When citizen science is public relations

• Published in: Social Studies of Science
• Main Authors: Blacker, Sarah, Kimura, Aya H, Kinchy, Abby
• Other Authors: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publications 2021
• Subjects: Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/03063127211027662; https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/03063127211027662; https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/03063127211027662

Amid rising interest in participatory research, some industries have recently begun to practice public relations citizen science (PRCS). Unlike citizen science and crowdsourcing projects that generate raw materials for product development, PRCS benefits capitalist firms primarily by improving their public image and deflecting accusations of causing harm. Three cases illustrate how PRCS works: (1) a growing assortment of citizen science projects associated with Antarctic tourism, (2) an initiative to document biodiversity, linked to Canada’s oil and gas industry, and (3) a study sponsored by Biology Fortified, a nonprofit organization that works to communicate positive information about agricultural biotechnology. Scientists and research organizations may have legitimate reasons for entering into these partnerships, but PRCS can benefit industries in problematic ways. First, by supporting environmental science, PRCS can attach a ‘sustainable’ image to a polluting industry, without changing its core practices. Second, PRCS can accumulate data and steer volunteers’ observations in ways that undermine claims about the harms caused by the industry’s practices or products. Finally, in some cases, PRCS organizers hope to induce people to view an industry more ‘rationally’ than those who make ‘emotional’ or ‘ideological’ claims about its harms.