This paper argues that both the traditional normative models and the more refined (`continuity') models of public communication of science fail to account adequately for cases of `deviation', i.e. those cases when scientists address the public directly by skipping the usual stages of scientific communication. It is hypothesized that most of such cases are related to crisis situations and to the definition of scientific boundaries. Therefore, at least two modalities of public communication of science should be distinguished: one is the routine, generally unproblematic itinerary of a scientific idea through the different levels of communication as presented by the continuity models; and the other is the dramatic (re)assessment of boundaries and professional competences in the public arena that is required by marginal situations. Continuity models need to be supplemented by a multilevel, multivariate model which enables us to explain this second modality and to understand in more detail the role that the level of public communication plays when such a modality is activated.
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References
1.
However, one can easily understand that these stories could potentially fit many other cases of `turning to the public', such as the COBE satellite story, begun with a press conference even more triumphal than the cold fusion press conference, with its claims about having observed the scientific equivalent of `God' in the universe. See Miller, S., 1994, Wrinkles, ripples and fireballs: cosmology on the front page. Public Understanding of Science, 3, 445-453.
2.
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3.
Quoted in Pais, A., 1982, Subtle is the Lord...: the Science and Life of Albert Einstein (New York: Oxford University Press), p. 309.
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Farrands provides a clear example by stating: `There is anti-intellectualism in the air and particularly, anti-science. The root cause of this is the popular ignorance of the scientific process itself [...] If the methods and limits of science and scientists were better understood the fears would remain, but they would, one hopes, be more rational.' Farrands, J., 1993, Don't Panic, Panic! (Melbourne: Text), p.18.
8.
See for example the wide range of articles about scientific journalism which appeared on the journal Journalism Quarterly from the 1970s to the 1980s, or some of the essays included in Friedman, S., Dunwoody, S., and Rogers, C., 1986, Scientists and Journalists: Reporting Science as News (New York: Free Press).
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This adherence to an idealized-normative model of communication is confirmed by the fact that studies on scientific communication to the public have prevalently focused on journalistic coverage, neglecting other possible sources of media representation of science like fiction. See Dornan, C., 1990, Some problems in conceptualizing the issue of science and the media. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 7, 48-71.
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Balmer, B. , 1990, Scientism, science and scientists. Unpublished research paper, University of Sussex, UK.
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Cloitre, M. , and Shinn, T., 1985, Expository practice: social, cognitive and epistemological linkages. Expository Science: Forms and Functions of Popularisation, edited by T. Shinn and R. Whitley (Dordrecht: Reidel), p.55.
23.
`Public' is clearly a more appropriate adjective for such a level. However, as my analysis here develops in relation to the Cloitre and Shinn model, I preserve their term `popular' (and therefore use expressions such `public level' or `popular level' interchangeably) which could otherwise be easily criticized as misleading, potentially meaning not only `common to all levels of society' (as is the case here) but also `non-élite'. See Cooter, R., and Pumphrey, S., 1994, Science in popular culture. History of Science, 32, 252.
24.
Clemens, E. , 1986, Of asteroids and dinosaurs: the role of the press in shaping the scientific debate. Social Studies of Science, 16, 421-456.
25.
`Even the simple communication of an item of knowledge can by no means be compared with the translocation of a rigid body in Euclidean space. Communication never occurs without a transformation, and indeed always involves a stylized remodelling, which intracollectively achieves corroboration and which intercolletively yields fundamental alteration. Those who fail to grasp this point will never reach a positive epistemology.' Fleck, L., 1979, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact (University of Chicago Press), p. 111.
26.
Fleck, L., 1979, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact (University of Chicago Press); Epstein, S., 1993, Impure science: Aids, activism and the politics of knowledge. PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley.
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Cloitre, M. , and Shinn, T, 1986, Enclavement et diffusion du savoir. Social Science Information, 25, 161-187.
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Phillips, D. M. , 1991, Importance of the lay press in the transmission of medical knowledge to the scientific community. New England Journal of Medicine, 11 October, 1180-1183.
29.
Geochemist R. Ganapath thus recalls his involvement in the mass extinction debate: `I became interested in this subject after reading in a local newspaper and a popular scientific weekly about the revival of the supernova hypothesis to explain findings by the Alvarez group'. Quoted in Clemens, E., 1986, Of asteroids and dinosaurs: the role of the press in shaping the scientific debate. Social Studies of Science, 16, 428.
30.
Such dynamics were also to be observed in the days immediately after the announcement of COBE satellite discovery of ripples, when `astronomers had to respond to the journalists off the cuff, without knowing the details of the COBE announcement'. Miller, S., 1994, Wrinkles, ripples and fireballs: cosmology in the front page. Public Understanding of Science, 3, 449.
