Credibility in Science Communication

Abstract

This chapter was inspired by the credibility panel discussion, “Keeping our credibility: Release of News”, held at the conference Communicating Astronomy with the Public 2005 in Munich in June 2005⁵⁸. Part of the content here is based on an exploratory qualitative study of press releases in astronomy (Nielsen et al., 2006) by a study group from Roskilde University (Denmark), under the leadership of Lars Holm Nielsen, who con ducted part of their studies at the ESA/Hubble in the winter of 2005–2006. The other group members were Nanna Torpe Jørgensen, Kim Jantzen and Sanne Bjerg. As part of the study a series of 12 indepth interviews⁵⁹ with public information officers from large government scientific institutions, as well as journalists and scientists closely involved in the work of public information officers, were conducted in the winter of 2005. Most of the conclusions below have been extracted from this study.

Webcast of the panel discussion and the subsequent wide-ranging and lively discussion is available at http://www.communicatingastronomy.org/cap2005/programme.html.

http://www.spacetelescope.org/projects/credibility/credibility.html