Alice Fleerackers
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 3079923 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Alice Fleerackers |
| PRENOMES | Alice |
| SOBRENOME | Fleerackers |
| ASSINATURA | FLEERACKERS A |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Simon Fraser University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7182-4061 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 22 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 1 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 22 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2020 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 1 |
How Moderation Makes Science
As preprint servers proliferate across scientific fields, moderation has emerged as a lightly structured form of gatekeeping that precedes—or bypasses—peer review. This article examines moderation as a site of precautionary valuation and boundary-making in the early circulation of research. Drawing on interviews with 14 individuals responsible for screening and oversight across 13 preprint servers, we analyze both the evaluative logics that organ…
Walking the line
Harassment, political interference, and violence against science communication are on the rise and pose considerable challenges for scientists, journalists, communicators, and institutions. In this commentary, we — an international group of researchers and practitioners — reflect on how scientists, science communicators and their institutions can balance the increased demand for meaningful public engagement while also appropriately responding to …
Transitions in science communication
Science News Agencies in science communication
Scientific press releases are reaching the public directly through press reproduction and institutional dissemination. Science News Agencies (SNAs) mediate this process, distributing texts to thousands of journalists while also "leaking" them on their websites and social media. This comparative case study examines four SNAs — BORI, SMC UK, AlphaGalileo, and EurekAlert! — regarding their role in circulating public scientific information. Through l…
Holding Science to Account
This study examines how journalists act as “watchdogs” of science through 21 semi-structured interviews with journalists who have reported on research integrity issues. It illuminates the time- and labor-intensive nature of this form of journalism, which often requires multiple interviews and extensive document research to reach a sufficient threshold of evidence. As a result, the feasibility of potential stories sometimes plays a bigger role in …
Public understanding of preprints
News reporting of preprints became commonplace during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet the extent to which the public understands what preprints are is unclear. We sought to fill this gap by conducting a content analysis of 1702 definitions of the term “preprint” that were generated by the US general population and college students. We found that only about one in five people were able to define preprints in ways that align with scholarly conceptualiza…
I’d Like to Think I’d Be Able to Spot One”
Amplifying the News
Using Preprint Sources in Science News
This study tested whether the transparent use of preprint sources affects the perceived credibility of science news and scientists. In an experiment, U.S. adults read a news report describing COVID-19 research as a “preprint” (with varying levels of detail) or as simply a “study.” There were no main effects of disclosing preprint status, but indirect effects emerged. For those who noticed the disclosure, both brief and fuller depictions of a stud…
Open Data in Data Journalism
Background: In this commentary, we argue that it is time for communication scholars to turn their attention to how and why data journalists engage with the increasing amount of open research and government data available online. Analysis: We review the limited scholarship that has investigated data journalists’ engagement with open data and suggest directions for future research. Conclusions and implications: Research that explicitly examines dat…
The impact of Covid-19 on the debate on open science
This study is an analysis of the international debate on open science that took place during the pandemic. It addresses the question, how did the COVID-19 pandemic impact the debate on open science? The study takes the form of a qualitative analysis of a large corpus of key articles, editorials, blogs and thought pieces about the impact of COVID on open science, published during the pandemic in English, German, Portuguese, and Spanish. The findin…
Bridging science communication and open science—Working inclusively toward the common good
The 2020–2022 pandemic highlighted concerns about “information disorders”, pressing for approaches capable of guiding the science-society alliance toward a mutually beneficial direction. This essay advocates for and presents a framework proposing the combination of Open Science (OS) and Science Communication (SciComm) practices. OS encourages public access to scientific material, while SciComm has historically enabled public understanding of scie…
Framing Covid-19 Preprint Research as Uncertain
During the COVID-19 pandemic, journalists were encouraged to convey uncertainty surrounding preliminary scientific evidence, including mentioning when research is unpublished or unverified by peer review. To understand how public audiences interpret this information, we conducted a mixed method study with U.S. adults. Participants read a news article about preprint COVID-19 vaccine research in early April 2021, just as the vaccine was becoming wi…
‘My doctor self and my human self’
Unreviewed science in the news
It has been argued that preprint coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic constituted a paradigm shift in journalism norms and practices. This study examines whether and in what ways this is the case using a sample of 11,538 preprints posted on four preprint servers—bioRxiv, medRxiv, arXiv, and SSRN—that received coverage in 94 English-language media outlets between 2014 and 2021. We compared mentions of these preprints with mentions of a comparison…
Second-order citations in altmetrics
The potential to capture the societal impact of research has been a driving motivation for the use and development of altmetrics. Yet, to date, altmetrics have largely failed to deliver on this potential because the primary audience that cites research on social media has been shown to be academics themselves. In response, our study investigates an extension of traditional altmetric approaches that goes beyond capturing direct mentions of researc…
