Abstract
Over the past 20 years, citizen science has been understood as either democratized citizen science or contributory citizen science. This chapter argues for a third understanding: citizen science as participatory science communication. Participatory science communication moves the focus of citizen science from doing science, be it either democratized or contributory, towards communicating science, whether the purpose is to achieve scientific aims, to contribute to environmental protection or to map activities. Participatory science communication is part of a larger participatory turn illustrated by concepts such as Science 2.0. It is on the one hand based on participatory processes, and on the other hand on knowledge infrastructures, media and interpersonal communication. Dialogue is facilitated among different stakeholders on a common science communication problem or goal, such as biodiversity mapping. Participants learn, with the objective of developing and implementing a set of activities to contribute with observations and validation activities and by co-producing meta-content, and the infrastructure evolves and supports that objective.
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Notes
- 1.
The members of these three societies are among the most active on the SO portal (Hetland 2020a).
- 2.
GBIF–Norway, https://www.gbif.no/.
- 3.
Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), Activity report: Norway, January 2021, https://www.gbif.org/sites/default/files/gbif_analytics/country/NO/GBIF_CountryReport_NO.pdf.
- 4.
Sabima, https://www.sabima.no.
- 5.
‘Hvor mange arter finnes i Norge?’ [How many species are there in Norway?], Artsdatabanken, 6 April 2016, https://www.artsdatabanken.no/Pages/205713/Hvor_mange_arter_finnes_i.
- 6.
‘About Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre, NBIC, 19 March 2014, https://www.biodiversity.no/Pages/135580/About_Norwegian_Biodiversity_Information_Centre?Key=1466165065.
- 7.
‘Grunnprinsipper’ [Basic principles], Artsobservasjoner [Species observations], 5 January 2021, https://www.artsobservasjoner.no/Home/Fundamentals.
- 8.
‘Håndtering av avvikende rapporter i Artsobservasjoner’ [Handling of deviating reports in Species Observations], Artsobservasjoner [Species observations], 5 January 2021, https://www.artsobservasjoner.no/Home/DeviatingReports.
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Hetland, P. (2021). Citizen Science as Participatory Science Communication. In: Schiele, B., Liu, X., Bauer, M.W. (eds) Science Cultures in a Diverse World: Knowing, Sharing, Caring. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-5379-7_2
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