Citizen Science in the Digital Age: Rhetoric, Science, and Public Engagement (Albma Rhetoric Culture and Social Critique Series) - Hardcover

Wynn, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0817319433 ISBN 13: 9780817319434

Publisher: The University of Alabama Press, 2017

Synopsis

James Wynn’s compelling investigation into citizen science highlights public-based studies and probes the rhetoric these studies employ. Many of these endeavors, such as the widely-used SETI@home project, simply draw on the processing power of participants’ home computers; others, like the protein-folding game FoldIt, ask users to take a more active role in solving scientific problems. In Citizen Science in the Digital Age: Rhetoric, Science, and Public Engagement, Wynn analyzes the discourse and rhetoric that enable these scientific ventures, as well as the difficulties that arise in communication between scientists and lay people and the potential for misuse of publicly gathered data.
 
Wynn puzzles out the intricacies of these exciting new research developments by focusing on various case studies. He explores the Safecast project, which originated from crowd-sourced mapping for Fukushima radiation dispersal, arguing that evolving technologies enable public volunteers to make concrete, sound, science-based arguments. Additionally, he considers the potential use of citizen science as a method of increasing the public’s identification with the scientific community, and contemplates how more collaborative rhetoric might deepen these opportunities for interaction and alignment. Furthermore, he examines ways in which the lived experience of volunteers may be integrated with expert scientific knowledge, and also how this same personal involvement can be used to further policy agendas.
 
There are precious few texts exploring the intersection of rhetoric, science, and the Internet. Citizen Science in the Digital Age aims to fill this gap, offering a clear, intelligent overview of the topic intended for rhetoric and communication scholars as well as practitioners and administrators of a number of science-based disciplines. With the expanded availability of once inaccessible technology and computing power to laypeople, the practice of citizen science will only continue to grow. This study offers insight into how―given prudent application―citizen science might elucidate the rhetoric and strengthen the relationships between scientists and laypeople.

About this title

About the Author

James Wynn is an associate professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University and the author of Evolution by Numbers: The Origins of Mathematical Argument in Biology.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Citizen Science in the Digital Age

Rhetoric, Science, and Public Engagement

By James Wynn

The University of Alabama Press

Copyright © 2017 University of Alabama Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8173-1943-4

Contents

List of Illustrations, 
Acknowledgments, 
Introduction, 
1. Citizen Science at the Roots, 
2. Reimaging Risk: Citizen Science and the Development of Citizen-Centered Radiation Risk Representations, 
3. Information for and by the People: The Internet and the Rise of Citizen Expertise, 
4. Warming Relations? The Benefits and Challenges of Promoting Understanding and Identification with Citizen Science, 
5. A Tale of Two Logoi: Citizen Science and the Politics of Redevelopment, 
Epilogue, 
Appendix A: Acoustical Assessment Form Used in Pepys Estate Noise Mapping, 
Appendix B: Sound Level Reference Chart Used by Pepys Estate Citizen Scientists, 
Appendix C: Bar Graph of Qualitative Sound Descriptors for Pepys Estate Sound Mapping, 
Appendix D: Bar Graph of Sources of Noise on Pepys Estate, 
Notes, 
Works Cited, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Citizen Science at the Roots

To argue that digital technologies are reshaping the interactions between laypersons, science, scientists, and policymakers through citizen science suggests either that citizen science is a completely novel product of the digital age or that digital-age technologies have introduced some significant differences into the practice of citizen science that can account for the changes in these interactions. This chapter shows that citizen science is not a new phenomenon but rather an enterprise with historical roots. Although the scientific community has only recently adopted the phrase "citizen science," early instances of the practices that this phrase currently describes can be identified in a diversity of mid-nineteenth- to late-twentieth-century endeavors including meteorological studies and bird counts (Silvertown 467; Bonney et al., "Citizen Science" 978). In addition to showing that citizen science is not new, this chapter also investigates the changes that digital technologies have introduced into it by assessing the similarities and differences between historical and modern citizen science. In particular, it compares the challenges that have faced researchers attempting to work with laypeople and the strategies they have devised to overcome these obstacles. This comparison suggests that though the challenges of doing citizen science are similar across time, the strategies for addressing these challenges have significantly changed with the introduction of digital technologies. I argue that these changes, along with the growing importance of big data, have motivated twenty-first-century scientists to embrace citizen science as a legitimate part of the scientific enterprise. This acceptance, however, has created the potential for new spaces of conflict between laypersons, science, scientists, and policymakers and challenges to traditional conceptualizations of science.