31.
Rositi, F., 1982, I modi dell'argomentazione e l'opinione pubblica (Roma: ERI).
32.
Bucchi, M. , 1996, La scienza e i mass media: la fusione fredda nei quotidiani italiani. Nuncius, 2 (in the press).
33.
Schiele, B., 1985, Les enjeux cachés de la vulgarisation. Vulgariser: un defi ou un mythe?, edited by S. Ait El Hadji and C. Belisle (Paris: Cronique Sociale).
34.
Collins, H. M. , 1987, Certainty and the public understanding of science: science on television. Social Studies of Science, 17, 689-713. Collins employs attractive formulas to describe such a process, such as `distance leads enchantment' or `the ship in a bottle' (i.e., the impossibility of recapturing the context of scientific practice once the science is fixed and `packaged').
35.
Namer, G. , 1982, The triple legitimation: a model for the sociology of knowledge. Perspectives in the Sociology of Knowledge, edited by N. Stehr and V. Meja (Dordrecht: Reidel).
36.
See also Peters, H.-P., 1994, Mass media as an information channel and public arena. Risk: Health, Safety & Environment, 5, 241-250.
37.
Collins seems to include (although without using the word `deviation') deviation cases in his general discussion of cases of `core-set distortion' (i.e. alterations to the set of persons qualified to actively contribute to scientific debate). He talks about distortion by over-restrictiveness of the core set (i.e. when some researchers are precluded from the debate for different reasons, as with Lysenkoism in former USSR) and by over-extension of the core-set (appeal to the laity on behalf of one scientific party). However, it should be noted that appeal to the public may result only apparently in an extension of the discussion frame: it may also be exploited to exclude some actors from the debate. Peter Duesberg's theory about the non-contagious nature of AIDS becomes particularly unacceptable and `crazy' when it is brought to the public level and its policy and political consequences are drawn. See Epstein S., 1993, Impure science: AIDS, activism and the politics of knowledge. PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley.
38.
Lehay, P.. and Mazur. A., 1980, The rise and fall of public opposition in specific social movements. Social Studies of Science, 10, 259-284.
39.
On political uses of science see also Ezrahi, Y., 1990, The Descent of Icarus (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press).
40.
A good case of `black-boxed' common sense to back up scientific arguments is to be found in many of the public controversies which have arisen about evolutionary theory. See for example Antonelli, Q., 1986, Fede e lavoro (Trento: Coop. libraria universitaria).
41.
Cooter, R. , and Pumphrey, S., 1994, Science in popular culture. History of Science, 32, 254.
42.
Gieryn, T. F. , 1995, Boundaries of science. Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, edited by S. Jasanoffet al. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage).
43.
Gieryn, T. F. , 1983, Boundary work in professional ideology of scientists, American Sociological Review, 48, 781-795.
44.
See also Wolpe, P. R., 1985, The maintenance of professional authority: acupuncture and the American physician. Social Problems, 32, 409-424.
45.
Gillispie, C. , 1960, The Edge of Objectivity: an Essay in the History of Scientific Ideas (Princeton University Press).
46.
Quoted in Bayertz, K., 1985, Spreading the spirit of science: social determinants of the popularisation of science in nineteenth century Germany. Expository Science: Forms and Functions of Popularisation, edited by T. Shinn and R. Whitley (Dordrecht: Reidel), p.216.
47.
The transition from a more general, `constitutive' type of demarcation strategy (aiming at differentiating `commodities of science from those of other forms of knowledge') to a more specific one (`protecting public investments in science by excluding as non-scientific a potential competitor for those resources') is also observed by Gieryn, T. F., 1985, Professionalization of American scientists: public science in the creation/evolution trials. American Sociological Review, 50, 392-409.
48.
The importance of the public in the phase of institutionalization has been also studied in Shapin, S., 1974, The audience for science in eighteenth century Edinburgh. History of Science, 12, 95-121.
49.
Chapman, A. , 1994, The Observatory observed: Charles Dickens, Greenwich and the astronomical public. Paper presented at the Royal Institution Conference on `Science and its Publics in Britain, 1851-1914', London, 21-23 September.
50.
Chaisson, E. J. , 1994, The Hubble Wars (New York: Harper).
51.
McAllister, J. W. , 1992, Competition among scientific disciplines in cold fusion research. Science in Context, 1, 17-49.
52.
