Subsections
[Cr:4, Lc:3, Tt:0, Lb:1]
The course provides students with journalism skills including legal and ethical issues in the field. They will examine science up close and gain an understanding of issues in climate change science, agricultural and medical innovations, how scientific discovering are shaped by and shape world history and politics. The student will be required to write/create a publishable piece of science communication - this could be an articale. Video, webpage etc.
- Craft of science communication: Balance and objectivity, storytelling, researching, reporting and writing, filing for right to information, interviewing, photography and video, opinion writing, editing, data journalism, how to assess scientific claims, vet experts, write press releases. Introduction to Science policy reportage: Analysis of science, environment, medicine policies in thir sociela and historical contexts, elaborating on scientific controversies. Popular science writing: Interpreting and explaining science ideas in creative ways accessible to a general audience.
- Mediums and techniques: Print media, audio, video and multimedia and interactive formats. Social media, podcasts, memes and web based storytelling.
- Legal and Ethical issues: Professionalism, professional development and training in science communication, ethics of methods and process, ethics of topics and findings, freedom of information, misconduct versus error, privacy laws, lawsuits, defamation laws.
- Laura Bowater and Kay Yeoman, Science Communication: A Practical Guide for Scientists, Wiley-Blackwell Publishers.
- S.M. Stocklmayer, Rajeev Gore, and C.R. Bryant (Eds.), Science Communication in Theory and Practice, Springer Netherlands.
- Randy Olson, Houston, We have a Narrative - Why Science Needs Story, Chicago University Press.
- Martin W Angler, Science Journalism: An Introduction, Routledge.
- Angier, Natalie. Excerpts from The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
- Robert Goldbort, Writing for Science, Yale University Press.
- Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Gene: An Intimate History, Allen Lane.
- Holliman., R., Thomas, J., Smidt, S., Scanlon, E., & Whitelegg, L, Practising science communication in the information age: Theorising professional practices, Oxford, Uk: Oxford University Press.
- Cottrell S., Critical thinking skills. Developing effective analysis and argument, Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
