Public awareness of science (PAwS), public understanding of science (PUS) or more recently, Public Engagement with Science and Technology are terms relating to the attitudes, behaviours, opinions and activities that comprise the relations between the general public or lay society as a whole to scientific knowledge and organisation.
It is a comparatively new approach to the task of exploring the multitude of relations and linkages science, technology and innovation have among the public. While earlier work in the discipline focused on augmenting public knowledge of scientific topics, in line with the information deficit model of science communication, the discrediting of the model has led to an increased emphasis on how the public chooses to use scientific knowledge and on the development of interfaces to mediate between expert and lay understandings of an issue. The area integrates a series of other fields, such as:
- Public controversies over science and technology;
- science communication in the mass media, internet, radio and television programmes;
- science museums, aquaria, planetaria, zoological parks, botanical gardens, etc.;
- fixed and mobile science exhibits;
- science festivals
- science fairs in schools and social groups;
- science education for adults;
- consumer education;
- public tours of research and development (R&D) parks, manufacturing companies, etc.
- Science in popular culture
- Science in text books and classrooms.
How to raise public awareness and public understanding of science and technology, and how the public feels and knows about science in general, and specific subjects, such as genetic engineering, bioethics, etc., are important lines of research in this area.
Read more about Public Awareness Of Science: The Bodmer Report, Project Examples, Further Reading
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