HPSC2002: Science in the Mass Media

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HPSC2002 Science in the Mass Media

• Lecture Two Models and Concepts
• Thursday 22nd January 2009
• Course Website
• http//www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/lock/hpsc2002.htm

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For and against science popularisation

• Reasons to
• Enlightenment
• Empower people
• Professionalisation
• Get funding
• Money and fame
• Exhibit achievement

• Reasons not to
• Better things to do
• Stirs up the masses
• Corrupt science knowledge
• Threaten private sphere for science
• Disapproval from colleagues
• Give ideas to competitors

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Unwritten rules of science popularisation by
scientists

• Scientist must first have reputation as credible
  researcher
• Popularisation should only follow professional
  publications
• Scientist should popularise only after productive
  research life is over
• Stick to area of expertise
• Act only to improve the image of science
• Avoid extremes of opinion

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Science popularisation

• Science popularisation not just about
  communication to the masses
• Hilgartner
• Scientists use popularisation for social and
  political purposes
• Reinforce allegiances and convert opponents
• Other scientists can be potential audience for
  popular accounts of science
• But can also lose credibility as populariser
• Popularisation can define a field -
  autobiographical function
• Lewenstein
• Popularisation can be used to resolve scientific
  controversies because popular media communicate
  quicker than the professional scientific media
• Used to muster funds and political/social
  approval

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Why improve PUS?

• Reasons? Fall into three categories
• Democratic argument
• E.g. members of a technological culture need some
  understanding to participate as citizens
• Cultural argument
• E.g. science is a proud intellectual achievement
  of humankind, like art and literature
• Practical argument
• E.g. science has immediate personal application
  to everyday problems
• Better understanding provides better workforce,
  and national prosperity
• Public better able to demarcate between science
  and pseudoscience
• Lewenstein more about public appreciation of
  science than understanding?

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What do we mean by the public?

• To scientists it tends to refer to anyone who is
  not a scientist, or know nothing about science.
• Question of who is a lay-person is not simple.
• Think of expertise of a nuclear physicist in
  relation to a marine biologist.
• They are lay-people to each other.
• Line between expert and lay-person is
  flexible and dynamic
• Public is a social and political body
• Any free people who come together to undertake
  common action as a result of interaction
  (communication)
• Place where this happens is the public sphere.
• No entry qualifications, cannot be defined by
  what people do or do not know
• Habermas claims the press is the pre-eminent
  institution of the public sphere in its ideal
  form

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Two different models of the public

• Athenian model
• Engaged, active public
• Democratic
• Scope for answering back
• Public interest and opinion leads to social
  action
• Citizens interests
• Web model

• Roman Model
• The masses
• Hierarchical
• Passive public
• Public recipients of information/entertainment,
  but no social action
• No scope for answering back
• Private interests
• Dominant model

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A deficit model of PUS

• Social scientists very critical of what they
  called the deficit model of public understanding
  of science that underlay their PUS movement
• Public passive and ignorant (deficient in
  scientific knowledge)
• Takes no account of how knowledge fits with
  preexisting attitudes and knowledge
• Fits with scientists idea of the public and
  science communication (dominant model)

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How do scientists think about the media?

• The transmission model
• SENDER ? TRANSMITTER ? RECEIVER
• Sociologist Lasswell puts it into words
• Who says what to whom, through what channel and
  with what effect?
• Simple model which assumes perfect transmission
  and reception of a message - but very predominant
  still.

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The dominant model

• Science
• Media
• Public

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The dominant model of science communication

• Science is seen as an avenue of access to
  assured findings, and scientists - in the
  dissemination of these findings - as the initial
  sources.
• The members of the laity are understood purely
  as recipients of this information.
• Journalists and public relations personnel are
  viewed as intermediaries through which the
  scientific findings filter.
• The task of science communication is to transmit
  as much information as possible with maximum
  fidelity.
• Dornan, 1990

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Hilgartner, 1990
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Lewensteins Web model of science communication
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PUS Seminar Event
LONDON PUS SEMINAR 28 JANUARY 2009 at LSE Dr Ben
Goldacre BAD SCIENCE Wednesday 28th January,
1830-2000 Sheikh Zayed theatre, New Academic
Building(This is a large lecture theatre in a
building that runs between Kingswayand Lincoln's
Inn Fields, at Sardinia Street.)