Science Communication Online: Engaging Experts and Publics on the Internet

摘要

Science Communication Online: Engaging Experts and Publics on the Internet, by Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher, examines the world of science communication and considers how the internet has produced emerging forms and new platforms that challenge, extend, modify, or re-inscribe the relationship between science and broader publics. In the introduction, Mehlenbacher lays out the scope and aims of the text, and provides definitions and broader context for some of the terms and concepts that form its theoretical basis: "trans-scientific genres," for example, are described as forms of science communication that "exist somewhere between professional and popular discourses about science" (p. 2). One of the major strengths of Science Communication Online is that easy distinctions are not made but challenged; consideration is given to how earlier models of science communication-such as the deficit model-set up dichotomies between professional and public, expert and popular. Mehlenbacher does not claim that these emerging forms or patterns of producing and communicating science are entirely new and unprecedented but, rather, provides a more nuanced argument, demonstrating that although there is a long history of institutional and cultural changes in the sphere of science communication, "there seems to be a compelling case that pur landscape for science communication is becoming all the more complicated" (p. 12). The book draws on rhetorical theory and genre studies to build the main thesis that trans-scientific genres are an emerging form of scientific communication, and these genres of online science communication-facilitated by the internet-reveal the intricate assemblage of norms, practices, institutions, and communicative environments that led to their appearance and continued transformation.