Academic explanatory journalism and emerging Covid-19 science
This article examines the public communication of COVID-19-related ‘preprints’ (unreviewed research studies) in a digital media environment. To understand how preprint research flows from preprint server, to media story, to social media audience, we analysed engagement with ‘second-order citations’ – social media posts linking to media coverage of research – using a sample of 41 media stories published by the research amplifier platform The Conve…
Stark Decline in Journalists’ Use of Preprints Postpandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the use of preprints, aiding rapid research dissemination but also facilitating the spread of misinformation. This study analyzes media coverage of preprints from 2014 to 2023, revealing a significant postpandemic decline. Our findings suggest that heightened awareness of the risks associated with preprints has led to more cautious media practices. While the decline in preprint coverage may mitigate concerns abou…
Communicating Scientific Uncertainty in an Age of Covid-19
In this article, we investigate the surge in use of COVID-19-related preprints by media outlets. Journalists are a main source of reliable public health information during crises and, until recently, journalists have been reluctant to cover preprints because of the associated scientific uncertainty. Yet, uploads of COVID-19 preprints and their uptake by online media have outstripped that of preprints about any other topic. Using an innovative app…
Identifying science in the news
The company Altmetric is often used to collect mentions of research in online news stories, yet there have been concerns about the quality of this data. This study investigates these concerns. Using a manual content analysis of 400 news stories as a comparison method, we analyzed the precision and recall with which Altmetric identified mentions of research in 8 news outlets. We also used logistic regression to identify the characteristics of rese…
The Conversation, Ten Years On
The Conversation (theconversation.com) represents a unique model for communicating scholarly research to the general public via explanatory journalism. Rather than relying on scholars’ personal networks, the promotional efforts of university press offices, or requests from science journalists for comments on current developments, The Conversation offers a platform for scholars across all disciplines to pitch their own stories, gain support from i…
Framing Science
Popular news media play an instrumental role in shaping public perception of issues like the opioid crisis. Using a detailed coding instrument, we analyzed how opioid-related scholarly publications were covered in 149 news stories published by nine major US and Canadian online news outlets at the height of the crisis. We find that a small proportion of available studies receive coverage, mostly within issue-focused rather than science communicati…
Stark Decline in Journalists’ Use of Preprints Postpandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the use of preprints, aiding rapid research dissemination but also facilitating the spread of misinformation. This study analyzes media coverage of preprints from 2014 to 2023, revealing a significant postpandemic decline. Our findings suggest that heightened awareness of the risks associated with preprints has led to more cautious media practices. While the decline in preprint coverage may mitigate concerns abou…
Framing Science
Popular news media play an instrumental role in shaping public perception of issues like the opioid crisis. Using a detailed coding instrument, we analyzed how opioid-related scholarly publications were covered in 149 news stories published by nine major US and Canadian online news outlets at the height of the crisis. We find that a small proportion of available studies receive coverage, mostly within issue-focused rather than science communicati…
The Conversation, Ten Years On
The Conversation (theconversation.com) represents a unique model for communicating scholarly research to the general public via explanatory journalism. Rather than relying on scholars’ personal networks, the promotional efforts of university press offices, or requests from science journalists for comments on current developments, The Conversation offers a platform for scholars across all disciplines to pitch their own stories, gain support from i…
Communicating Scientific Uncertainty in an Age of Covid-19
In this article, we investigate the surge in use of COVID-19-related preprints by media outlets. Journalists are a main source of reliable public health information during crises and, until recently, journalists have been reluctant to cover preprints because of the associated scientific uncertainty. Yet, uploads of COVID-19 preprints and their uptake by online media have outstripped that of preprints about any other topic. Using an innovative app…
Identifying science in the news
The company Altmetric is often used to collect mentions of research in online news stories, yet there have been concerns about the quality of this data. This study investigates these concerns. Using a manual content analysis of 400 news stories as a comparison method, we analyzed the precision and recall with which Altmetric identified mentions of research in 8 news outlets. We also used logistic regression to identify the characteristics of rese…
The impact of Covid-19 on the debate on open science
This study is an analysis of the international debate on open science that took place during the pandemic. It addresses the question, how did the COVID-19 pandemic impact the debate on open science? The study takes the form of a qualitative analysis of a large corpus of key articles, editorials, blogs and thought pieces about the impact of COVID on open science, published during the pandemic in English, German, Portuguese, and Spanish. The findin…
Bridging science communication and open science—Working inclusively toward the common good
The 2020–2022 pandemic highlighted concerns about “information disorders”, pressing for approaches capable of guiding the science-society alliance toward a mutually beneficial direction. This essay advocates for and presents a framework proposing the combination of Open Science (OS) and Science Communication (SciComm) practices. OS encourages public access to scientific material, while SciComm has historically enabled public understanding of scie…
