Writing a ‘popular science' book (original) (raw)
Related papers
Popularization in action: Small stories of scientific expertise
This study examines news interviews with scientific experts for the stories they occasion so as to present their research to media audiences. Interactions between scientists and hosts are examined in a corpus of interviews with scientific experts broadcasted live on Israeli television with the “small stories” approach that looks at storytelling as talk -in-interaction that is tailored to participants’ agendas. Popularization is typically studied as a form of translation or diffusion of scientific knowledge adapted from academic sources for popular consumption. Popularization studies have examined how academic knowledge is disseminated and contextualized in different formats and genres and the role of professional or amateur mediators in making science public. While previous studies have looked into popularization narratives as packaged for popular consumption, this article looks at their occasioning in relation to the agendas of researchers and journalists. Experts are found to structure many accounts as tellings of ongoing events or hypothetical scenarios and reference their research, practices, or the entities they study. These stories are shown to support a positive presentation of the findings communicated while distancing the experts from exaggerated or future-oriented claims that their hosts are understood to be drawing.
The Social Role of Popularized Science
2004
In this thesis I will argue that popularized science books should adhere to normative criteria regarding the presentation, interpretation, and understanding of the natural sciences. The increasing popularity of popular science texts (PSTs)-based on sales, critical notice, and scholarly attention-indicates that they can function to interest and partially educate the lay public in scientific principals and practices. I will identify and analyze the narrative, rhetorical features of two popular science texts: Douglas Adams' Last Chance to See and Alan Lightman's Einstein's Dreams. These texts are selected based on a series of normative criteria, criteria constructed for the purpose of enhancing the public understanding of science. Additionally, these criteria are needed to help the lay public develop a proper appreciation of science. A proper appreciation of science, I argue, enables people to make better informed decisions regarding their own personal welfare and also that of the natural world. Finally, a proper appreciation of science, stimulated by PSTs, may help both scientists and the lay public reconceive the possibilities of narrative, public writing, and civic discourse.
WP216 Armon & Georgakopoulou 2017. Popularization in action: Small stories of scientific expertise
This study examines news interviews with scientific experts for the stories they occasion so as to present their research to media audiences. Interactions between scientists and hosts are examined in a corpus of interviews with scientific experts broadcasted live on Israeli television with the " small stories " approach that looks at storytelling as talk-in-interaction that is tailored to participants' agendas. Popularization is typically studied as a form of translation or diffusion of scientific knowledge adapted from academic sources for popular consumption. Popularization studies have examined how academic knowledge is disseminated and contextualized in different formats and genres and the role of professional or amateur mediators in making science public. While previous studies have looked into popularization narratives as packaged for popular consumption, this article looks at their occasioning in relation to the agendas of researchers and journalists. Experts are found to structure many accounts as tellings of ongoing events or hypothetical scenarios and reference their research, practices, or the entities they study. These stories are shown to support a positive presentation of the findings communicated while distancing the experts from exaggerated or future-oriented claims that their hosts are understood to be drawing.
Scientists and public communication: A survey of popular science publishing across 15 countries
2011
This study is a cross-national empirical analysis of popular science publishing among university staff in a 13-country sample. The countries included in the study are: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, the UK and the USA. The study seeks to quantify the extent of popular science publishing and its relationship with scientific publishing. Popular science publishing was measured as the number of articles written by scientists in newspapers and magazines over the three-year period 2005-07. Our findings suggest that popular science publishing is undertaken by a minority of academic staff and to a far lesser extent than scientific publishing. Despite the arguably fewer rewards associated with publishing for the non-specialist public, our data suggests that academic staff with popular publications have higher levels of scientific publishing and academic rank. The positive relationship between scientific and popular publishing is consistent across all countries and academic fields. The extent of popular science publishing varies with field and country.
and notably in a Cold War context -public communication and literacy in science became government policy issues. More recently, and increasingly rapidly, this explicit concern with public communication of science in policy, educational and scientific circles has spread through other social sectors and around the world. Public communication of science is a recognised policy issue and an object of study and analysis across the globe. Scientific discoveries and research findings are constituted in the act of communication, that is, in publication for the attention and critical scrutiny of peers. Professional communication takes place by long-established means through academic journals, the best-known of which have continuous histories of over 150 years. The sociological and institutional characteristics of communication of science within and between scientific communities are distinct from those of public communication of science. This professional communication is sometimes referred to as 'scientific communication' to distinguish it from 'science communication', in which attention is given to the challenges of communicating often highly specialised and complex information with non-specialist members of the public. Based on this distinction there have grown sets of professional practices, of cultural institutions, of educational programmes and of research activity labelled as science communication, or some nearequivalent. Public communication of science has often been conceptualised in terms of gaps and bridges between scientists and their institutions, on the one hand, and the rest of society, on the other.
What the Public Thinks It Knows About Science
EMBO [European Molecular Biology Organization] Reports, 2003
Popular culture probably does more than formal science education to shape most people’s understanding of science and scientists. It is more pervasive, more eye-catching, and (with rare exceptions) more memorable. No genetics textbook can hope to complete with Jurassic Park, and no lecture on biophysics can match the sight of Dr. Frankenstein pulling lighting down from the stormy sky to animate his creature. What messages about science, then, is the public likely to draw from popular culture? This essay discusses five, but there are naturally many others. Science is complex and multi-faceted, and so is popular culture’s portrayal of it.
PLOS ONE, 2021
Public engagement with science' has become a 'buzzword' reflecting a concern about the widening gap between science and society and efforts to bridge this gap. This study is a comprehensive analysis of the development of the 'engagement' rhetoric in the pertinent academic literature on science communication and in science policy documents. By way of a content analysis of articles published in three leading science communication journals and a selection of science policy documents from the United Kingdom (UK), the United States of America (USA), the European Union (EU), and South Africa (SA), the variety of motives underlying this rhetoric, as well as the impact it has on science policies, are analyzed. The analysis of the science communication journals reveals an increasingly vague and inclusive definition of 'engagement' as well as of the 'public' being addressed, and a diverse range of motives driving the rhetoric. Similar observations can be made about the science policy documents. This study corroborates an earlier diagnosis that rhetoric is running ahead of practice and suggests that communication and engagement with clearly defined stakeholder groups about specific problems and the pertinent scientific knowledge will be a more successful manner of 'engagement'.
Reconfiguring the public of science
2013
This paper reconsiders recent changes in science-public relations in France in the light of earlier ideas about the role of the lay public. A broad historical perspective shows that the categories used to describe communications between knowledge producers and society have been reconfigured again and again (Secord 2004). Notions such as such as 'savants' and 'amateurs', 'popular science' and 'science mediation' are historical constructions heavily dependent on the institutional conditions of scientific research and on its technological applications (Topham 2009ab). This paper first emphasizes the epistemic and social conditionsof the construction of the notion of the public as 'those who do not know' in the 20th century. It then tries to understand when and how the notions of 'citizen science' and 'participatory science' emerged. Finally, through a brief survey of various modes of participation developed over the past decade, i...
Journal of Communication, 2010
Choosing to review two texts about communicating science enables two important contrasts: one between science communication theory and application and the other between single author and compiled editions. Russell is a Reader in Science Communication in the Department of Humanities at Imperial College. He is a composition and communication expert. Cheng is from the China Association for Science and Technology in Beijing and the edited volume covers a broad range of applied communication challenges. They differ in terms of the proportion of theory and application. Russell's work is steeped in theory whereas Cheng's is mostly applied. Presumably, which text you will enjoy more will reflect how you approach science communication. Russell's book begins with seven strong chapters on current issues in science communication but ends with