Latin American Network for Scientific Culture (RedLCC): A Regional Science Communication Initiative

Scientific communication has been growing strong worldwide in the past decades. The use of modern data analysis tools to fine-tune its content, strategy, and effectiveness, together with the significative rise of social media, have contributed to such significative growth (Kappel and Holmen, 2019). Social media (such as blogs and microblogging) are powerful engines greatly incorporated into our daily lives for capturing information and as a social tool. As such, they are already being exploited for learning, discovering, searching, storing, and sharing knowledge (Lopez-Goni and Sanchez-Angulo, 2018). Research has shown that online media use increases scientific knowledge (Cacciatore et al., 2014; Su et al., 2015) and positive attitudes toward science (Dudo et al., 2011) therefore enhancing the learning and science process skills. Such scientific knowledge is a critical resource that enables political actors to inform and legitimate political decisions, and it is also important for non-scientific audiences in terms of forming public opinion about important political issues (Huber et al., 2019). Moreover, previous work has demonstrated that democratic societies that are scientifically literate make equitable choices regarding science-related policy issues (European Commission, 1995; Rudolph and Horibe, 2016). Thus, according to Marquez and Porras (2020), effective science communication and science literacy are socioeconomically imperative for all societies. At the same time, Science Communication can serve various diplomatic purposes. Particularly, science popularization initiatives, even when not targeted to policymakers or diplomats, can both raise awareness about international scientific cooperation and about locally produced science and technology which could be highly overlooked (Leach, 2015). English is currently the lingua franca of science. Currently, 98% of publications in science are written in English (Ramirez-Castaneda, 2020). This has facilitated the dissemination of knowledge across boundaries, but at the same time, the hegemony of English in science promotes and enforces the imposition of just one cultural point of view over others (Marquez and Porras, 2020). Because of that, generating science communication multilinguistic alternatives promotes diversity and creates culturally relevant content. Science communication in Spanish is especially imperative in Latin America. The intrinsic functional illiteracy, framed in the lack of economic and educational resources, inequality, poverty, political and social instability, are historical challenges that keep this region from unleashing its full potential (UNESCO, 2020). Moreover, and due to these issues, Latin America faces a human capital flight crisis, in which a high percentage of the individuals pursuing higher academic education end up emigrating and learning a second language. This is reflected in a marked lack of availability of educational resources in Spanish addressed to Latin American communities. Nevertheless, there have been efforts to build remote networks of Latin American scientists and science communicators that come together to counteract this effect. Three renown projects, different in nature, can be used as examples. First, the RedPop (Latin American and Caribbean Network for the Popularization of Science and Technology https://www.redpop.org) is a network of centers and programs created in 1990 at the request of UNESCO's program for Science, Technology and Society (Massarani et al., 2015). It encompasses around 80 science communication projects in different media platforms, but also science museums, interactive science centers, natural history museums, environmental parks, zoos, botanical gardens, and aquariums. Second, the bilingual science communication portal Latin American Science (www.latinamericanscience.org) publishes pieces written by scientist and science writers for the public both in Spanish and English-speaking countries. It focuses on regionally produced research, science policy and science-related stories from the region. And third, the Journal of Science Communication JCOM America Latina (https://jcomal.sissa.it/jcomal/index.jsp), an open access journal focused on science communication in Latin America and publishing contributions in Spanish and Portuguese (Weitkamp and Massarani, 2018). Still, more opportunities need to exist in term of communicating science with regional relevance. Blogs and social media platforms, which are especially open and easily accessible resources, have fantastic potential to address this gap since it is allowing information and education to reach every home to an unprecedented extent. One of these regional initiatives, the Latin American Network for Scientific Culture (RedLCC), brings together regional scientists that communicate science for Latin American communities and, in consequence, also nurtures the “Science for Diplomacy” dimension of Science Diplomacy.