Self-critical scholars as well as practitioners of science communication wonder how far we have effectively come since 1985, when the Royal Society envisioned a public which would understand “more of the scope and the limitations, the findings and the methods of science”. Even then the “most urgent message” went to the scientists themselves: “Learn to communicate with the public, […] and consider it your duty” (The Royal Society 1985, p. 24).
Almost 30 years later the resources for institutionalised science PR and marketing have multiplied remarkably. Compared to the early 1990s when professional communicators were rare exceptions, there is hardly a single university or institute left today without a communication department. Larger institutions employ up to 70 full-time communicators in the meantime. Yet less than one out of ten citizens in Europe actually show any interest whatsoever in science centres, public lectures, or science fairs (European Commission 2010, see Fig. 3)—albeit with a blanket coverage across the continent. Such obvious contrasts between the supply and demand of certain formats make science an easy prey for critics arguing that its communication is inherently elitist. At least the often misinterpreted decrease in naïve trust in science—66 % in 2010 compared to 78 % in 2005 (European Commission 2010)—is an encouraging sign of an increasingly critical public (Bauer 2009).
PR professionals have been ‘PUSH-trained’, so to speak, to focus on the dissemination of research results, ideally in the form of a well-told success story, as described above, and thereby significantly contribute to the distorted media image of scientific reality. Unfortunately just now that science, at least on an institutional level, seems to have come to terms with the mechanisms of mass media; PR and marketing are being shattered by a seismic shift towards a horizontalisation of communication better known as social media. Particularly the new media-savvy student generations have an entirely different understanding of how the relevant information should ‘find them’. Even most communication scholars are still amazed of the pace of this transition. In countries like Germany, for instance, the Internet overtook television two years ago in terms of activated and structured demand for information, i.e. the medium of choice to look for quality information—an increase from 13 % in 2000 to 59 % in 2011 (IfD Allensbach 2011).
Unanimously most studies show, however, that science has as of yet largely avoided adapting both its communication efforts and its own media usage to the above mentioned changes in the information behaviour of laypeople (Procter et al. 2010; Bader et al. 2012; Allgaier 2013). In a web technology use and needs analysis Gerber (2012, 2013) showed that the use of even the most common online tools is still a niche phenomenon in the scientific community. Furthermore, the few well-known tools were also the ones to be the most categorically rejected, e.g. Twitter by 80.5 % of the respondents.
Yet the diffusion of Web 2.0 tools in academia is only partly a question of technology acceptance. For instance, online communication is still not taken into account in most cases of evaluation or allocation of research funding. Most experts in a Delphi study on science communication (Gerber 2011, 2012) therefore demand a critical discourse about possible incentives for scientists. If online outreach, however, became a relevant criterion for academic careers, we would also have to find more empirically sound ways to measure, compare, or even standardise and audit the impact of such an outreach. Approaches like ‘Altmetrics’ are promising but still in a conceptual phase. At least for another few years we will therefore have to deal with a widening gap between the masses of scientists communicating “ordinarily”, on the one hand, and the very few cutting edge researchers and (mostly large and renowned) institutions experimenting extensively with the new opportunities, on the other. Thus the threat of increasing the already existing imbalances between scientific disciplines is just as evident as the opportunities for increasing transparency, flattening hierarchies, or even digitally democratizing the system itself, as sometimes hyperventilated by Open Science evangelists.
We must not forget that technologies only set the framework, whereas the real challenges and solutions for an ‘Open Science Communication’ are deeply rooted in scientific culture and the system of knowledge creation itself (Gerber 2012). Much will, therefore, depend upon the willingness of policy makers to actively steer the system in a certain direction. Yet they also have to reconsider whether they thereby risk fostering (even unintentionally) the above mentioned distortion of scientific practice. The ultimate challenge lies in balancing incentives and regulations, on the one hand, with the inevitable effect of a further mediatisation of science, on the other, since both remain two sides of the same coin.
Public relations and science marketing professionals will keep struggling with the increasing ‘loss of control’ as long as they hang on to their traditional paradigm of dissemination. An increasing number of social media policies in academia shows that the institutions have realised the challenges that they are facing in terms of governance. By accepting ‘deinstitutionalisation’ and involving individual scientists as authentic and highly credible ambassadors (see above), PR can make the most essential step away from the old paradigm to the new understanding of Open Science Communication (OSC).
The common ground for both above mentioned trends—the ‘deprofessionalisation’ of science journalism and the ‘deinstitutionalisation’ of science communication at large—is the remarkable amount of laypersons finding their voices online and the self-conception of civil society organisations demanding to be involved in the science communication process. As much as this inevitably shatters the economic base of science journalism and as much as it may force the science establishment to reinvent its communication practice, we should be grateful for the degree of communication from ‘scientific citizens’. Thereby the challenge lies less in permitting (or even embracing) bottom–up movements as such, but rather more in resisting the use of public dialogue as a means to an end. While valorising ‘citizen science’ as an overdue ‘co-production’ of authoritative social knowledge, Fuller warns us not to treat broadcasts of consensus conferences, citizen juries, etc. simply as better or worse amplifiers for the previously repressed forms of ‘local knowledge’ represented by the citizens who are now allowed to share the spotlight with the scientists and policy makers. (2010, p. 292)
The questionable success of most of these public engagement campaigns has increasingly been challenged recently. Grassroots initiatives like ‘Wissenschaftsdebatte’ or ‘Forschungswende’ in Germany criticise openly the fact that pseudo-engagement has merely served as a fig leaf excuse for the legitimisation of research agendas which are still being built top–down. Instead it will be necessary to supplement the dragged-in rituals of ‘end of pipe’ dissemination with a fresh paradigm of ‘start of pipe’ deliberation.
Undoubtedly such initiatives cater to the transparency and true public engagement pursued by the ideal of Open Science. Thus within the ‘big picture’ we should embrace the opportunities of the OSC era, and in particular the interactive online technologies driving it.