Page 49 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

32 M. Adomßent and J. Godemann

Risk communication cannot depend on the support of the media alone as they
follow a different logic of action. “The media do not report on risks; they report on
harms” (Singer and Endreny 1987: 10). However even if the political space of the
global risk society is actually to be found in the media, those who feel obliged to
report on environmental risks in a way that encourages action are confronted with
journalistic selection and framing patterns of a sovereign and resistant system,
which can hardly be changed in the short term.

Science Communication

Science communicates first and foremost with itself. The science system is charac-
terised by self-referential unity, since in scientific work contexts knowledge is gen-
erated primarily in expert groups and mostly in a language that is incomprehensible
to the non-scientific public. In addition the differentiation and increasing specialisa-
tion of the science system has led to each discipline developing, and continuing to
develop, its own language. This barrier to understanding has led to an increasingly
problematic boundary between science and the general public. The legitimacy of
science, the quality of its achievements and its credibility are increasingly being
criticised due to the ambivalence of new knowledge or the risks of technological
developments and scientific research (e.g. genetic engineering). Since the middle of
the twentieth century, the relationship between science and the public has been
changed to the effect that, by the development and then pervasiveness of electronic
media, a considerably larger ‘mass democratic public’ (Weingart 2003) has been
established, which increasingly puts forward claims for greater participation in
political processes, vocalises its interests and also attempts to realise them. Science
is thus increasingly forced to open itself to and rethink its relationship with the gen-
eral public. The public is becoming a relevant variable and the media has an impor-
tant mediating function. The attempt to ‘translate’ and diffuse scientifically produced
knowledge does not only take place across scientific boundaries but also within the
system. Knowledge production is no longer a privilege of a special group of experts.
Instead, it takes place in a number of different constellations of actors. In these
inter- and transdisciplinary work contexts, not enough attention has been paid to the
problem of translating and communicating this knowledge in a way that is adequate
to its target groups (Wardekker et al. 2009).
The question arises as to the possibilities but also the limits to knowledge trans-
fer, as well as the reasons for science ‘turning to the public’. ‘The public’ is an
abstract and thus elusive concept and so the media takes its place as a representative.
It takes on the function of assuring the selective attention of specific publics for sci-
ence. In general there are three reasons for reporting on science (Göpfert and Peters
1996): (a) the utility argument, which is the concrete applicability and use value of
information (e.g. specific health tips), (b) the culture argument, which views knowl-
edge as an integral part of the creation of culture, (c) the democracy argument,
according to which science and technology are of enormous importance for societal