Social Epistemology: Communicating Neuroscience

This chapter discusses how science communication is an important area for neuroscience and neuroethics that can all too readily be identified with its modes and genres instead of its goals and purposes. What makes the terrain of neuroscience exciting for the social epistemologist is the priority that the field has given to science communication. There is a range of professed reasons why neuroscientists want to communicate that imply a diversity of communication modes and genres through which this might happen. Examining science communication, then, can be a much more multifaceted activity than understanding how the media works or being able to parse the interests of various actors in a controversy. Being able to analyze the various communication modes at play is a first step in understanding how knowledge is circulated among various communities. In the example above, one relevant audience is Nielsen shareholders. The use of a framework from social epistemology that is more concerned with how knowledge circulates can provide efforts to improve communication with a more appropriate focus.