During the last decades of the nineteenth century, an alleged `end of physics' was discussed in textbooks, popular scientific writings and public speeches. Nuclear physics was interpreted as the last stage in the development of this discipline, which was now forced to compete with chemistry in order to provide itself with additional tasks (e.g. the study of molecules and atoms). See Gavroglu, K., 1994, Physicists and chemists appropriating each other's concepts: a public negotiation at the end of 19th century. Paper presented at the Royal Institution Conference on `Science and its Publics in Britain, 1851-1914', London, 21-23 September.
53.
Clemens, E. , 1992, The impact hypothesis and popular science: conditions and consequences of interdisciplinary debate. The Mass-Extinction Debates: How Science Works in a Crisis, edited by W. Glen (Stanford University Press).
54.
Clemens, E. , 1986, Of asteroids and dinosaurs: the role of the press in shaping the scientific debate. Social Studies of Science, 16, 421-456. It is not unlikely that in a single case we may find several of these (and other, still unidentified) conditions combined. When they turned to the public to announce their cold fusion discovery, Pons and Fleischmann were not just reacting to competition by trying to ensure priority over their discovery. It seems that, being aware of the difficulties which they would have experienced in submitting their results to the scientific community (as outsiders to the field and as diverting from traditional approaches to the problem) they tried to bring the discussion into a larger context in which their results could appear more attractive (e.g. as home-made, creative, cheap science against bureaucratic, expensive science).
55.
see also Taylor, A. C., 1991, Defining the scientific community: a rhetorical perspective on demarcation. Communication Monographs, 58, 402-420.
56.
Collins, for instance, seems to take a surprisingly normative standpoint by considering `over extensions of the core-set' (which seem quite akin to deviation processes, see reference 36) as `pathological science'. Collins, H. M., 1988, Public experiments and displays of virtuosity: the core-set revisited. Social Studies of Science, 18, 725-748.
57.
Pinch, T. J. , and Collins, H. M., 1984, Private science and public knowledge: the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of the Claims of the Paranormal. Social Studies of Science, 14, 521-574. Clearly, the identification of deviation with deviant science fails also to account for those cases in which deviance is not the dominant issue and researchers involved hardly fall within the category of `marginal scientists', e.g. the Pasteur case or the COBE case.
58.
See Collins, H. M., and Pinch, T., 1994, The Golem: What Everyone Should Know about Science (Cambridge University Press).
59.
Contributions like that of Lehay and Mazur should be recalled here, as they suggest that the representation itself of a scientific issue as controversy in the media can have negative consequences in terms of the credibility of actors involved. Lehay, P., and Mazur, A., 1980, The rise and fall of public opposition in specific social movements. Social Studies of Science, 10, 259-284.
60.
One could see here a trace of what Cooter and Pumphrey call the `cultural lag' idea, i.e. the long-standing anthropological temptation to collapse popular lore and ancient lore. Scientific knowledge at the popular level would be nothing but a wreckage of former, `old-fashioned' science. Cooter, R., and Pumphrey, S., 1994, Science in popular culture. History of Science, 32, 237-267.
61.
Barrow, J. , 1994, The Origins of the Universe (London: Orion).
62.
The presentation of resort to the public as a mechanism for the closure of controversies can be found, for example, in Martin, B., and Richards, E., 1995, Scientific knowledge, controversy, and public decision making. Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, edited by S. Jasanoffet al. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage).
63.
The original formulation of the principle of symmetry as part of the `strong programme' in the sociology of knowledge is to be found in Bloor, D., 1976, Knowledge and Social Imagery (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul).
64.
Big bang models are again a beautiful example from this point of view. During the 1950s and the early 1960s, the popular press was a crucial arena for the acceptance and stabilization of models such as the standard explanation of the origin of the universe while they were still being debated among the specialists. In recent years, the public level has contributed to shielding the authority of big bang models from critiques growing at the intraspecialistic and interspecialistic levels. See for instance Maddox, J., 1995, Big Bang not yet dead but in decline. Nature, 377, 14 September, 99. I am indebted here to Craig McConnell for important information and interesting discussions on the topic.
65.
Cold fusion research did not disappear immediately after Pons and Fleischmann's `excommunication': researchers still work on similar experiments and some results are reported from time to time, although with less emphasis and most often carefully avoiding explicit mention of the `dangerous' label of cold fusion. A journal exclusively devoted to cold fusion research is still published in the USA. Bucchi, M., 1996, La scienza e i mass media: la fusione fredda nei quotidiani italiani. Nuncius, 2 (in the press).
66.
Peters, H.-P., 1994, Wissenschaftliche Experten in der Oeffentliche Kommunikation über Technik, Umwelt und Risiken. Kölner Zeitschrift für Söziologie und Sozialpsychologie, Sonderband: Oeffentlichkeit und Soziale Bewegungen.
