Open digital infrastructures for bridging professional cultures: the case of extreme citizen science between journalism and research

Abstract

In this paper, we suggest framing citizen science projects as interprofessional collaborations. We first focus on one case study − the PLACES project − implementing three “extreme citizen science” collaborations between social scientists and journalists. We then show that in order to enable successful collaborations, participants need to be supported in aligning their professional practices, goals, and ways of framing the research problem. In the second part, with insights from another project (COESO), we show how dedicated infrastructures, understood as social and technical ecosystems, can support the creation of communities of practice, thus bridging the gap between the professional cultures of the people involved in citizen science endeavours. Another key condition for the success of extreme citizen science projects relies on the projects’ governance, which can be influenced by the infrastructures’ design.