6 pages, Approaches to communicating climate science beyond academia are necessary for enhancing salience, understanding, and engagement and accelerating action. This Primer discusses the heterogeneous manner in which climate change messaging is received by different audiences, how social scientific approaches could help to better tailor climate change messaging to this varied landscape, and how attempts to close this gap must consider the emotional and affective dimensions of climate messaging. We explore how the use of narratives can enhance effective climate science communication and emphasize the importance of evidence-based advocacy in the current era of global challenges, uncertainty, and post-truth.
12 pages, Knowledge brokers are often portrayed as neutral intermediaries that act as a necessary conduit between the spheres of science and policy. Conceived largely as a task in packaging, brokers are expected to link knowledge producers and users and objectively translate science into policy-useable knowledge. The research presented in this paper shows how brokering can be far more active and precarious. We present findings from semi-structured interviews with practitioners working with community-based groups involved in collaborative water planning in New Zealand’s South Island region of Canterbury. Working in a highly conflicted situation, our brokers had to navigate different knowledges and epistemic practices, highly divergent values and grapple with uncertainties to deliver recommendations for regional authorities to set water quality and quantity limits. Conceiving science and policy as interlinked, mutually constitutive and co-produced at multiple levels, rather than as separate domains, shows how the brokers of this study were not only bridging or blurring science policy boundaries to integrate and translate knowledges. They were also building boundaries between science and policy to foster credibility and legitimacy for themselves as scientists and the knowledge they were brokering. This research identifies further under-explored aspects of brokering expertise, namely, the multiple dimensions of brokering, transdisciplinary skills and expertise, ‘absorptive’ uncertainty management and knowledge translation practices.
8 pages, The conjunction of citizen science and social media through the mediation of the smartphone is investigated in this Scientific Communication, following on from the last issue of the Moravian Geographical Reports (2019, Vol. 27, No. 4). Through a reconsideration of three previously published articles, in part written by the author, this paper reflects on these topics with regard to farmer innovation, local food networks and citizen-informed ecology. Each of these papers has used Twitter to gather data about practices of innovation and observation that have revealed new insights about innovation networks amongst farmers, urban-rural connections and insect behaviours. The reflections reported here are embedded in a discussion of the rise of the term 'Citizen Science'. Recent experiences in areas as diverse as fisheries management and combating Ebola, have informed societal needs for greater engagement in finding inclusive, comprehensive solutions to urgent socio-ecological problems. This paper suggests a compositional approach to studies using citizen scientists and their data as a new avenue of practice and investigation.
58 pages., Journal article via online., Historical analysis of print advertising in the early 20th Century revealed that "in an era of scientific discovery and therapeutic ethos, fruits and vegetables were advertised as medical tonics, with 'prescriptions' that included recommended daily doses, to ward off or cure real or imagined medical ailments (flu, listlessness, acidosis)." Findings identified social positives and negatives associated with this practice. Researchers recommended use of a broader social marketing and transdisciplinary approach.
8 pages., Online issue., "Critics of climate science claim that climate models lack predictive skill. In fact, some of the earliest predictions made thirty years ago have performed remarkably well." ... "the bad news is that in terms of action, we are still only scratching the surface of responses needed...to prevent
'dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.' The real challenges lie ahead."
International: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Paris, France.
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 166 Document Number: D11692
Notes:
2 pages., Online from organization website., In an online event, United Nations leaders and others emphasize importance of free, independent, fact-based journalism at the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2020."I takes journalism to communicate the findings of scientists and disseminate real and reliable information and counter fake news that is dangerous to people's lives and to efforts to contain the spread of the (COVID-19) pandemic."
2 pages., Online via publisher. 2 pages., Report from a former ACE officer who played a key role in "setting high standards for the ACE journal, then known as AAACE Quarterly, to a refereed, high-quality publication, now the Journal of Applied Communication."
2 pages., Via online., Editorial critical of the Los Angeles Times newspaper for championing the rise of plant-based burger alternatives without context, accuracy and logic.
16 pages., Article # 6FEA3, via online journal., We examined how the Twin Ports Climate Conversations (TPCC), a community-based climate communication project, is influencing local climate awareness and response. A survey of TPCC participants and subsequent roundtable discussion event were used to explore program impacts, outcomes, and future directions. Results showed that the TPCC project has been effective at increasing awareness and facilitating contacts and may be leading to actions that range from information sharing to personal behavioral changes. Future directions include engaging new audiences and promoting more on-the-ground climate action. TPCC can serve as a model to help other communities start cross-sectoral climate conversations.
