Legitimating Science in Times of Social Change: How Should Science be Communicated to the Public?

• In Event: Science, Media, and Public

Abstract

Considering the changing relationship between science, media and the public (that plays an increasingly important legitimating function in policy development) and based on structural theory, various models of the public sphere are used to describe the setting in which science, media and the public interact in a democratic environment. These models reflect the process of change that has occurred, and is continuing, in the understanding of democratic society. They can be described as representative, deliberative and participatory conceptions of the public sphere, and they correspond to a shift in science communication, from "public understanding of science" to "public engagement with science", and then to "public participation in scientific research." Taking Austria as an example, multivariate analysis of representative survey data reveals the participatory conception as the only approach that increases public interest in science to a significant degree, thus providing legitimacy for scientific research.

Authors

• Josef Seethaler, Austrian Academy of Sciences

• Maren Beaufort, Austrian Academy of Sciences - Institute for Comparative Media and Communication Studies