This Special Priority Program of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) will perform empirical research on the interface between science and the general public. This empirical and interdisciplinary program integrates research projects from psychology, empirical
education science, communication science, and the sociology of science.
The projects in the Special Priority Program predominately study the following four prototypical experience domains that confront laypersons with the fragile nature of how science establishes its evidence:
A. Searching for science-related information on the Internet. This includes the active use of available communication facilities for the reception of science (e.g., in Internet forums).
B. The reception of science in the mass media and entertainment industry. This also includes the work of “mediators” between science and the general public such as science journalists. These face the challenge of emphasizing the fragile nature of the way in which scientific evidence is established, while simultaneously paying tribute to the successes and knowledge that science has actually attained.
C. Exhibitions in scientific museums depicting the processes and conditions under which scientific evidence becomes established.
D. The teaching of basic knowledge about establishing scientific evidence at school.