Framing Covid-19 Preprint Research as Uncertain
During the COVID-19 pandemic, journalists were encouraged to convey uncertainty surrounding preliminary scientific evidence, including mentioning when research is unpublished or unverified by peer review. To understand how public audiences interpret this information, we conducted a mixed method study with U.S. adults. Participants read a news article about preprint COVID-19 vaccine research in early April 2021, just as the vaccine was becoming wi…
‘My doctor self and my human self’
Unreviewed science in the news
It has been argued that preprint coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic constituted a paradigm shift in journalism norms and practices. This study examines whether and in what ways this is the case using a sample of 11,538 preprints posted on four preprint servers—bioRxiv, medRxiv, arXiv, and SSRN—that received coverage in 94 English-language media outlets between 2014 and 2021. We compared mentions of these preprints with mentions of a comparison…
Second-order citations in altmetrics
The potential to capture the societal impact of research has been a driving motivation for the use and development of altmetrics. Yet, to date, altmetrics have largely failed to deliver on this potential because the primary audience that cites research on social media has been shown to be academics themselves. In response, our study investigates an extension of traditional altmetric approaches that goes beyond capturing direct mentions of researc…
Academic explanatory journalism and emerging Covid-19 science
This article examines the public communication of COVID-19-related ‘preprints’ (unreviewed research studies) in a digital media environment. To understand how preprint research flows from preprint server, to media story, to social media audience, we analysed engagement with ‘second-order citations’ – social media posts linking to media coverage of research – using a sample of 41 media stories published by the research amplifier platform The Conve…
Stark Decline in Journalists’ Use of Preprints Postpandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the use of preprints, aiding rapid research dissemination but also facilitating the spread of misinformation. This study analyzes media coverage of preprints from 2014 to 2023, revealing a significant postpandemic decline. Our findings suggest that heightened awareness of the risks associated with preprints has led to more cautious media practices. While the decline in preprint coverage may mitigate concerns abou…
Public understanding of preprints
News reporting of preprints became commonplace during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet the extent to which the public understands what preprints are is unclear. We sought to fill this gap by conducting a content analysis of 1702 definitions of the term “preprint” that were generated by the US general population and college students. We found that only about one in five people were able to define preprints in ways that align with scholarly conceptualiza…
I’d Like to Think I’d Be Able to Spot One”
Amplifying the News
Using Preprint Sources in Science News
This study tested whether the transparent use of preprint sources affects the perceived credibility of science news and scientists. In an experiment, U.S. adults read a news report describing COVID-19 research as a “preprint” (with varying levels of detail) or as simply a “study.” There were no main effects of disclosing preprint status, but indirect effects emerged. For those who noticed the disclosure, both brief and fuller depictions of a stud…
Open Data in Data Journalism
Background: In this commentary, we argue that it is time for communication scholars to turn their attention to how and why data journalists engage with the increasing amount of open research and government data available online. Analysis: We review the limited scholarship that has investigated data journalists’ engagement with open data and suggest directions for future research. Conclusions and implications: Research that explicitly examines dat…
How Moderation Makes Science
As preprint servers proliferate across scientific fields, moderation has emerged as a lightly structured form of gatekeeping that precedes—or bypasses—peer review. This article examines moderation as a site of precautionary valuation and boundary-making in the early circulation of research. Drawing on interviews with 14 individuals responsible for screening and oversight across 13 preprint servers, we analyze both the evaluative logics that organ…
Walking the line
Harassment, political interference, and violence against science communication are on the rise and pose considerable challenges for scientists, journalists, communicators, and institutions. In this commentary, we — an international group of researchers and practitioners — reflect on how scientists, science communicators and their institutions can balance the increased demand for meaningful public engagement while also appropriately responding to …
Transitions in science communication
Science News Agencies in science communication
Scientific press releases are reaching the public directly through press reproduction and institutional dissemination. Science News Agencies (SNAs) mediate this process, distributing texts to thousands of journalists while also "leaking" them on their websites and social media. This comparative case study examines four SNAs — BORI, SMC UK, AlphaGalileo, and EurekAlert! — regarding their role in circulating public scientific information. Through l…
Holding Science to Account
This study examines how journalists act as “watchdogs” of science through 21 semi-structured interviews with journalists who have reported on research integrity issues. It illuminates the time- and labor-intensive nature of this form of journalism, which often requires multiple interviews and extensive document research to reach a sufficient threshold of evidence. As a result, the feasibility of potential stories sometimes plays a bigger role in …
Computer Science (13 obras) · World Wide Web (12 obras) · Political science (11 obras) · Sociology (11 obras) · Academic Publishing and Open Access (10 obras) · scientometrics and bibliometrics research (10 obras) · Social Media in Health Education (9 obras) · Media studies (8 obras) · Medicine (8 obras) · Preprint (8 obras)