Abstract

Abstract

Despite a growing interest among scientists in engaging with the public and the media, we still lacks a genuine science communication culture. While communication of every kind is on everyone’s lips, we are still far from the genuinely ‘intelligent’ communication promised by the advent of the ‘knowledge society’. Technologies may be partly responsible for this paradox. Having pervasive ‘means’ of accessing and exchanging information creates the feeling that we are communicating better. While this is no doubt true in so far as society is spontaneously generating new and creative initiatives, much remains to be done when it comes to the various levels in established institutions and organizations. We will discuss other challenges science communication is facing today such as:

• Do we need science journalists?
• New technologies: friends or foes?
• Turning science into “mediascience”
• Promoting the science-society dialogue

About the speaker:

Michel Claessens is currently Deputy Head of the Communication Unit in the Research Directorate-General at the European Commission. He is also the editor-in-chief of the research*eu magazine of the European Commission. A scientific journalist and writer, Michel Claessens has published 250 articles and 8 books on several aspects of modern science and technology. He is also professor of science communication at the Free University of Brussels.

http://ec.europa.eu/research/research-eu/index_en.html

www.michelclaessens.net

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