Developments in science and technology have a direct bearing on the everyday lives of people. Yet most people do not really understand science or technology. The reason is obvious. Science doesn’t always lend itself to easy understanding due to its insistence on consistency and rigour. Some aspects even directly contradict everyday experience (a four-dimensional space-time continuum, for example).
Scientific articles tend to be heavily laden with technical terms and are sprinkled with mathematical equations quite often. So, the popular perception is that science is bland and dry. In the process, it contributes to scientific illiteracy. No wonder then that in the popular culture, people prefer to learn about pseudoscientific systems such as astrology or pop psychology than real science.
Scientific knowledge is no longer transmitted through communication from scientists to ‘lay’ people directly.25 Scientific ideas and information have to be mediated to inform everyday social discourse, where it crops up in news and in debates about issues such as public health or food safety.
Broadcast media are powerful mediators of the transfer of information and ideas of science. In the current broadcast scenario, effective audiovisual communication of scientific contents is one of the most difficult jobs for producers, as they must face the intrinsic difficulties of science as well as those of the medium. This might be one of the reasons why, in many countries, science popularization and reporting do not enter programming schedules, in spite of the increasingly important role that science is playing in contemporary society.
Problems of science communication
Some scientists think that mass media are not the right platform to spread the knowledge they produce. There are some fundamental differences between the systematic nature of their work and the activity of the media. Let us look into these and see how we can overcome them.
Science attempts to put forth ideas in a systematic way and with a logical structure. Scientific issues, when taken to lay audiences, attempt to relate scientific discoveries to everyday life and tend to use narrative structures that create an effective connection with ideas that are familiar to most people.
Narrative structures used in media are mainly of a poetic and dramatic kind. Instead of communicating intellectual, theoretical or technical knowledge in a detailed and logically structured way, the media tries to build interesting stories to be able to attract people’s attention through practical interest and emotional appeal.
Reporters/producers quite often resort to simplification of the concepts of science. Some scientists think simplification inevitably means distortion of their truth. Some others do consider it possible to offer a true explanation of scientific issues in relatively simple terms, and that some topics are easier than others to simplify. Though in principle, there is no objection to simplification, there is always the danger of oversimplifying an issue to the point where a false explanation is offered just because it is easy to understand.
Scientific knowledge is not necessarily practical or useful and, to many scientists, it is more important to raise new questions than to offer practical solutions. The media, very often, does not even try to explain the true meaning of scientific discoveries, but only the practical consequences of the discoveries on everyday life. So, scientists feel disappointed when they see their discoveries reported in the media.
Mass media tend to approach issues that will raise immediate public attention, laying stress on aspects that are likely to make headlines. But, very often, such criteria do not coincide with those that make an issue remarkable from the scientific point of view. This trend has been regarded as unacceptable by scientists, since it places science on the verge of sensationalism. Some scientists think that since science is a serious matter, popularization and reporting should not be superficial or jocular. But some popularizers argue that there is a certain kind of “sensationalism” that has a positive impact in spreading scientific knowledge.
Producers work under deadlines. Quite often, there is not enough time to do adequate research to be familiar with the topic. So, there are times when the facts presented are not really right. Producers don’t have to undergo peer reviews as do scientists and, sometimes, wrong information goes public without the broadcasters noticing it.
Because of the above factors, there is a tendency in the scientific community to look down upon colleagues who use the media to get publicity for their work. So, many scientists are not even willing to talk to the media for fear of arousing their colleagues’ disdain.
The problem of information explosion
In spite of such difficulties and the intrinsic differences between science and the media, some examples of television and radio programmes can be found, which have succeeded in establishing an effective link between scientific issues and the viewers’ and listeners’ interest by means of communicating science in an interesting and understandable manner. But these examples are far too few.
We have examined how scientists work and report their findings in journals in the last chapter, and in this chapter, we have explored the reasons for public perceptions of science and scientists’ perceptions of media. To make an effective bridge between scientists and the public, producers need to understand both points of view and try to face the inherent challenges. It is clear that producers have to understand and appreciate science if they are to report new developments.
In the twenty-first century, developments in science and technology happen on a daily basis. Thousands of scientific journals spew out millions of pages of results every week.26 Even scientists find it difficult to keep up with all the new developments in their own disciplines. In such a situation, journalists/ reporters/producers miss out on many important scientific discoveries and technological innovations, which have the potential to propel social development.
How can producers face the problem of this information explosion?
REFERENCE
25. There are however, very interesting and extremely comprehensible popular writings, videos and blogs by scientists. But not enough to keep the common people abreast of what is happening in frontiers of science that have impact on their lives.
26. A list of searchable databases for scientific journals may be found at http://scientific. thomsonreuters.com/mjl/.
