University central offices are moving away from doing towards facilitating science communication: A European cross-comparison.

There is increasing interest in studying science communication from an institutional point of view. With much of the empirical research focusing on views of institutional actors on communication and their roles in the organisation, less attention has been paid to practices and dispositions of universities to communicate their research with publics. Universities have professionalised communication structures for external relations, and science communication has been absorbed in this. Yet, the evidence on what those practices represent for the university-at different levels of the organisation-is insufficient to understand the role of science communication within the university landscape. This study investigates science communication at central offices of research universities. Sampling whole populations of universities in four European countries (Germany, Italy, Portugal, and the United Kingdom; 44% response rate), we disentangle practices of communication as a centralised function. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first cross-national study on this topic based on all universities within the surveyed countries. We compare general trends in science communication of universities across countries. The evidence shows that science communication is a secondary function at central offices of universities, strongly medialised, and points to a supporting role for central structures in facilitating science communication at other levels while moving away from doing it themselves. Universities might need to consider their long-term positioning in enhancing national science culture by fostering science communication through models of dialogue and public debate.

Correction: Public communication by research institutes compared across countries and sciences: Building capacity for engagement or competing for visibility?

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0235191.].

Public communication by research institutes compared across countries and sciences: Building capacity for engagement or competing for visibility?

Leading academic institutions, governments, and funders of research across the world have spent the last few decades fretting publicly about the need for scientists and research organisations to engage more widely with the public and be open about their research. While a global literature asserts that public communication has changed from a virtue to a duty for scientists in many countries and disciplines, our knowledge about what research institutions are doing and what factors drive their 'going public' is very limited. Here we present the first cross-national study of N = 2,030 research institutes within universities and large scientific organisations in Brazil, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. We find that institutes embrace communication with non-peers and do so through a variety of public events and traditional news media-less so through new media channels-and we find variation across countries and sciences, yet these are less evident than we expected. Country and disciplinary cultures contribute to the level of this communication, as do the resources that institutes make available for the effort; institutes with professionalised staff show higher activity online. Future research should examine whether a real change in the organisational culture is happening or whether this activity and resource allocation is merely a means to increase institutional visibility.

Pathways to use of communication campaigns' evaluation findings within international organizations.

This article presents a study on the pathways and processes regarding the use of evaluation findings of communication campaigns from two international organizations, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Several years after the completion of the campaigns and their evaluations, our research identified 28 instances of use and six instances of non-use of the evaluation results, of which the large majority being surprising in nature. Results showed that evaluation use facilitated formal and informal changes at the individual and the organizational level; and, this pattern occurred in a predominantly non-linear fashion, interconnected and overlapping, while gradually decreasing in time and space. Evaluation use was mostly unpredictable, which reflected how meanings are constructed by staff members, as they adjusted and interpreted the findings in opportunistic ways.

'I have faith in science and in God': Common sense, cognitive polyphasia and attitudes to science in Nigeria.

This study, of modern common sense in Nigeria, combines questionnaires and interviews to examine the compatibility and incompatibility of religion and science. Nigeria is a large country with a complex diversity of religious, ethnic and cultural practices that condition the reception and elaboration of science in everyday life. We find evaluative attitudes to science structured as 'progress', 'fear' and 'mythical image'. Scientific knowledge and religiosity have a direct bearing on expectations of progress and feeling of fear and worry about science; mythical image is independent of this. Nigerians trust both scientific and religious authorities in contrast to other social actors. Many of the results are consistent with the hypothesis of cognitive polyphasia of scientific and religious knowing manifesting as a 'hierarchy', when one form is elevated over the other; 'parallelity', when both serve separate functions; and 'empowerment', where one enhances the other.

Beyond "Monologicality"? Exploring Conspiracist Worldviews.

Conspiracy theories (CTs) are widespread ways by which people make sense of unsettling or disturbing cultural events. Belief in CTs is often connected to problematic consequences, such as decreased engagement with conventional political action or even political extremism, so understanding the psychological and social qualities of CT belief is important. CTs have often been understood to be "monological," displaying the tendency for belief in one conspiracy theory to be correlated with belief in (many) others. Explanations of monologicality invoke a nomothetical or "closed" mindset whereby mutually supporting beliefs based on mistrust of official explanations are used to interpret public events as conspiracies, independent of the facts about those events (which they may ignore or deny). But research on monologicality offers little discussion of the content of monological beliefs and reasoning from the standpoint of the CT believers. This is due in part to the "access problem": CT believers are averse to being researched because they often distrust researchers and what they appear to represent. Using several strategies to address the access problem we were able to engage CT believers in semi-structured interviews, combining their results with analysis of media documents and field observations to reconstruct a conspiracy worldview - a set of symbolic resources drawn on by CT believers about important dimensions of ontology, epistemology, and human agency. The worldview is structured around six main dimensions: the nature of reality, the self, the outgroup, the ingroup, relevant social and political action, and possible future change. We also describe an ascending typology of five types of CT believers, which vary according to their positions on each of these dimensions. Our findings converge with prior explorations of CT beliefs but also revealed novel aspects: A sense of community among CT believers, a highly differentiated representation of the outgroup, a personal journey of conversion, variegated kinds of political action, and optimistic belief in future change. These findings are at odds with the typical image of monological CT believers as paranoid, cynical, anomic and irrational. For many, the CT worldview may rather constitute the ideological underpinning of a nascent pre-figurative social movement.

