class 20: revision

Sarah started this class by writing up a blank timeline: 1985 at one end of the whiteboard, 2007 at the other. She asked the class to tell her where major developments in science communication would go within it. PUS, and events such as the Bodmer report ended up at one end, with PEST at the other. You might find the overview on this page a neat summary.

I then tried to synthesise some of the rest of term one in reference to a sightly 'sensational' story on bird flu. To quote Gregory and Miller on this topic:

sensationalism and gee-whizzary... [is] not a punishment inflicted on science stories by disdainful or malicious journalists. It arises in science journalism because of the rhetorical conventions of popularization (Gregory & Miller, 1998, 116-7)

This points us towards thinking about news values, and other contextual differences between the cultures producing news language and those constructing scientific discourse. It's also worth thinking about the specific context of the issue covered - are stories on MMR a different case from 'Climate Porn'?

In some ways linked to this, I also discussed questions around science and fiction. I went through the opinions of a variety of thinkers on the topic (e.g. Russell Stannard, Joan Solomon, Rosalind Haynes) and emphasised that students should take a developed approach to considering audience effects (an issue which is worth keeping in mind across the course)

Sarah then put some of term two together, by considering each of the specific media we've looked at.

• Museums
• The Internet
• Popular Science
• Documentary
• Education

She asked the class to list specific issues relating to these media, and what topics (such as boundary work, structure, interactivity, etc) might be an issue across them.

Climate Change - comment & win

In class this week, I gave a print out of this piece on "Climate Porn". The idea was going to be to get you to summarise the reasons why emphasising risks of climate change is a bad thing, as well as considering reasons for sensationalism. We didn't have time for this, but I thought we could discuss it here.

So, press on the yellow "comments" link at the end of the post and give your reasons for and against sensationalism in risk reporting. You might like to read the article linked to above (and the comments - it's a blog entry) but you don't have to.

As incentive, before next week's class I'll write down the name of all the students who comment, and draw one at random to get a (chocolate based) prize. If there are lots of comments, I might draw out a few names (I'll see if the holiday spirit catches me). If you put more than one comment, you will be entered twice, so it's worth checking back to debate your points further.

The picture is meant to be a "baked" person (from climate change. Sorry, bad link...).

Session 9: risk (and intro to science policy)

We started with a debate, asking whether scientists are the best people to make decisions about science policy. If anyone wants to continue/ join this (with ideas on why scientists should or should not be the people to make policy decisions over science) we can start a thread in the comments to this post.

In terms of lecture content, we went through some key ideas in science policy and gave a brief overview of the topic of risk, especially issues of risk reporting in the media. All of this is covered in the handout (see WebCT). If anyone missed the class, read the chapter on "The ABC of Risk" in Gregory & Miller.

If anyone was particularly inspired by the topic of risk, Les Levidow is talking about GM issues at UCL this evening, details here.

I'm sorry if today was a bit rushed, I stupidly planned for a double session. I'm going to turn the activity we didn't get a chance to do (on sensationalism) into a blog entry - watch this space.

Newton's Apple

Did anyone hear about the recent launch of Newton's Apple? It's a think tank aiming to promote a better relationship between science, society and politics.

Their site has a few mini-essays on science and society issues, by various great and good (e.g. our Rector). They are a mixed bunch, but this piece by Ben Goldacre about science media scares is quite relevant to issues covered in class this term.

news values climate change

The news media is often accused of sensationalism, especially around science issues. A really interesting example of this recently was the IPPR report accusing the media of "climate porn".

But if sensationalism is all the consequence of news values, are the media excused? I think climate change is an interesting case study in this. The IPPR say the sensationalism over climate change is dangerous because the public think it's too late to do anything. But then maybe we need things exaggerated to scare us into small changes. And it's not as if scientific opinion is especially settled over how close we are to environmental armageddon.

Is there a place for sensationalism? If so where? Warning: one of the press release assignments last year was marked down quite severely for being "too sensationalist" (not by me, but you have been warned).

p.s. apologies about the WebCT problems. We've been assured that students just need to advice here and here, and if there are still problems contact IS.