Article ID: CBB382865337

Citizen Science in News Media: Boundary Mediation of Public Participation in Health Expertise (2024)

unapi

In this article, I examine how scientific boundary work describes or represents citizen science as credible forms of expertise. Citizen science is an ambiguous concept, and I leverage that ambiguity to examine citizen science as a proxy for nonprofessional or noninstitutional scientific practices more generally. I argue that media representations of citizen science perform boundary work through different articulations of institutional “buy-in” to the legitimacy or credibility of citizen science. Using a discourse analysis of mainstream news media, I trace three framings of citizen science’s relationship to institutional networks, which I describe as subservient to, corrective to, and exceeding the norms of institutional expertise. I find that the perspectives of professional, credentialed scientists dominate public discourse concerning citizen science and perform different adjudications of how citizen science contributes to networks of expertise. By focusing on citizen science concerning human health and medicine, I additionally show how mainstream framings of citizen science engage with overlapping media representations of personal health responsibility and patient empowerment. I suggest that representations of citizen science as a form of “missing expertise” can conflict with portrayals of citizen science as “going too far” in the pursuit of treatments or interventions.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB382865337/

Similar Citations

Article Sedona Chinn; P. Sol Hart; Stuart Soroka; (2020)
Politicization and Polarization in Climate Change News Content, 1985-2017 (/isis/citation/CBB838305447/)

Article Ivanka Pjesivac; Marlit A. Hayslett; Matthew T. Binford; (2020)
To Eat or Not to Eat: Framing of GMOs in American Media and Its Effects on Attitudes and Behaviors (/isis/citation/CBB576602978/)

Article Sarah Schönbauer; Ruth Müller; (2021)
A Risky Object? How Microplastics Are Represented in the German Media (/isis/citation/CBB528707388/)

Article Khudejah Ali; Khawaja Zain-ul-abdin; Cong Li; Lisa Johns; Ayesha Aziz Ali; Nicholas Carcioppolo; (2019)
Viruses Going Viral: Impact of Fear-Arousing Sensationalist Social Media Messages on User Engagement (/isis/citation/CBB041129136/)

Article P. Sol Hart; Sedona Chinn; Stuart Soroka; (2020)
Politicization and Polarization in COVID-19 News Coverage (/isis/citation/CBB328485591/)

Article Jacob B. Rode; Saad Iqbal; Brendon J. Butler; Peter H. Ditto; (2021)
Using a News Article to Convey Climate Science Consensus Information (/isis/citation/CBB183504368/)

Article Michael F. Dahlstrom; Zhe Wang; Sonja Lindberg; Kasey Opfer; Christopher L. Cummings; (2023)
The Media’s Taste for Gene-Edited Food: Comparing Media Portrayals within US and European Regulatory Environments (/isis/citation/CBB301291615/)

Article Jan-Peter Voß; Nina Amelung; (October 2016)
Innovating public participation methods: Technoscientization and reflexive engagement (/isis/citation/CBB261047944/)

Article Norma Möllers; (June 2016)
Shifting in and out of context: Technoscientific drama as technology of the self (/isis/citation/CBB128198488/)

Article Toby Bolsen; Risa Palm; Justin T. Kingsland; (2020)
Framing the Origins of COVID-19 (/isis/citation/CBB770127029/)

Article Mette N. Svendsen; Laura E. Navne; (2023)
Citizen-Person: The “Me” in the “We” in Danish Precision Medicine (/isis/citation/CBB486482685/)

Article Abigail H. Neely; Laura A. Meek; (2024)
African Experiments in Health and Healing: Science from the Home and Homestead (/isis/citation/CBB357279410/)

Article Yiling Hung; (2024)
Curing Leprosy with DDS: Metamorphosis of Colonial Medicine into Global Health (/isis/citation/CBB935906510/)

Authors & Contributors
Sedona Chinn
P. Sol Hart
Stuart Soroka
Müller, Ruth
Svendsen, Mette N.
Cong Li
Journals
Science Communication
Science, Technology, and Human Values
Social Studies of Science
Concepts
Science and technology studies (STS)
Technoscience
Medicine
Communication of scientific ideas
Press
Medicine and society
Time Periods
21st century
20th century
Places
United States
Africa
Taiwan
China
Europe
Germany
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment