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Citizen Science: Framing the Public, Information Exchange, and Communication in Crowdsourced Science University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 8-2014 Citizen Science: Framing the Public, Information Exchange, and Communication in Crowdsourced Science Todd Ernest Suomela University of Tennessee - Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Communication Commons, and the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation Suomela, Todd Ernest, "Citizen Science: Framing the Public, Information Exchange, and Communication in Crowdsourced Science. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2014. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/2864 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Todd Ernest Suomela entitled "Citizen Science: Framing the Public, Information Exchange, and Communication in Crowdsourced Science." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Communication and Information. Suzie Allard, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Carol Tenopir, Mark Littmann, Harry Dahms Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Citizen Science: Framing the Public, Information Exchange, and Communication in Crowdsourced Science ADissertationPresentedforthe Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Todd Ernest Suomela August 2014 c by Todd Ernest Suomela, 2014 All Rights Reserved. ii For my mother, my aunt and my dad. Two who are still here and one who is missed. iii Acknowledgements Iwouldliketothankmyfamily,friends,andcolleagueswhohavemadethisexperience possible. My four committee members were each influential in their own way. Carol Tenopir is a respected researcher from whom I learned a lot about managing research projects and collaborating with others. Mark Littmann provided a wonderful historical perspective on science communication and was also a very pleasant collaborator. Harry Dahms, in sociology, introduced me to social theory at a research level. Suzie Allard, my committee chair, has been an ally since the first year I arrived. She has supported my quirky interests and helped to incorporate them under the umbrella of communication and information studies. All four of them have become friends and colleagues. There is a long list of teachers who have made this possible. William Merrier, Phil Abalan, Roman Borgerding, Michael Della Rocca, Paul Edwards, Steve Jackson, and many more. Thanks for all the help. iv My friends and cohort colleagues at University of Tennessee who supported me throughout the grad student years. From Sciencelinks2 Jim Malone, Priyanki Sinha, David Sims, Elizabeth Noakes, and Lisa Acu↵. From CCI Scott Eldredge, Betsy Dortch, Ivanka Pjesivac, Iveta Imre, Nate Evans, and Hyuk Jun Cheong. I am also grateful to the Institue for Museum and Library Services for providing funding for my Ph.D. education through the Sciencelinks2 grant, and to DataONE for helping me build my professional and intellectual network. v Abstract Citizen science, the participation of non-scientists in scientific research, has grown over the last 20 years. The current study explores the communication frames used to describe citizen science and how they are created. It also investigates the e↵ects of citizen science on the relationship between the public and science. It also situates citizen science in a larger historical context that critques normal science and intersects with a number of other scholarly discussions including science and technology studies, citizenship, expertise, professionalism, and participation. The dissertation draws on theory from the social worlds analysis of Anselm Strauss, framing in science communication, the philosophy of John Dewey on inquiry and the public, and the communicative action theory of Jurgen Habermas. It uses these theorists to build a potential analysis of the social impact of citizen science and the e↵ects on science-public interaction. The study examined 166 news articles, 13 press releases, and 10 interviews collected between July 2013 and April 2014. Situational analysis was used to analyze the material and to map the social arena of citizen science. vi The results show that current communication frames used to study science communication do not adequetely reflect the frames used with regard to citizen science. The most common frame promoted by researchers and sta↵involved with citizen science projects is educational. It also describes the tension within citizen science between emancipatory-participative and instrumental-pragmatic goals. vii Table of Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Literature Review ............................. 6 1.1.1 Definitions ............................. 6 1.1.2 Typologies ............................. 11 1.1.3 Quality and Accuracy ...................... 14 1.1.4 Education ............................. 16 1.2 Historical Dilemma ............................ 20 1.3 Success and Limits of Citizen Science .................. 24 1.4 Research Questions ............................ 28 2 Conceptual Review 31 2.1 Science ................................... 33 2.2 Public ................................... 40 2.3 Citizen ................................... 46 2.4 Expert-Novice ............................... 52 2.5 Amateur-Professional ........................... 60 viii 2.6 Participation ............................... 66 3 Theory 73 3.1 Evidence .................................. 74 3.1.1 Social Worlds ........................... 74 3.1.2 Communication Framing ..................... 79 3.2 Criticism .................................. 91 3.2.1 Dewey and Democracy ...................... 93 3.2.2 Habermas and Communication ................. 100 3.3 Guiding Questions ............................ 111 4 Methods 116 4.1 Research Design .............................. 116 4.1.1 Situational Analysis ....................... 119 4.2 Data Collection and Analysis ...................... 121 4.2.1 Bibliographic ........................... 121 4.2.2 Observation ............................ 122 4.2.3 Content Analysis ......................... 124 4.2.4 Interviews ............................. 126 4.2.5 Credibility and Ethics ...................... 128 5 Results 130 5.1 Framing Citizen Science ......................... 130 ix 5.1.1 Frames ............................... 130 5.1.2 Genres ............................... 136 5.1.3 Labeling .............................. 138 5.1.4 Types of Science ......................... 140 5.1.5 Creating Frames ......................... 142 5.2 Themes .................................. 146 5.2.1 Science ............................... 146 5.2.2 Citizenship ............................ 149 5.2.3 Expert-Novice ........................... 150 5.2.4 Professional-Amateur ....................... 152 5.3 Citizen Science and the Public ...................... 153 5.3.1 Scale and Scope of Citizen Science ............... 153 5.3.2 Boundary Management ...................... 155 5.3.3 Roles and Relationships ..................... 157 6 Discussion 164 6.1 The Tension at the Center of Citizen Science .............. 164 6.2 Crossing the Boundaries Between Science and Media ......... 169 6.3 Mediators at the Center ......................... 174 6.4 Legitimation and Extension: Persistent Challenges ........... 177 6.5 The Challenge of the Publics ....................... 180 7 Conclusion 185 x 7.1 Contributions ............................... 186 7.2 Implications for Citizen Science and Media ............... 189 7.3 Limitations ................................ 191 7.4 Future Directions ............................. 192 Bibliography 195 Appendix 217 AInterviewMaterial 218 A.1 Interview Guide .............................. 218 A.2 Recruitment Email ............................ 222 A.3 Coding Frame ............................... 223 Vita 227 xi List of Tables 3.1 Science Communication Frames ..................... 90 4.1 Maps Used in Situational Analysis ................... 120 4.2 Data Collected .............................. 122 4.3 Credibilty for Naturalistic Inquiry .................... 129 5.1 Frames Found in Newspaper Articles .................. 131 5.2 Genre Classification of Newspaper Articles ............... 138 5.3 Type of Science in Newspaper Articles ................. 141 5.4 Types of Science in Press Releases .................... 142 xii List of Figures 5.1 Academic Journal Articles on Citizen Science per Year ........ 154 5.2 Google Trends for ‘citizen science’ .................... 155 5.3 Initial Diagram of Communication Process ............... 158 5.4 Social Arenas Map of Citizen Science .................. 159 5.5 Positional Map for Citizen Science .................... 162 xiii Chapter 1 Introduction Citizen science is a term used to describe the recruitment of non-scientists to assist scientists with research. The term was introduced in the 1990s and has become much more widespread over the past decade. The development
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