The ‘credibility paradox’ in China’s science communication: Views from scientific practitioners

In contrast to increasing debates on China’s rising status as a global scientific power, issues of China’s science communication remain under-explored. Based on 21 in-depth interviews in three cities, this article examines Chinese scientists’ accounts of the entangled web of influence which conditions the process of how scientific knowledge achieves (or fails to achieve) its civic authority. A main finding of this study is a ‘credibility paradox’ as a result of the over-politicisation of science and science communication in China. Respondents report that an absence of visible institutional endorsements renders them more public credibility and better communication outcomes. Thus, instead of exploiting formal channels of science communication, scientists interviewed were more keen to act as ‘informal risk communicators’ in grassroots and private events. Chinese scientists’ perspectives on how to earn public support of their research sheds light on the nature and impact of a ‘civic epistemology’ in an authoritarian state

Przegonić chmury: komunikowanie wizji, misji i wartości na stronach WWW bibliotek akademickich

There are many uncertains about the future of academic libraries in contemporary debates. Dictated with changes in the environment as well as in education, they make the redefinition of university libraries necessary and the new formula for their identity is needed. Answers for following about mission and vision of libraries should be found: how do libraries see their future and their prospective role? could library image be shaped by mission and vision, plans and strategies, values and goals? could those affect the stakeholders’ evaluation? If so, whether and how are they communicated to the users? Do academic libraries use the communication and information potential of their own websites? Analyzing the web pages of the Polish public university libraries, the article examines whether and where the information about the mission, vision and values is placed on their web portals

Live Blogging- Digital Journalism's Pivotal Platform? A case study of the production, consumption, and form of Live Blogs at Guardian.co.uk

This article describes and analyses the production, consumption, and form of Live Blogs at a popular UK newspaper website and contributes to related debates in journalism studies. Qualitative research interviews with journalists and editors, a reader survey, content analysis, and web metrics were used to obtain data about production practices, product outcomes, and the consumption stage of the product lifecycle. The study finds that Live Blogs are a popular daily component of the news site, used increasingly to cover serious breaking news. Although rarely authored exclusively on location, they may utilise more original sources than traditional online hard news formats. Their frequent updates mean factual verification is cursory, but compensatory factors, including their attribution practices, contribute to a positive evaluation of their objectivity by readers. Live Blogs—with their timeliness, navigational simplicity, and bite-sized content units—suit readers’ consumption of news in the workplace. Live Blogs may increase online news readers’ interest in public-affairs content, and their inclination to participate. This study contradicts some existing scholarship on sourcing practices, content preferences, and immediacy in online news, while supporting the observation that news is increasingly consumed at work. It makes the novel suggestions that Live Blogging is uniquely suited to readers’ at-work news consumption patterns and that the format provides journalists with a means to manage the competing demands of their elite and mass publics

The public sphere and network democracy: Social movements and political change?

The article critically examines the democratic possibilities of technological innovations associated with Web 2.0 tools and in this context it address the first and second ‘waves’ of academic debates concerning the social media and the public sphere in the networked society. It argues that the initial optimism associated with a virtual public sphere has been replaced by doubts about whether this model was appropriate for the development of democratic values. It assesses whether the information communications networks have constructed a more personalised form of politics and it is concerned with the application of the networked power relations with reference to grassroots or social revolutionary movements. New communications environments were seen to be instrumental in forging the conditions for the ‘Arab Spring’ revolutions and the Turkish protests within Istanbul’s Taksim square during the summer of 2013. These Middle Eastern case examples are discussed along with the calls for political and economic change in Southern Europe within financially constrained countries of Spain and Greece. Based on such studies the article theorizes on the key question concerning whether the social media can contribute to democracy, revolution and expansion of the public sphere, or whether they remain instruments of control and power

