[Reader-list] Public Understanding of Science in India; the fifth posting

[Shiju Sam Varughese]

dear friends, soory for the delay in posting. I was out of station for a
month.... This is my fifth posting.



In India, the 'Public Understanding of Science' (PUS) studies is still in
its infancy as an

academic field. Many of the early studies are based on large quantitative
opinion surveys

that assess public attitudes to science. A review of literature shows that
the Indian studies

on PUS can be classified into two main areas. Investigation into the public
reception of

science is the first category. For instance, the study that was done by
Gauhar Raza, Surjit

Singh and Bharvi Dutt (2002 "Public, Science, and Cultural Distance".
Science Communication

23/3, March: 293-309) attempts to define the 'cultural distance' of the
public from science

and they propose a quantitative method to empirically measure it. They
measure the

cultural distance by developing an indicator on the basis of the number of
years a person

spends in formal schooling. Many of these studies keep positivist picture of
science as the

standard against which the depth of people's 'assimilation of science' is
tested. There are

some studies which examine the journalistic production of science news.
Bharvi Dutt and

K.C. Garg (2000 "An Overview of Science and Technology Coverage in
Indian-Language

Dailies". Public Understanding of Science 9:123-140.) analyse news items on
science and

technology in English newspapers published in different parts of India
during 1996. They use

the technique of counting columns of science news to quantify the amount of
space provided

for science news by each newspaper. This study identifies the newspapers
that report more

science news, and also the most reported themes.
A historical study of science journalism in Kerala since its inception in
the latter half of the

nineteenth century was carried out by Anil Kumar Vadavathoor (2001 Science
Journalism:

Vikasavum Parinamavum (Mal.). Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Language
Institute.) that

factually describes the content of the early Malayalam magazines and the
science themes

reported.
A study that considers the media as an active agent in the negotiations over
science is Renu

Addlakha (2001 "State Legitimacy and Social Suffering in a Modern Epidemic:
A Case Study

of Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever in Delhi". Contributions to Indian Sociology (
n.s)

35/2:151-179.). The study on the outbreak of dengue fever in Delhi in 1996
uses a

'multi-sited ethnographic approach' to capture the nexus between law,
medicine and the

state administration. She looks at the media as an active agent who function
as a

commentator, communicator, educator and watchdog in the context of the
epidemic. She

opines that the media has a 'representational role' in constructing the
crisis and in

functioning as a crucial link between the state, the medical establishment
and local

communities. She points out that the media has its own agenda and stakes in
pursuing the

issue: "An overview of the news reports during the dengue outbreak shows
that the print

media played a vital role, acting both as a source of information for the
public and as a

sentinel of government action. The press tried to access the outbreaks from
the perspective

of different actors, such as the state agencies, the medical profession and
the affected

communities. In the process, it became a platform on which negotiations
between the

agents of control and the communities took place" (ibid: 159). However, the
study considers

the media no more than an actor among others in the issue. The study also
fails to conceive

the public as active actors with their own perspectives on medical science
and public health.
A review of the existing studies on the PUS in India indicates that they
consider science as

disembodied knowledge, which is produced in laboratories by the scientific
community.

These studies refuse to understand modern science as a culture with a
"diffuse collection of

institutions, areas of special knowledge and theoretical interpretations
whose forms and

boundaries are open to negotiation with other social institutions and forms
of knowledge"

(see the authors' introduction (p.8) in Alan Irwin and Brian Wynne (eds.)
1996.

Misunderstanding Science? The Public Reconstruction of Science and
Technology. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press). This shortcoming leads to a failure in
capturing the ways in

which the publics actively negotiate on the social meanings of sciences and
questioning the

legitimacy of modern science in their daily life. The Indian studies on
science and media

hold the 'deficit' perspective that approaches science as an esoteric
activity of the scientific

community, devoid of 'social contamination' of any kind and the main attempt
here is to

quantify science news in order to understand the themes/disciplines that
frequently appear

in the press, and those newspapers reporting maximum science news. Moreover,
majority of

these studies analyse exclusively the English dailies for science news.
There are hardly any

studies on the regional press and the public understanding of science in the
regions in India.

The emphasis on the English media is misleading, as there are studies which
show the

stagnation in the growth rate of the English press and the rapid growth and
diversification of

the regional newspapers in India. Therefore, it is important to explore the
regional dynamics

to understand the characteristics of the public understanding of science in
India. My

proposed study analyses the regional press for the debates and negotiations
over a

scientific controversy, situating the popular press in the wider context of
public

understanding of science in Kerala society.









-- 
shiju sam varughese
http://shijusam.blogspot.com/
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