THE SMITHSONIAN WEATHER PROJECT (1848–1870)

Modern citizen science might arguably be traced back to the birth of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1665 when its first secretary Henry Oldenburg circulated a call for correspondents "to impart their knowledge to one another and contribute what they can to the grand design of improving natural knowledge" (Oldenburg 1). In this investigation, however, I trace the predecessors of modern citizen science back to the mid-nineteenth century — a time when science began to institutionalize as governments turned with increasing frequency to science to deal with practical issues of commerce, war, agriculture, and health. It is in this framework of emerging professional scientific identity and institutional involvement in science that the practice of a citizen science involving the participation of nonexpert, noninstitutional actors could emerge as opposed to the more aristocratic gentleman of science of the seventeenth to early nineteenth centuries. It was in this spirit of more democratic participation in science that the Smithsonian Institution was founded with a bequest from James Smithson to support "the increase and diffusion of knowledge." The Smithsonian's first big scientific venture, the study of the weather, epitomized the practice of citizen science because it relied on a mix of government support, scientific expertise, and volunteer labor to achieve its research goals. By examining this early enterprise, it is possible to get a sense of the myriad challenges that accompanied the involvement of laypersons in science as well as the strategies developed to meet those challenges.

Unlike modern citizen science, the Smithsonian's meteorological project was developed to establish the foundations for a scientific field rather than advance the work of an already existent scientific paradigm. In the late 1840s when the Smithsonian project began, meteorology was a fledgling science both in the United States and Europe. There were scattered investigations on different weather phenomena but no agreed-upon paradigm or meteorological institutions to ground the science. In this preparadigmatic period, there were disputes over a variety of issues that involved a range of theories and explanations, few of which could be empirically supported. One of the most famous disputes of the period, for example, was over the nature of storms. This controversy pitted prominent American meteorological researchers William Redfield, James Espy, and Robert Hare, who each held radically different theories of the phenomenon, against one another. In order to make progress on this and other questions involving the weather, scientists realized they needed to collect data on a grand scale. John Herschel, the famous British astronomer and philosopher of science, for example, remarked about meteorology: "[It] can only be effectually improved by the united observations of great numbers widely dispersed ... [it is] one of the most complicated but important branches of science, ... [and] at the same time one in which any person who will attend to plain rules, and bestow a necessary degree of attention, may do effectual service" (Herschel 133).

In sympathy with Herschel's call for mass observation to investigate questions about weather, Joseph Henry, the first secretary of the Smithsonian, dedicated a significant portion of the organization's energy and budget to studying storms and other meteorological phenomena. The Smithsonian's efforts from the late 1840s to the 1870s to study the weather illustrate the challenges that faced scientific institutions who wanted to use laypeople to study nature. The first obstacle was funding. Without financial support it would be impossible to gather and process the mountains of data necessary for studying the weather. Fortunately, the Smithsonian was an endowed institution. Henry, however, still had to persuade the Board of Regents that the project was worthy of funding. In 1847 he made his case to obtain funds to "extend meteorological observations, for solving the problem of American storms" (qtd. in Fleming 76). In response, the board allotted him $1,000 — nearly 6% of the institution's budget — for "the commencement of meteorological investigations" (qtd. in Fleming 76). Although in the late 1840s $1,000 was a substantial sum for the scientific investigation of the weather, it was not nearly enough money to send trained scientific personnel, even if enough could be found, across the United States to take measurements or pay for their instruments. Instead, it was necessary for the Smithsonian to prevail upon nonexpert American citizens to volunteer their time and even supply their own equipment to aid in the advancement of science. Toward this end, the institution sent a circular out to members of Congress who were asked to distribute them "to such of their constituents who were judged by them to be favorable to the undertaking" (Foreman 68). Out of the 412 persons in 30 states who received the circular, 155 observers volunteered to participate in the project (Foreman 69).

