communication was used more widely than a two-way dialogue model. A mismatch between transmission of knowledge and receiving of knowledge can be demonstrated. Scientific evidence is taken into account when stakeholders have been in a regular and ongoing exchange of knowledge. Proxies for trust are positively correlated with uptake of scientific knowledge into political decision-making. This study provides a basis for improving knowledge adoption and implementation strategies in the field of ecosystem services, conservation and beyond. The methods used in this study enable the analysis of existing science-policy network structures, to determine if they enable science-policy knowledge exchange or co-generation, as well as conditions (such as trust between network actors) that facilitate successful knowledge exchange for evidenced-based decision-making.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Show, tell and talk
Theme: Science
Area of interest: Influencing policies through science communication

Science and socioenvironmental problems: Discourses in the urban context of Guadalajara, Mexico

Author: Susana Herrera – Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente (ITESO), Mexico

This work, situated in the intersection between public communication of science and environmental communication, approaches the contested discourses about science in urban contexts related with socioenvironmental problems. The goal is to show the challenges presented to the science communicator due the diversity of narratives about the role of science set out by different involved social actors. The case of study has been the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara, in Jalisco, México.

The understanding of particularities of socioenvironmental problems in urban contexts demands knowledge from very diverse sources: specialized scientific knowledge, from both natural and social sciences, as well as the knowledge associated with the experience of the city residents and other social actors. As it will be shown, science is perceived, valuated and represented differently and in diverse forms across discourses which come from actors situated in different specific social contexts, and hence it acquires diverse connotations and attributions.

Critical discourse analysis has been applied as theoretical and methodological perspective for analyzing workshops, meetings and interviews with scientists, citizen organizations, museographers and journalists, all of them involved in science communication activities or projects related with socioenvironmental problems. It has been possible to identify the way these actors discursively construct science and scientific knowledge, as well as the role they play in comprehension, explanation and possible solutions of socioenvironmental urban problematics. Main challenges, obstacles and problems about “what” and “how” to communicate, from the specific field of science communication have also been identified.

The analysis has shown some coincidences among social actors’ discourses: demanding a mediator role from science communicators, considering they should question science communication models that place knowledge in the center of communication, placing instead socioenvironmental problematic in the first place, and promoting dialogue between multiple disciplinary perspectives as well as interlocution between specialized knowledge and knowledge built from experience.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Individual paper
Theme: Society
Area of interest: Investigating science communication practices

The soul of Latin-American science communication

Author: Ana Nepote – UNAM, Mexico

Co-authors:
Dominique Brossard – University of Wisconsin – Madison
Luisa Massarani – Museu da Vida, Fiocruz and SciDev.Net
Sandra Murriello – Universidad Nacional de Rio Negro
Elaine Reynoso – UNAM

This session is organized by RedPOP, the Latin American Network for Science Communication in Latin America and the Caribbean, as part of a partnership with the PCST Network.

Latin America and the Caribbean has started having initiatives in the academic field of Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST) of at least 30 years in countries such as Mexico and Brazil. Lately, the field has been consolidating and taking shape, in diverse biological areas, while facing different challenges, such as political and economic instability, unstable democracies and cultural complexity.

In the last five years, there has been a major effort to systematize the vast experience that exists in PCST in the region. As result of an effort led by RedPOP in collaboration with organizations in the region, there is a greater knowledge of available training programs in science communication. Additionally, a diagnosis of the current situation of the practical activities in science communication has been performed, which constitutes the first record of the academic production in PCST in the region and map of the related public policies implemented and in some cases, forgotten.

In this roundtable, members of the PCST scientific committee who work in Latin American institutions and REDPOP members will participate: Luisa Massarani, Ana Claudia Nepote, Luz Helena Oviedo, Elaine Reynoso and Sandra Murriello; will present the scope and challenges that the public communication of science faces in the region. In a conversation moderated by Dominique Brossard, they will talk about the status of PCST in the region and some of the challenges that need to be addressed. This roundtable will present a “snapshot” of the multiplicity of experiences in the region while presenting some possibilities for opening up opportunities for senior and young Latin American science communicators to engage with other regions of the world.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Roundtable discussion
Theme: Science
Area of interest: Comparing science communication across cultures

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