Professionalization as a governance strategy for synthetic biology

This article considers professionalization as a governance strategy for synthetic biology, reporting on social science interviews done with scientists, science journal editors, members of science advisory boards and authors of nongovernmental policy reports on synthetic biology. After summarizing their observations about the potential advantages and disadvantages of the professionalization of synthetic biology, we analyze professionalization as a strategy that overcomes dichotomies found in the current debates about synthetic biology governance, specifically “top down” versus “bottom up” governance and scientific fact versus public values. Professionalization combines community and state, fact and value. Like all governance options, professionalization has limitations, particularly regarding war and peace. It is best conceptualized as potentially part of a wider range of governance mechanisms working in concert: a “web of prevention”

Routinisation of Audience Participation: BBC News Online, Citizenship and Democratic Debate

Leading up to the 2010 UK general election, Director General of the BBC, Mark Thompson, stressed the importance of the Corporation’s ability ‘to provide a strong and independent space where the big debates can take place, free from political or commercial influence’. ‘In this public space,’ he continued, ‘everyone can have access to the lifeblood of healthy democratic debate – impartial news and information’. Affirming the importance of BBC Online, Thompson described it as ‘being a cornerstone of what the BBC should be about’ (Thompson, 2010). As with previous elections, one of the key strategic priorities for the BBC’s Election 2010 website was to help inform the citizenry about the campaign and empower voters to make an informed choice. In the most traditional sense, this was achieved through the BBC’s journalism and a series of rich background features – e.g. guidance on voting procedures, MPs and parliamentary politics, and comparisons of party manifestos. The BBC election websites have also featured experimentation with various forms of audience engagement, exemplified by different interactive features on the BBC micro websites for the 1997, 2001, 2005 and 2010 UK general elections. This has traditionally been anchored in the Corporation’s public service commitment to facilitating ‘civic engagement’ and providing ‘democratic value’ to British citizens (see also Thorsen et al., 2009, Thorsen, 2010, 2011, Allan and Thorsen, 2010). The BBC’s news website was incredibly popular during the 2010 election according to visitor statistics. On results day, May 7, BBC News Online had 11.4 million individual users, breaking the previous record set on November 5, 2008, for the election of Barack Obama as US President (Herrmann, 2010). Comparing this to 2005, the number of unique visitors to the BBC’s election site on results day, May 6, was 3 million taking the overall BBC News Online total to 4.3 million (Ward, 2006:17). This demonstrates a near three-fold increase in individual users from one election to the next and indicates that whilst the internet might not be perceived as having had a significant impact on the election outcomes, the BBC has certainly had a considerable impact on citizens’ online activities. Based on a larger study into BBC’s election websites involving interviews, observations and textual analysis, this chapter will examine how audience participation had by 2010 become a routinised part of the Corporation’s newsroom. It will begin by providing an historical overview of how public access programming has developed within the BBC and its influence on how the Corporation has sought to facilitate participatory spaces online. Following a discussion of online participatory spaces on the BBC’s election websites, it will offer a critique of how these are operationalized internally. It will argue that despite converged newsroom practices, the scale of the BBC’s operations means facilitation of civic engagement is fragmented between competing stakeholders within the Corporation each with their own routinised practices and perception of its value. This tension has a dramatic effect not only on the dialectic relationship between BBC journalists and its audiences, but also on the type of ‘public space’ the Corporation is able to foster and by extension the empowerment of citizens to engage in ‘healthy democratic debate’

Democratic Replay: Enhancing TV Election Debates with Interactive Visualisations

This paper presents an online platform for enhancing televised election debates with interactive visualisations. Election debates are one of the highlights of election campaigns worldwide. They are also often criticised as appearing scripted, rehearsed, detached from much of the electorate, and at times too complex. Democratic Replay enhances videos of election debates with a collection of interactive tools aimed at providing a replay experience centred around citizens' needs. We present the system requirements, design and implementation, and report on an evaluation based on the ITV Leaders' Debate from the 2015 UK General Election campaign