Understanding Brazilian Scientists’ motivation towards Public Communication of Science
Author: Tárcio Minto Fabricio – Center for the Development of Functional Materials (CDMF) / Open Laboratory for Interactivity in S&T Public Communication (LAbI) / São Carlos Federal University (UFSCar), Brazil
Co-authors:
- Adilson Jesus Aparecido de Oliveira – Physics Department / CDMF / LAbI / UFSCar, Brazil
- Mariana Rodrigues Pezzo – Open Laboratory for Interactivity in S&T Public Communication (LAbI) / Sà£o Carlos Federal University, Brazil
Brazilian Science has been going through a deep crisis, especially since the beginning, in January 2019, of a new federal government, whose President and Ministers systematically insult scientific evidences – as in the matters of the Amazon rainforest and climate change. That, together with successive and dramatic cuts in the Science budget, has brought the scientific community to the public arena, claiming for support and highlighting the relevance of increasing Public Communication of Science efforts. Spotting the moment as an opportunity to better understand how this community sees the goals of such efforts and how to transform this motivation into actions closer to the Public Engagement with Science and Technology model than with traditional diffusionist approaches, this paper reports a theoretical reflection and derived research directed to such comprehension and intervention objectives.
The Public Engagement model is still foreign to most of the research and practice in Public Communication of Science carried on in Brazil and, aiming to increase its presence, we’ve done an extensive review of the literature on the topic; therefrom, we’ve built a set of categories concomitantly designed as analysis tools to characterize and understand discourses and practices already underway within the country and as a framework to, considering such diagnostics, encourage and support policies and practices steered to more dialogic and democratic processes.
To experiment, improve and validate those categories, we’ve applied them to a sample of news and opinion texts published in the first six months of 2019, in the daily newsletter JCNotícias, clipping from various media outlets. Our analysis – of scientists’ statements on Public Communication of Science and/or interaction between Science and Society – evidenced factors favoring or hindering the Public Engagement model, as well as the strength of the proposed categories.
The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.
Presentation type: Visual presentation
Theme: Transformation