Abstract
Abstract. CCS (carbon capture and storage) is an important issue within the context of climate-change mitigation options and has played a major role in the agendas of scientists, researchers, and engineers. While media representations of CCS in Germany from 2004 to 2014 demonstrated the significant mediatization of the topic, this cannot be ascribed to science. Instead, CCS media coverage in Germany has been dominated by other stakeholder groups. While CCS is linked to various industry sectors, such as cement and steel production, the German debate has dominantly focussed on the coal and energy branches. This study looks at the role of science and science public relations (PR) within the German public debate by analysing the media coverage of CCS in daily newspapers from 2004 to 2014. If science wishes to remain proactive within science communication, new approaches for future science PR have to be deduced to strengthen, once again, the role of science communication. Among these approaches, it is important to pursue a more differentiated understanding of target audiences and regional concerns. Science PR has to accept that science itself is no longer the only stakeholder and actor within science communication.
Highlights
Scholars of communication science have debated the interdependencies between the media and public-relation offices (Altmeppen, 2004; Raupp and Vogelgesang, 2009)
Studies on the complex interrelation of public relations (PR) and journalism (Macnamara, 2014; Williams and Gajevic, 2013; Nelkin, 1995) have shown that PR-dominated science journalism is a reality: “many journalists are in effect retailing science and technology more than investigating it, identifying with their sources more than challenging them” (Nelkin, 1995, p. 164)
Because science PR is in competition with PR efforts from other societal arenas, such as politics, sports, the economy, and others, it seems reasonable for science PR to use selection processes similar to those of the media
Summary
Scholars of communication science have debated the interdependencies between the media and public-relation offices (Altmeppen, 2004; Raupp and Vogelgesang, 2009). Here, it can be observed that effective – and, despite all the doubts expressed, sometimes qualitatively valuable – public relations carried out by universities and research institutions has spearheaded the media coverage of certain areas of science (Rögener and Wormer, 2017; Berg, 2018). This might be related to system-specific differences within the national media landscape as well as the diversity of scientific approaches in the relevant studies (Reich, 2010) Within this context, this study will focus on CCS (carbon capture and storage) technology. Science only had the chance to react rather than actively integrate itself within the debate
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