Digging Deep into Stories in Science Communication Review by Brigitte Nerlich These are two very different books that will appeal to different people in different ways. Reading any one of them will not make you instantly a better science communicator, but you will gain insights into many aspects of science communication you might not have previously thought about, over and above advice to not just using a megaphone. When you put the phrase ‘science communication’ into Google Images you get a lot of pictures of how science communication should not be done. You see two heads or one head opp ..read more

Review by Birte Fähnrich The book stands out by dealing with the science-policy interface in a very global way as it connects different issues such as governance, participation and policy advice that, in fact, are very much interwoven but often dealt with separately. The relations of science and power, their interlinkages and interdependencies, their mutual needs and expectations, and the problems, pitfalls and challenges related to these intersections have been the object of intense academic and political discourse and have led to myriads of publications over the last decades. Obviously ..read more

Climate Change Isn’t Everything — Liberating Climate Politics From Alarmism Review by Julia Schubert Climatism, as Hulme calls this ideology, “is the settled belief” that anthropogenic climate change is “the dominant explanation of all social, economic and ecological phenomena”. Human geographer Mike Hulme presents a bold and timely argument against an increasing reductionism in current climate communication. Published during what has been declared the hottest year on record, this book certainly comes with a provocative title. But Hulme skillfully shows what is at stake here. He defe ..read more

Beautiful Experiments — an Illustrated History of Experimental Science Review by Marianne Achiam In selecting the beautiful experiments for the book, then, the author illustrates how scientific progress “has not been a steady accumulation of knowledge […], but something altogether more haphazard, contingent, and also more interesting and ingenious” As a science communication researcher, I was immediately interested in this book when I noticed the title’s juxtaposition of ‘beautiful’ with ‘experiment’. This brought to my mind the historically fluctuating relationship between aestheticism a ..read more

Review by Felicity Mellor An understanding of audience is central to the practice of rhetoric. Harman and Gross cast their own audience wide, pitching their book at physicists, communication scholars and scholars of Science and Technology Studies. Among “the many voices” promised in the title of this book, one is sadly suppressed. Alan Gross died before the book was completed, leaving his co-author Joe Harmon with the difficult job of re-drafting the manuscript without the input of his long-term collaborator. In an affectionate afterword to the book, Gross’s colleague Randy Allen Harris r ..read more

Review by Anna Maria Fleetwood Brown highlights the power of language — how it can be used to build walls between people, and between different groups — but the book also demonstrates how to use language to overcome gaps and to be more inclusive. This book is aimed specifically at scientists and students working within STEM. Nevertheless, if you are working with science communication, that is, supporting scientists in the field, you can find some eye-openers as well. Particularly interesting are the examples that illustrate how language can be used to build bridges between scientists in differ ..read more

Review by Kristian H. Nielsen Concerns have been raised about Public Relations’ substantial influence on media and public opinion. The book contributes to this critique by drawing an explicit link between Public Relations practices and neoliberal notions of individual freedom of choice, as well as progress and prosperity through economic expansion. This book adopts a sharply critical stance toward public relations (PR), framing it as a form of discourse synonymous with disinformation and deceptive messaging. It delineates the ideological connections between PR, the deliberate cultivation ..read more

Review by Mike Hulme [T]he art of politics is not to get everyone to agree with you, but rather to find allies with whom you can find joint ways forward, even if sometimes compromised. Consistently demonising those who think differently than you makes it harder, if not impossible, to forge alliances. In this excellent book, Kristin Haltinner and Dilshani Sarathchandra show a better way. There is a saying that people can be divided into two types, those who divide people into two types and those who don’t. This witticism can easily be applied to those commenting over the past 25 years ..read more

Review by Steve Miller It is worth noting that although Rees has an international reputation and deals with matters literally of universal importance, If Science is to Save Us is very much based on his experiences as a British (even, English) scientist and his engagement with the UK’s science policy systems. Cambridge astrophysicist Sir Martin Rees is, in the UK at least, a high-profile scientist with a bent for popularising matters astronomical and cosmological. He deals with fundamental and weighty matters of the physics that shapes the Universe in which we live. Over the past two ..read more

Queering Science Communication — Representations, Theory, and Practice Review by Shaun O’Boyle Queering Science Communication seamlessly incorporates practice spotlights into each section. For me, the most successful spotlights were those where the author(s) had taken time to reflect critically on their process, and to share what they learned with the reader. This book, the first in the publisher’s Contemporary Issues in Science Communication series, explores what it means to queer science communication — as I see it, to challenge existing power structures and to look at science ..read more