Structural Model of Scientific Communications

Abstract

The article focuses on the importance of scientific communication as a mandatory attribute of science, a factor of its effectiveness and development. The purpose of the article is to present a structural model of scientific communications that can serve as the basis for describing their landscape: channels, characteristics, disturbances, determinants and space. The basis of the scientist’s activity consists of two complementary processes: 1) generation and comprehension of own hypotheses and thoughts; 2) dialogue, interaction with other scientists for the discussion and mutual enrichment in cognition. The science is understood as a creative work of free personalities, and the scientific communication is presented as a dialogue taking into account the factors (of the landscape) where it takes place. A key element of communication is a message. Solitude and discussion complement each other in the scientist work. The article considers two types of scientific communications: 1 – communications of scientists within the scientific community; 2 – communication of scientists with the public. Different purposes of these types of communications are highlighted. It is noted that each type of communication has its own purposes, characteristics, channels and disturbances. They form a landscape of scientific communications together, encompassing different target audiences. A structural model of scientific communications which describes the interaction between communicators on the basis of their thesauruses is proposed; it covers possible channels, characteristics, disturbances, synergy manifestations. A dialogue of communicators with a change in the thesaurus based on the models is shown. A formal view of scientific communication structural model is presented, encompassing participants, their thesauruses and communication space. The parameters of the latter are environment, communication process characteristics, disturbances of the communication process, synergy of the dialogue participants. The special aspects of information technologies using, in particular the Internet, to ensure scientific communication are shown.