The volunteers who agreed to take part represented a broad spectrum of American society, though there was greater representation of some professional groups than others. Not surprisingly, the initial call for volunteers was embraced most readily by the educated elite, many of whom were already engaged in the scientific pursuits. In a bibliographic analysis of participants, historian James Fleming identified almost half (47%) of the volunteers as being from "scientific, technical, or educational occupations" (Fleming 92). The other half was drawn largely from professions that could accommodate the routine of observation, which required volunteers to record weather conditions three times a day (at 7 A.M., 2 P.M., and 9 P.M.), six days a week. In "Report of the General Assistant with Reference to the Meteorological Correspondence," Edward Foreman, a clerk at the Smithsonian associated with the project, explained, "The observers are generally persons engaged in occupations which admit to some extent of their being present at the place of observation at the required hours of the day all year round. ... The classes to which the observers belong, are professors in colleges, principles or teachers in academies, farmers, physicians, members of the legal and clerical profession, and a few engaged in mechanical and mercantile pursuits" (Foreman 77–78).

Foreman's description of the volunteers suggests they needed to have regular schedules and reveals that this criterion invited a broad social spectrum of participants. Although many contributors were scientific or educational experts, many others were laypersons without training in meteorological instruments or scientific methods of observation. Over time participation from laypersons increased as the project expanded observation in rural and sparsely populated areas of the western United States and as scientific professionals turned increasingly toward their own research interests and away from what they considered the less profitable Baconian activities of weather observation. Because of these changing dynamics, by the end of the Smithsonian's weather project the percentage of farmers involved in observations had risen from 8% in 1851 to 37% in 1870 while the participation of scientific, technical, and educational observers had fallen from 47% to 16% (Fleming 92).

With such a broad range of expertise represented in their observer pool, another significant challenge facing Smithsonian organizers was to figure out how to get reliable standardized data about the weather from their participants. Henry's initial strategy to encourage standardization was to provide all observers, free of charge, with a set of forms for recording their data. These forms came in three versions, which varied in accordance with the kinds of instruments the observers had. Number one forms were for observers with the most instruments, which often included a wet and dry bulb thermometer, barometer, and rain gauge. Number two forms were for those with a more limited instrument kit, which usually included a thermometer and weathervane. Finally, the number three forms were sent out to those without any instruments at all. Each day observers would enter into their forms data about temperature, barometric pressure, and wind direction as well as information about the type of cloud cover and the levels of rain or snow. At the beginning of every month, they would receive new forms and mail their completed ones back to the Smithsonian.

Though the use of standardized forms disciplined the kind of information the Smithsonian organizers received, it could not account for the accuracy and consistency of the measurements themselves. A particular concern was the standardization, or lack thereof, of measuring instruments and the variety of methods participants used to take and record measurements. In an effort to determine and correct for the lack of standardization in instrumentation, the Smithsonian hired Swiss émigré Arnold Henry Guyot to tour academies in New York to examine the consistency of the instrumentation and the correctness of their measurement practices. In the course of his tour, Guyot was shocked at the dismal quality of the instruments he encountered. He wrote to Joseph Henry in January of 1850, "I have not seenone station even less an ensemble of stations ... which operate under circumstances and with instruments much poorer than those I have seen in my many travels" (qtd. in Fleming 118). As a consequence of his investigation, Guyot commissioned New York City instrument makers Green and Pike to design a new standard barometer and purchased thermometers and barometers from the instrument maker to distribute to participants in the Smithsonian meteorological network (Fleming 119–20).

