Science and the Media : Alternative Routes to Scientific Communications

ISBN-13: 9780415189521 / Angielski / Twarda / 1998 / 195 str.

Massimiano Bucchi

Opis

In these days of global warming and BSE, science is increasingly a public issue. But what should scientists communicate to the general public? To what extent can the public understand and be involved in scientific debate? How does this involvement affect the shaping and organization of scientific activity? Why do scientists sometimes turn to the media and publicize their findings rather than communicating their findings only with their peers? This text provides a theoretical framework which answers all these questions and allows us to understand why and how scientists address the general public.

Recenzje

'...an interesting contribution to the continuing attempts to offer a model of science-media relations...' - Public Understanding of Science

Spis treści

1. Introduction 1.1 The canonical account 1.2 The social representation of scientific theories 1.3 A communication continuum 1.4 Cognitive trajectories and their obstacles 1.5 The popular stage and its implications 2. When Scientists turn to the public 2.1 When scientists turn to the public 2.2 Metaphors, paradoxes and boundary objects in public communication of science 2.3 Metaphors in science 2.4 Constitutive and popular metaphors 2.5 Metaphors and paradoxes 2.6 Paradox in science 2.7 Boundary objects 3. Case studies 3.0 Preliminary remarks 3.1 Making and unmaking science in public: The Cold Fusion case 3.1.1 Not just 'hyped' science 3.1.2 Signs of (con) fusion 3.1.3 Cold fusion and public communication 3.1.4 Cold fusion and the Italian daily press 3.1.5 In and out of the public level 3.1.6 The ways of deconstruction Appendix A Appendix B Illustrations 3.2 A public explosion: Big Bang Theory in the UK daily press 3.2.1 A public explosion 3.2.2 A brief history of the universe 3.2.3 COBE takes off 3.2.4 More than a Big Bang 3.2.5 Big Bang and the public 3.2.6 Crisis, what crisis? 3.2.7 Big Bang as a boundary object 3.3 The public science of Louis Pasteur: The public experiment on anthrax in the popular press of the time 3.3.1 Prologue: A short story of the Pouilly-le-Fort trial 3.3.2 A celebrated experiment 3.3.3 The law of similars 3.3.4 On animals, for animals 3.3.5 The medical congress 3.3.6 Homeopathy and vivesection 3.3.7 The vaccination debate 3.3.8 The uses of a public experiment 4. Lines and tensions 4.1 Deviation as an exposure of the backstage 4.2 Public communication and boundary configurations 4.3 Mapping deviation 4.4 The second axis References

O autorze

Massimiano Bucchi is Professor of Science and Technology in Society at the University of Trento, Italy.