ABSTRACT
Modern democracies have long been faced with diffi culties in com-municating science, engineering, and medicine to the general pub-lic (Cicerone, 2007; Skapinker, 2007). This challenge has received renewed attention from policymakers and academics in recent years, given the fact that numerous scientifi c and technological innovations are increasingly commingling the realms of science and politics. More competitive funding environments and political opposition to specifi c areas of research have further highlighted the need for improving the connections between science and the mainstream public via better communication about emerging technologies (Scheufele, 2007). These realities press social scientists to explore certain research questions. For example, how do citizens make sense of complex scientifi c and technological issues and the ethical, legal, and social challenges inherent with the rapid developments they pose? And how can we, as communication researchers, help establish sustainable channels of communication between science and the public, especially for increasingly controversial, politically charged issues such as global warming, regenerative medicine, synthetic biology, agricultural biotechnology, and nanotechnology?
