[Reader-list] Public Understanding of Science and the Media

[Shiju Sam Varughese]

Dear Friends,
This is my fifth posting. Sorry for the delay as I was out of station
for quite some time.

Public Understanding of Science and  the Media

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/