Meike Haken: Popular-Cultural Science Communication and Empirical Theory of Science. [Abstract]

The need to make scientific findings accessible and comprehensible to a broad audience is one of the main demands on science communication. New forms of communication, such as blog posts, podcasts, and comics, are becoming increasingly important for conveying scientific knowledge. However, these new formats complicate the process of identifying the scientific nature of the content communicated. It is assumed that science communication has the potential to meet the established standard of “good” science by incorporating the methodological standards of the scientific field into its formats. This integration enables the delineation of scientific content, despite the ongoing dissolution of boundaries of communicative forms in society. The term “popular-cultural science communication” is proposed as a more appropriate term to represent this development. An empirical example is utilized to demonstrate how science communication can be approached both as an object of research and as a research action. Finally, the paper discusses how this development can be understood as an expression of a refiguration of science in contemporary society.

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