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SYNS: Nature of Science

SYNS 1: The Nature of Science

SYNS 1.1: Hauptvortrag

Dienstag, 22. März 2022, 14:00–14:30, Audimax

The Role of Nature of Science Education for Science Media Literacy — •Dietmar Höttecke — Faculty of Education, University of Hamburg

Science is inevitably mediated to the public sphere and both professional journalistism and social media networks play important roles. For well-informed decision-making, it is essential for citizens to know how scientists communicate with each other, as well as with the public. Until recently, the conventional mass media (e.g. newspapers) typically functioned as gatekeepers, helping to assess the reliability and trustworthyness of scientific claims. In today’s culture, media and their gatekeeping roles are rapidly vanishing. In social media information flows along existing networks, sometimes heedless of scientific expertise and quality of information. As a result, we need an expanded conception of nature of science (NOS): First, students need to learn about the epistemics of communicative practices, within science and in society, science as a system of distributed knowledge and expertise, characterized by division of labor as well as a social system of checks and balances, trust and credibility. Second, students have to learn about the epistemic structure of science communcation and the role of “gatekeepers”. Here, the role of social media and its correlated phenomena have to be considered like aggregated news, filter bubbles, echo chambers, spirals of silence, fake news, and purposeful disinformation. Third, the “consumer” of science has to learn about him- and herself, including the role of confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and the social context of trust. These three perspectives finally lead to a the idea of Science Medica Literacy as an expansion of more traditionally NOS perspecitve.