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Imagining the model citizen: A comparison between public understanding of science, public engagement in science, and citizen science

Wanheng Hu https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9701-6089 [email protected]View all authors and affiliations

Volume 33, Issue 6

https://doi.org/10.1177/09636625241227081

Abstract
References
Biographies

Abstract

This article examines the visions of citizens’ ideal practices regarding technoscientific affairs in a democratic society, namely “imaginaries of model citizens,” that underlie three science and public initiatives: public understanding of science, public engagement in science, and citizen science. While imaginaries of citizens are performative and necessary to these initiatives, they are often relegated to the background. I argue that such imaginaries are the result of a complex of perceptions on the nature of science, the role of democracy in scientific activities, and the form of “democratizing” science. The imaginary of model citizens in public understanding of science is of literate citizens who should know science sufficiently, use it in daily life, and support science; in public engagement in science, the model citizen is a responsible one who should engage in the governance of technoscientific issues; and in citizen science, a contributive one who should partake in and enjoy creating scientific knowledge.

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Biographies

Wanheng Hu is a PhD candidate in Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University, where he is also doing a graduate minor in Media Studies. His research lies at the intersection of social studies of science and technology, medical sociology, critical data/algorithm studies, and public engagement with science. His dissertation project ethnographically examines the cultivation of credible machine learning systems in expert practices, with an empirical focus on image-based diagnostics within the Chinese medical artificial intelligence industry.

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