Science Communication and Trust

This open access book presents groundbreaking research, offering new empirical findings, showcasing a range of different methods, and advancing theoretical perspectives relating to science communication and trust. The investigation of science communication and trust is enhanced by the many international scholars and disciplinary approaches featured. The book includes three thematic sections: the first focuses on the role of trustworthy science communicators, the second is concerned with the varying contexts of science communication for trust, while the third unpacks various features of trust in science. The volume thus provides the reader with invaluable insights into the highly salient topic of science communication and trust.

Chapter 1: Introduction - Section A: Trustworthy science communicators - Chapter 2: Scientist-citizenship, scientist-activism, scientist-rhetors: Reconceptualizing the ethos of expertise for the crises of our times.- Chapter 3: The role of science communication in building trust in scientific expertise.- Chapter 4: Contestation of science, post-truth regimes, and emotions, A review.- Chapter 5: Celebrity scientists as mediators between science and the public in an acute health crisis.- Chapter 6: Communicative roles of scientists in intermingling online public arenas: An analytical framework.- Chapter 7: Trusting the martyr: The appeal of the “rogue expert” archetype in science-skeptical narratives - Section B: Trust and the field of science communication.- Chapter 8: Third-order science communication: What is it, and where can I get some?.- Chapter 9: The devil in the disciplines: Towards a science communication culture informed by field-specific self-reflection.- Chapter 10: Riskcommunication and stories.- Chapter 11: Post-truth science communication as knowledge (of) failure.- Chapter 12: Science communication in small countries: Language, communities and trust.- Chapter 13: Dialogical digital relationships: A model for digital science.- Chapter 14: Portraying pesticides: An application of CLT in news coverage of glyphosate in French and German English-language online articles.- Chapter 15: Science communication in family communication in the age of artificial intelligence: Who is more trustworthy to children: parents or robots?.- Chapter 16: The evil corporation trope: An analysis of popular science-fiction films - Section C: Trust in science.- Chapter 17: Beyond the binary of trust and mistrust.- Chapter 18: How public good matters complicate the public trust question for science.- Chapter 19: Resources, values, trust: Sharing in stem cell research.- Chapter 20: The definitional and measurement problems of trust and distrust in science.- Chapter 21: Trust cues in content about science: How the media present female and male scientists differently.- Chapter 22: Identifying segments of trust in science in South Africa and Germany: A comparative study.- Chapter 23: Personal epistemologies and science information: Exploring the role of scientific evidence and trust.- Chapter 24: The complex discursive construction of ‘trust in vaccines’ among parents: a cross-linguistic study.- Chapter 25: Spelling errors and 'shouting' capitalization implicitly lead to linearly additive penalties to trustworthiness of online health information: Online randomised experiments with laypersons.- Chapter 26: Conclusion.

Antoinette Fage-Butler is an Associate Professor at Aarhus University whose research centres on the communication of science, risk and trust. She is Principal Investigator of the (Mis)trust of Scientific Expertise project, funded by Aarhus University Research Foundation. She wrote the book Risk and Responsibilisation in Public Communication of Contemporary Crises (Routledge, 2024) with funding from Carlsberg Foundation. Circle U. funding supported a project she led that explored students’ future narratives of sustainability.

Loni Ledderer is an Associate Professor at the Department of Public Health at Aarhus University. Her research encompasses organisational change processes in healthcare organisations with a specific focus on technologies, care practices and participation in healthcare from the perspectives of users and health professionals. She has extensive experience in interdisciplinary research and collaboration across organisations and is part of the (Mis)trust of Scientific Expertise group.

Kristian H. Nielsen, Associate Professor in Science Communication and Science Studies at Aarhus University, specializes in scientific expertise in public debate and science communication. He leads work packages in two EU projects on citizen science and open and responsible research and innovation, and is part of the (Mis)trust of Scientific Expertise group. In 2022, he co-organized the Engaging Citizen Science Conference and co-edited its proceedings. His recent work appears in journals like Public Understanding of Science and Science as Culture.