HPSC1008: Introduction to Science Communication

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HPSC1008 Introduction to Science Communication

• Simon Lock
• Lecture 1
• Monday 29th Sept

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Course Structure

• Lecture - Mondays 10am - 11am
• Seminar - Either
• Thursday 11am - 12pm
• Thursday 12pm - 1pm
• You only need attend one seminar.
• You will have a task/research to do between the
  lecture and the seminar each week.

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Coursework

• Counts for 50 of final mark
• Notebook (25)
• A weekly write up (about 500 words) of the main
  points from the lecture, your research, and
  subsequent analysis/seminar discussions.
• Must be handed in at the end of term
• Your research materials must be handed in with
  it. (e.g. newspaper clippings, adverts etc)
• Project (25)
• Self selected project on one aspect of the
  course.
• Topic to be selected after reading week in
  consultation with Simon
• 2000 words
• Due in with Notebook on Monday 15th December.

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• 80 percent of success is showing up.
• Woody Allen

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Core Text - Science in Public

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Seminar Groups

• Group A - Thurs 11-12
• Folshade Akinmolayan
• Nabila Aslam
• Michael Birhane
• Heidi Chai
• Faen Tracey
• Wanhee Cho
• Gerard Cohen
• Hannah Davis
• Emily Fisher
• Jacob Furtwaengler
• Sandy Gilfillian
• Robert Hakimian
• Anton Hieber

• Group B - Thurs 12 - 1
• Jake Higgins
• Sadia Hussen
• Alessandra Liguori
• May Lim
• Irene Moncada
• Mariam Omisore
• Eilidgh Lousie Rankin
• Veronika Raszler
• Benjamin Robinson - Young
• Sharon Schnarch
• Felicia Thomas
• Chern Yee

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Science in Public

• Going to need some definitions
• What is science?
• What is the public?
• Space? (e.g. public sphere, a public garden)
• People? (who is a member of the public?)
• Opinion? (what is public opinion?)
• Equally - relationship with concept of private?

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Some features of the public sphere

• Reason vs. irrationality
• Male vs. female
• Site of history
• Communication key to establishment of
  commonalities between people
• these people form a public

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Public as site of affirmation

• Certain activities held in public to allow
  collective affirmation of events, or legitimacy
  of certain decisions
• e.g the monarchy, coronations etc
• Courts of law, sentencing, juries
• Sporting events

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Science in public?

• A lot of science happens behind closed doors
• Is it therefore private?
• What about publicly funded science - accountable
  to the public?
• Legitimacy of scientific work involves lots of
  professional communication
• Peer reviewed journals
• Conferences
• Explicit functions - Sharing of knowledge,
  collective affirmation of experiments, theories
• Implicit functions - status, power, funding,
  career progression
• So why do scientists communicate with anyone
  outside of science?

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Science popularisation

• Plenty of different motives for why scientists
  popularise science (e.g. communicate to non
  scientists in public sphere)
• Enlightenment ideals - spread of knowledge makes
  world and people better
• Personal reasons - fame, glory, money
• Expertise - claims to expert status (believe me,
  not them!)
• Lots of different public spaces where we see
  science being communicated, variety of different
  motivations behind it.

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Research Task - Week One

• Find three examples of different pieces of
  science communication, in three different public
  contexts
• (only one can be from news media)
• Think about
• Who is it aimed at? (e.g. who is its public)
• What is it trying to achieve?
• Is it successful?

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Where does sci comm happen?

• Universities
• Government Laboratories
• Hospitals
• Commercial Companies
• NGOs/charities
• Popular culture (film, fiction, comic books)
• News media
• Food packaging