In addition to commissioning and purchasing more accurate instruments, Guyot also made an effort to improve the standardization of measurement by writing a handbook for observers that described how to properly set up, calibrate, and read instruments as well as how to properly record results on the official meteorological forms. In describing how to read a thermometer in winter, for example, he advises, "The reading should be made at all times, and especially in winter ... without opening the window; otherwise, the temperature of the chamber will inevitably influence the thermometer in the open air" (Guyot 8). Along with advice about how to accurately take and record measurements, Guyot also attempted to inspire Smithsonian weather observers to maintain their discipline in their data collection and daily calculations by prevailing on their sense of civic responsibility: "It is only by making the correction himself [of the average of daily, monthly, and yearly temperatures] that the observer can institute his own comparisons, and really study the course of meteorological phenomena. His interest will increase still more with the feeling that he is cooperating in a great work, which concerns at once his whole country and the science of the world, and the success of which depends upon the accuracy, fidelity, and devotion of all who take part in it" (Guyot 41). As this exhortation illustrates, the correction of instruments and the preparation of standard charts were not the only strategies relied on for encouraging accurate science. Persuasive, or rhetorical, argument was also employed. By appealing to lay observers' sense of community and duty to science and country, Guyot evokes the spirit of the "citizen scientist," though not the phrase, to encourage Smithsonian observers to keep up their data gathering and take care in their efforts.

After a sustained effort to raise money, find participants, ensure accuracy, and encourage cooperation, the Smithsonian meteorological campaign began to bear fruit. In 1861 and 1864, the US Patent Office published two volumes that contained the reduced statistical data gathered by Smithsonian volunteers under the title Results of Meteorological Observations under the Direction of the United States Patent Office and the Smithsonian Institution from the Year 1854 to 1859, Inclusive. Based on the data from this volume, a number of important scientific publications were produced. Most notable, perhaps, were James Henry Coffin's Winds of the Northern Hemisphere (1853) and Winds of the Globe (1875), which offered empirically grounded descriptions of the general circulation of the atmosphere across the earth and evidenced-based advice about how to optimize the safety of maritime and naval navigation during hurricanes. Though the work of the Smithsonian weather project did not ultimately end the storm controversy, it did make American meteorology the envy of Europeans whose efforts to systematically collect data did not begin until 1854 and who found themselves far behind the United States in their capacity to predict and visualize the weather (Anderson 2, 247–49).

By examining the case of the Smithsonian meteorological project, we witness some of the exigencies and obstacles that influenced the organizers of early citizen science. For Henry and the other organizers of the Smithsonian project, the primary exigence for engaging laypersons in data gathering for science was to contribute to the storehouse of scientific knowledge about the weather and to settle outstanding scientific debates about meteorological phenomena. To accomplish their ends, they depended on the goodwill and diligence of observers from a broad spectrum of society geographically stretched across the United States. Because of the uneven spread of material and epistemic resources across this population and because of their desire for accurate data, the organizers had to raise money, calibrate instruments, teach the fundamentals of scientific observation, and exhort their participants to remain faithful to the practices and the general mission of the project. Through their efforts, they were able to create a stable network of volunteer lay observers that provided them with weather data that allowed meteorological theories and laws to be developed and helped meteorology to take its place as a modern science in the twentieth century. Though creating the foundations of a new science is a rare exigence for modern citizen science, the challenges of raising money, ensuring accuracy, and encouraging participation are still very real obstacles. However, as we will see, these obstacles are addressed in different ways in digital-age citizen science.

THE CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT (1900–PRESENT)

Although the development of modern meteorology is an example of a spectacularly successful and still on-going citizen-science project, perhaps the most frequently cited precursor of modern citizen science is the Audubon Society's Christmas Bird Count. Initiated in 1900 by Frank Chapman, an ornithologist and curator at the American Museum of Natural History, the Christmas Bird Count, or Christmas bird census as it was originally called, offers a glimpse of a different sort of citizen-science endeavor. Unlike the Smithsonian meteorological project, whose primary goal was to develop a paradigm for the science of meteorology, the goal of the Christmas Bird Count was to cultivate interest in and to educate the public about birds and the science of ornithology. With this shift in goal from gathering data for science about a natural phenomenon to generating interest in one, there is a subsequent change in the challenges for scientists in working with laypeople and in the strategies for overcoming these challenges.

(Continues...)

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Edition details

• Publisher: The University of Alabama Press
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0817319433
• ISBN 13: 9780817319434
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 264