Call for papers for no. 19 (2026)

Thematic issue (no. 19, Dec. 2026)

Science Communication: the new place of communicating science in public spaces

 

In recent decades, science communication has gained prominence and has been called upon to take part in reflections on the importance of science in society and on the relationship between the two in the construction of knowledge, as well as on the need to communicate science to non-specialist audiences. Beyond its informative and communicative function, public communication of science plays an essential role in the social legitimation of science, expanding its meanings and domains beyond institutional and academic contexts.

Considering the role that new technologies and forms of communication have assumed in social life, especially with the expansion of digital media, public communication of science has contributed to redefining the ways in which science and society relate to each other. In these spaces, new communication strategies, formats, and multimodal genres emerge, producing tensions between the boundaries of specialized and common knowledge, between the disseminator and the audience, and between new and traditional ways of publicly communicating science.

In a journal dedicated to discourse studies, this issue aims to gather works that discuss public communication of science as a situated discursive practice, one that occupies — and dialogues with — distinct spheres of social life, such as politics, education, art and journalism, across the various spaces in which it develops, whether digital or not.

The thematic issue will welcome articles addressing this phenomenon in its multiple linguistic and discursive materialities, from different theoretical perspectives: discourse analysis (in its various strands), text linguistics, argumentation studies, pragmatics, rhetoric, and language studies at the interface with communication and digital culture.

Our aim is to foster debate on the public communication of science and on the new forms of participation and social engagement that emerge in the context of citizen science, in which researchers and publics share the construction and circulation of scientific knowledge.

 

Submission deadline: 01 June 2026

Expected publication date: Dec. 2026

 

Guest Editor:

Professor Dr. Urbano Cavalcante Filho
Federal Institute of Bahia, Brazil / State University of Santa Cruz, Brazil
urbano@ifba.edu.br
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1429-5300
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Urbano-Filho