Abstract:

In November 2019 the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany published statements of principles for science communication that are supposed to promote the way scientists incorporate external communication activities in their research activities. Similar to that the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) defined knowledge transfer as a principle of their fundings. Altogether, milestones for the promotion of external communication in German scientific communities. Science communication seems to become less an option but more a necessity in academic life today.

Central for the efficiency of such policies is the willingness and acceptance of the communicators to open up to external communication including modern, interactive ways of communication. Former theoretical approaches have already described the development from educational approaches in communication that is the deficit model and the public understanding of science to more democratic models like public participation of science or public engagement of science (Van der Auweraert 2004; Sturgis & Allum, 2004; Miller, 2001; Lewenstein, 2003). According to the higher complexity of scientific information, risks in communication with the lay publics increases which as a result demands more dialog oriented approaches (Van der Auweraert 2004). Despite the growing academic interest in digital science communication, little attempt has been made to provide a comprehensive understanding of risks and obstacles scientists experience in their external communication activities.

The research reported here takes a forward-thinking qualitative approach, aiming to focus on the risk of digital communication from the perspective of the scientists in Germany. For exploring the topic, 30 semi-structural interviews among five different disciplines of the social sciences and the humanities were conducted. The data were analyzed with a summarizing content analysis that provides new insights into the way social scientists perceive risks in digital communication with their lay audiences (Mayring, 2002).

Keywords:

Risk Perception, Social Media, Science Communication.