JCOM can enhance its contribution to the science communication community by greater rigour in selection and editing and by opening up to reader comment.
In terms of efficiency, managing the effects of overpublising (the sheer volume of new papers published each week) has become seriously challenging for science communication researchers. This comment analyzes causes and consequences of this situation and proposes to research journals to take into considerations the following elements: a) special attention to headline and abstract, b) more visible and updated keywords and c) a clear structure of content and a shortening of the average number of pages per paper.
JCOM is eleven years old, and this is certainly a reason to celebrate. The journal has been a tribune where we could observe how geographical and institutional frontiers of science communication (SC) have been expanded. As open access publication, JCOM has played a key important role to diffuse and make visible the research results for all. This is relevant for many institutions and researchers in Latin America due to the difficulties for paying to access to the papers published by the international scientific journals. The journal has made a relevant contribution to consolidation of the
Any development issue has mainly two dimensions — ‘interest of few and interest of many’, so is ‘science-communication’ as well, which leads to unwarranted but unavoidable uncertainties. Unless the former learn to sacrifice their ‘illegitimate interests’, the very objective of a development issue will continue to suffer, putting the latter at a risk of sacrificing their ‘legitimate interests’. The role of ‘science-communication’ is vital in today’s world, especially where complex issues of conflicting interests of science, industry, business, politics, and mass media are increasingly coming to
Throughout its existence JCOM has earned a special recognition as a space of confluence for the international community of science communicators, but how should be its immediate future? Here are some ideas inspired by which Italo Calvino’s suggested as the main characteristics for the literature of the 21st century, hoping to have a JCOM light, rapid, accurate, visible, multiple, consistent and comprehensive.
The JCOM I would appreciate reading should address in real time the emerging trends and pressing issues concerning Science in society; it would be targeted not only to researchers in STS et similia, but also to the constantly expanding universe of science communication practitioners; it would make sure to avoid the hidden forms of social exclusion which are dangerously lurking behind all communication activity, including science communication.
This paper brings some reflections on JCOM and, in general on a science communication journal, from the perspective of the developing world. It is highlighted the following top aspects of JCOM: open access; the language, that is, the fact that authors can write in their own languages and the article is translated into English; and the fact that JCOM welcomes contributions from every part of the world. The author considers JCOM a unique journal, which approaches science communication in a rich way and keeping a welcome intellectual diversity.
The science & art research played an important role in the topics covered by JCOM because actually the convergence of languages and themes of art and science increasingly continue to act synergistically in the most diverse knowledge fields.
Scientific journalism ought to pay attention not only to the “products” of science, but also to the ways in which it operates in any given historical and political context. A critical analysis of the presently dominant rhetoric of innovation and unlimited growth is necessary to shed light on the relationship between science and democracy. Equally profitable would be a thorough investigation of past and present controversies on the role of scientists in decision-making.
How can technoscientific controversies be interpreted in terms of their public communication? This essay explores the case of nanotechnology to describe how one of the most innovative and cutting-edge technoscientific fields has moved from a grey goo scenario of PCTS that described similarities with biotechnology and GMOs, underlining the risks of potential conflicts between science and society, to the idea of an ‘internal’ controversy, that is a debate mainly present in discussions within professional groups. The conclusions suggest how the study of public communication of technoscientific
New forms of co-working spaces and community labs, such as Hackerspaces and Fablabs, but also open science and citizen science initiatives, by involving new actors often described as makers, tinkerers, and hackers enable innovation and research outside the walls of academia and industry. These alternative and global innovation networks are test beds for studying new forms of public engagement and participation in emergent scientific fields, such as nanotechnology. The article shows how these grassroots and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) or Do-It-With- Others (DIWO) research subcultures connect politics