La sociedad de conocimiento favorece la comunicación de la ciencia, pero restringe la acción del periodismo científico / The knowledge society favours science communication, but puts science journalism into the clinch

La sociedad de conocimiento crea condiciones favorables para la comunicación de la ciencia, mientras coloca a los periodistas científicos bajo presión. Los periodistas que trabajan al ritmo de la ciencia son actores clave en la cadena de comunicación que mantiene vivo el vasto diálogo de la ciencia en la sociedad, pero su situación profesional se está tornando precaria. Los estudios recientes se centran en observaciones sistemáticas sobre las condiciones de trabajo, la ética profesional y el futuro de la ciencia del reportaje en los medios masivos. Estos estudios nos permiten evaluar tendencias y poner en perspectiva la “percepción de crisis” en la profesión. El artículo informa algunos resultados interpretados a la luz de tendencias más abarcadoras respecto de la relación ciencia–sociedad y de la necesidad de una esfera científica pública dinámica...

PUS in turbulent times II - A shifting vocabulary that brokers inter-disciplinary knowledge.

To reflect further on 20 years of the journal, we present a lexicographic and bibliometric study of all papers published in Public Understanding of Science (PUS). Lexicographical analysis of the vocabulary of 465 abstracts shows five classes of associated concepts in two periods, 1992-2001 and 2002-2010. The concern for public attitudes and mass media coverage remains on the card; while language has shifted from 'public understanding' to 'public engagement' and environmental concerns have waned then waxed. The bibliometric analysis traces the position of PUS in the inter-citation network of 165 related journals (ISI Web of Science citation database), grouped into 10 disciplines for the purpose of this analysis. Indicators derived from network logic show that the established position of PUS has been stable since 1997. PUS serves a varied brokerage role as gatekeeper into and liaison maker between disciplines. Its inter-citation network position allows PUS to perform inter-disciplinary boundary spanning work that offers a safe space for experimentation with ideas.

Conspiracy theories as quasi-religious mentality: an integrated account from cognitive science, social representations theory, and frame theory.

Conspiracy theories (CTs) can take many forms and vary widely in popularity, the intensity with which they are believed and their effects on individual and collective behavior. An integrated account of CTs thus needs to explain how they come to appeal to potential believers, how they spread from one person to the next via communication, and how they motivate collective action. We summarize these aspects under the labels of stick, spread, and action. We propose the quasi-religious hypothesis for CTs: drawing on cognitive science of religion, social representations theory, and frame theory. We use cognitive science of religion to describe the main features of the content of CTs that explain how they come to stick: CTs are quasi-religious representations in that their contents, forms and functions parallel those found in beliefs of institutionalized religions. However, CTs are quasi-religious in that CTs and the communities that support them, lack many of the institutional features of organized religions. We use social representations theory to explain how CTs spread as devices for making sense of sudden events that threaten existing worldviews. CTs allow laypersons to interpret such events by relating them to common sense, thereby defusing some of the anxiety that those events generate. We use frame theory to explain how some, but not all CTs mobilize collective counter-conspiratorial action by identifying a target and by proposing credible and concrete rationales for action. We specify our integrated account in 13 propositions.

Pesquisa qualitativa com texto, imagem e som: um manual prático / Qualitative research with text, image and sound: a practical handbook

O livro enfoca, além do texto, duas fontes pouco utilizadas em trabalhos na área da administração: a imagem e o som. A obra está dividida em quatro partes: construção do corpus da pesquisa; enfoques analíticos; uso do computador e; exposição de questões práticas.

Controversial medical and agri-food biotechnology: a cultivation analysis.

Whether biotechnology is one or several developments is not clear. Once distinctions are required, the question is: Which one prevails? When the good, the bad, and the ugly settle, where do they fall? Evaluation implies distinction, and representation drives attitude. The controversies over biotechnology are fertile ground on which to study these issues. The imports of genetically modified (GM) soya into Europe in 1996-97 and the cloning of Dolly the sheep from adult cells in 1997 changed the symbolic environment for genetic engineering. The ensuing public controversies came to focus mainly on field trials of GM crops and food labeling. This paper will explore the relationship between quality press coverage and public perception, in particular the cultivation of the contrast between "desirable" biomedical (RED) and "undesirable" agri-food (GREEN) biotechnology in Britain. The argument draws on a systematic analysis of the British press coverage of biotechnology from 1973 to 1999 and analysis of public perceptions in 1996 and 1999. The paper concludes that the debate over GM crops and food ingredients fostered the RED-GREEN contrast among the newspaper-reading public, thereby shielding RED biotechnology from public controversy, and ushered in a realignment of the regulatory framework in 2000.