Lars Guenther

This essay proposes a conceptual framework that reconceptualizes scientific evidence as a process of public construction in contemporary media environments. In social media contexts, scientists, journalists, influencers, NGOs, lay publics and AI agents participate in the circulation and interpretation of evidential claims. The essay’s contribution is to explain how evidential status itself is publicly assembled, circulated, internalized, and fed back into further communication. We distinguish two analytically coupled layers of this process: amalgamated evidence , the publicly visible circulation and recombination of claims across posts, comments and shares, and internalized evidence , the individual representations through which users interpret and evaluate these claims. Their reciprocal “circle of evidence” is driven by three recurring communicative behaviours—consumption, participation and generation—and shaped by platform logics that amplify, recontextualize and remix information. Under these conditions, evidential status emerges from communicative interaction rather than solely from scientific procedures, creating potential divergences between scientific records and what publics perceive as evidence. By conceptualizing evidencing as a socio-technical and communicative process, the framework aims to stimulate debate and outlines a research agenda for examining how public circulation and individual internalization mutually shape the authority of science in digital media environments.

Images shape our perceptions of reality; they play a central role in producing meaning (Gamson et al., 1992). By repeatedly depicting certain groups in generalized and clichéd ways, images can rein...

Contemporary science communication increasingly unfolds within hybrid media ecosystems where scientists, institutional communicators, journalists, and audiences interact under rapidly changing conditions. In these ecosystems, universities and other research organisations have become highly visible communicative actors, supported by growing investments in strategic science communication. At the same time, science journalism faces economic precarity, shrinking newsroom capacity, and growing reliance on institutional sources. These developments have fuelled long-standing debates about hype, churnalism, and the erosion of journalism’s watchdog function, often framed as ethical or professional failings. However, these tensions between institutional science communicators and science journalists can also be seen as the structural consequences of contemporary science communication rather than as interpersonal conflicts or normative shortcomings. We conceptualise this relationship through two analytical lenses. A high-tension perspective foregrounds risks to journalistic independence, critical scrutiny, the watchdog role, and public trust under conditions of media asymmetry and the expansion of institutional authority over the public communication of science. A low-tension perspective highlights functional interdependence, role complementarity, and the ways institutional communication can enable science journalism in constrained media environments. Rather than treating these perspectives as competing accounts, we use them to illuminate different normative stakes within the same ecosystem. We thus propose a framework for constructive interdependence that acknowledges blurred boundaries and role overlap while actively protecting the integrity of independent scrutiny, and argue that safeguarding journalism’s watchdog role should be understood as a shared responsibility across communicators, institutions, and intermediaries. While we wrote this piece primarily for science communication scholars, we hope that the proposed framework offers science journalists, institutional science communicators, and research funders four concrete principles for protecting independent scrutiny as science communication ecosystems continue to change.

Background: The Draw-a-Scientist Test (DAST) has been widely employed to explore individuals' perceptions of scientists, aiming to identify stereotypical images that could influence attitudes towards science-related career decisions. Purpose: This study examines young children's perceptions of scientists using the Draw-a-Scientist Test, administered before and after participation in a science-themed educational display. Sample: Our study focused on primary school learners aged between eight and 12 from three public schools. Design and methods: Students were provided with a blank sheet of paper and asked to draw a scientist both before and after the participation in the educational display on science careers in the form of a mobile interactive exhibition set up in the assembly hall of each participating school. The learners’ drawings were analysed using a content analysis approach. Results: Compared to similar studies elsewhere in the world, this study indicated a notable difference in how young children perceive scientists, particularly in terms of the scientists’ age and gender. Both before and after the intervention, our participants predominantly drew scientists as being younger and female. Conclusions: The findings provide initial evidence that a science-themed career exhibition may influence selected aspects of children's perceptions of scientists, although the overall changes observed were modest. The study contributes to understanding how South African children perceive scientists and highlights the potential value of exposing learners to diverse representations of science and science-related careers from an early age.

This paper presents an updated analysis of South Africans’ trust in scientists, situated within the South African context and based on a secondary analysis of the Trust in Science and Science-Related Populism (TISP) data set. We find that South Africans have moderately high trust in scientists (ranked 23rd) and perceive scientists as having moderately benevolent intentions and moderate integrity. South Africans’ trust in scientists is mainly based on trust in the scientific method. We also present evidence on how trust is shaped by factors such as gender, age, education, religion, income, and ideology. While most South Africans trust scientists, many are concerned about the unequal distribution of the benefits of science. Furthermore, there is a strong public demand for scientists to communicate their work more effectively, engage in dialogue with society, and advocate for the value of science in policymaking. Overall, our results provide a nuanced picture of trust in scientists in South Africa, with implications for future research, communication practices, and policymaking.