Science Communication

Science Communication is an introduction to the theory and practice of scicomm, with an emphasis on communication tasks and challenges that are useful both for future professional communicators and to students pursuing a different career in business or academia. In an increasingly science-led world, these tasks and challenges are likely to be ever more relevant, even for professionals outside the realms of research and development.

The course is designed to serve as a common launchpad for multiple trajectories that students may choose in relation to scicomm. You will hopefully walk away from this course with both an appreciation for science communication as a practice and a toolkit that you can use and build upon.

In this course, we intend to walk you through four answers to the ultimate question, “Why do we need science communication?” We will establish and discuss the political framework (the taxpayers’ right to information on their investment in science), the enlightenment framework (disseminating scientific information as a public good), the watchdog framework (science communication as a means of civic accountability), and the pragmatic framework (how science communication works for scientists) for scicomm. The course will run accordingly, from delving deeply into the politics of science communication and the theoretical foundation of this discipline and then pivoting to the most common scicomm tasks you might face in your future career.