67.
Clemens, E. , 1992, The impact hypothesis and popular science: conditions and consequences of interdisciplinary debate. The Mass-Extinction Debates: How Science Works in a Crisis, edited by W. Glen (Stanford University Press).
68.
This is exactly the term used by Raup, D. M., 1991, Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck? (University of Chicago Press).
69.
Maddox, J. , 1991, Editorial. Nature, 353, 13.
70.
Berridge, V. , 1992, AIDS, the media and health policy. AIDS: Right, Risk and Reason, edited by P. Aggletonet al. (London: Falmer).
71.
Only recently, several years later, have the general media felt the need to reopen the problem of AIDS aetiology. In terms of Peters' model, it is interesting to notice how the shifting of the issue from a `popularization frame' to a `controversy frame' was achieved by passing through the `scandal frame'. Peters, H.-P., 1994, Wissenschaftliche Experten in der Oeffentliche Kommunikation über Technik, Umwelt und Risiken. Kölner Zeitschrift für Söziologie und Sozialpsychologie, Sonderband: Oeffentlichkeit und Soziale Bewegungen.
72.
Martin, B. , and Richards, E., 1995, Scientific knowledge, controversy, and public decision making. Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, edited by S. Jasanoffet al. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage).
73.
Wynne points out how even actor network theory has from this point of view inclined `to overstate the correspondence of interests and identities with the dominant networks to which they have been ostensibly enrolled. There is no recognition of the underlying ambivalence that may be harboured beneath the actor's public alignment and—according to the rhetoric—complete identification with the network macro-actor.' Wynne, B., 1993, Public uptake of science: a case for institutional reflexivity. Public Understanding of Science, 2, 331.
74.
Peters, H.-P., 1994, Wissenschaftliche Experten in der Oeffentliche Kommunikation über Technik, Umwelt und Risiken. Kölner Zeitschrift für Söziologie und Sozialpsychologïe, Sonderband: Oeffentlichkeit und Soziale Bewegungen.
75.
Lewenstein, B. , 1995, From fax to facts: communication in the cold fusion saga. Social Studies of Science, 25, 403-436.
76.
The idea that what is chiefly vehicled through public communication of science is this `formal level' of scientific features and relationships (rather than true intellectual content) is also found in Wynne, B., 1991, knowledges in context. Science, Technology & Human Values, 16, 106-121.
77.
Peters, H.-P. , 1994, Mass media as an information channel and public arena. Risk: Health, Safety & Environment, 5, 241-250.
78.
Peters underlines how, in such cases (which he labels `conflict oriented science in the media'), issues are likely to be framed in general media contexts (e.g. in general interest section of newspapers) instead of (as in popularization) in spaces explicitly devoted to the communication of science (e.g. amateur scientific magazines, science sections of newspapers). Peters, H.-P., 1994, Wissenschaftliche Experten in der Oeffentliche Kommunikation über Technik, Umwelt und Risiken. Kölner Zeitschrift für Söziologie und Sozialpsychologie, Sonderband: Oeffentlichkeit und Soziale Bewegungen.
79.
See, for example, Peters' `problem oriented communication of science', in Peters, H.-P., 1994, Wissenschaftliche Experten in der Oeffentliche Kommunikation über Technik, Umwelt und Risiken. Kölner Zeitschrift für Söziologie und Sozialpsychologie, Sonderband: Oeffentlichkeit und Soziale Bewegungen. Collins uses the expression `over-extension of the core set': see reference 36.
80.
Another interesting case in this sense is reported by Dornan. In 1975, a conference on recombinant DNA safety was held in Asilomar. Media participation was restricted by scientists to sixteen invited journalists who were permitted to file stories only after the end of proceedings and were allowed to use only still cameras (no television coverage was therefore possible). See Dornan. C., 1990, Some problems in conceptualizing the issue of science and the media. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 7, 48-71.
81.
See for instance Gamson, W. A., and Modigliani, A., 1987, The changing culture of affirmative action. Research in Political Sociology, 3, 173-177.
82.
The European Union, together with national research institutions, is funding EICOS (European Initiative for Communicators of Science), a centre seeking to improve journalists' understanding of science through hands-on laboratory seminars. In the United States, and more recently, in Europe, a Media Resource Service has been created to assist journalists in locating reliable scientific sources for interviews. Finally, it has been proposed several times to create a Scientific Court where experts should reach a consensus on `what is known' and then hand it to the media and to public policy. Rip, A., 1986, Legitimations of science in a changing world. Wissenschaftssprache und Gesellschaft, edited by T. Bungarten (Hamburg: Akademion), pp. 133-148.
