New DFG Project on the Role of Media in Building Confidence in Medical Knowledge

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With online media, and especially with the offerings of the “web 2.0” or “social web”, the relation of experts and amateurs changes in public communication on scientific information: new arenas of knowledge transfer emerge on the internet (e.g. expert public sphere, collaborative public sphere, personal public sphere). Using the example of medical information, the question is pursued which role the different communication arenas take in building confidence in medical knowledge. By means of group discussions and a representative survey it is examined how medical amateurs build confidence in medical knowledge with the help of various information and communication offerings, and which indicators and recipient-related and situational factors affect this confidence.

Supplementary case studies are planned for a follow-up project in order to examine the specific mechanisms of selection and presentation of medicinal knowledge, as well as users’ situational dealings with such online-based arenas.

The project is a part of the DFG’s (German Research Foundation) special priority programme “Science and the General Public: Understanding Fragile and Conflicting Scientific Evidence” (SPP 1409).

How distribution and reception of science in the general public change with modern information technologies is the key issue of the special priority programme. Based on the increasingly simple access to scientific information and thereby increasing expectations of science’s problem solving abilities, the programme questions conditions and processes of laypersons’ understanding of science. Closely linked with communication science, sociology of science, psychology, empirical education science, and natural science methodology, the programme initially aims to analyse science-related information search on the internet. Further emphasis is put on the reception of science in mass media and entertainment offerings, as well as the communication of scientific ways of thinking and explanatory models in museums and schools.