For science on television in Australia, 1985 was an unusual year. There were two regular programs broadcast, instead off the more usual one. Further, one of these programs was shown on commercial TV: Beyond 2000, screened on the Channel 7 network. The other show was Quantum, the successor to the ABC's earlier program, Towards 2000. Both shows were being screened again in 1986. The main purpose of this paper is to analyse a sample of each of these two programs for the science content presented. A secondary purpose is to compare this analysis with the earlier analysis of Towards 2000 by Zadnik & Webb (1982).
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BabbieE.R., The Practice of Social Research, Belmont, California, 2225–2236, 1975.
2.
MazurA., ‘Commentary: Opinion Poll Measurement of American Confidence in Science’, Science, Technology & Human Values, 6:16–19, 1981.
3.
PionG.M.LipseyM.W., ‘Public Attitudes to Science and Technology: What have the surveys told us?’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 45:303–316, 1981.
4.
SchibeciR.A., ‘Images of Science and Scientists and Science Education’, Science Education, 70(2): 139–149, 1986.
5.
WebbJ., ‘The New Science Magazines and the Public Communication of Knowledge’, Media Information Australia, 22:18–22, 1981.
6.
WebbJ., ‘Science Communication: An Analysis of ABC Radio's Science Show’, Search, 11:157–158, 1981.
7.
ZadnikM.WebbJ., ‘Science on Australian Television: ABC's Towards 2000’. Search, 13(9–10):250–252, 1982.
