[Reader-list] Public Understanding of science and the role of the media

[Shiju Sam Varughese]

dear friends,
this is my fifth posting. sorry for the delay as I was out of station
for one month.
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
thelegitimacy 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 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