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Mar 21, 2007 Commentary

Why should we care about science books?

Why should we care about science books? After all, we live in a "new media" world where students, researchers, and the public use the World Wide Web for all their information needs. Cutting edge research appears on "preprint archives" or "open access" online journals, text"books" appear as online sites with interactive presentations and links to presentation, for creating public discussion and dialogue, and even for archiving current research. In that kind of world, what’s the purpose of looking at "old fashioned" books?

Volume 6Issue 012007

Mar 21, 2007 Commentary

Boom and bust in popular science

by Jon Turney

The obvious thing to say about popular science publishing in the last twenty years is that there has been a lot of it! That is important in itself. But it also means it is hazardous to offer general comment. The British journalist and commentator Bryan Appleyard recently wrote in the Sunday Times that the “hard stuff” in science was no longer attracting so many readers. Books answering many small questions about the world, or evoking a sense of wonder, do better - he reckons - than those which offer large certainties based on a scientific, or scientistic view of the world. That type, Appleyard claims, dominated the field for years after Steven Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, with its promise of a theory of everything.

Volume 6Issue 012007

Mar 21, 2007 Book Review

Jaap Willems and Winfried Goepfert (eds.), Science and the power of TV, VU University press and Da Vinci Institute, Amsterdam, 2006

by Matteo Merzagora

We live in a period where new media develops at amazing speed: the case of Youtube, becoming in few months one of the most visited website in the world, or the incredibly fast diffusion of audio and video podcasting, or the acquired relevance and authoritativeness of blogs in the dissemination of scientific information, are paradigmatic. Yet, there is little doubt that old media such as traditional television remain a reference for the largest sector of the population. Indeed, all surveys show that when dealing with scientific information, television remains the most relevant medium by a large majority of European (although in eastern Europe, due to a more trustful reputation, radio has also a particularly relevant position, and the internet is gaining favour among younger audiences).

Volume 6Issue 012007

Mar 21, 2007 Article

Science and technology in a mediatized and democratized society

by Pieter A. Maeseele

We inhabit an age in which economic progress in the European Union is equalized to more European research and better communication of that European research to the public. In highly developed Western democracies this implies an important role for the public as well as the mass media, both actors in a transforming public sphere. Beyond a call for more communication and more scientific literacy, the discourse has shifted to a call for more engagement and more participation on behalf of the citizen. There is a widespread sentiment however that the discipline of science communication is at a crossroads. In this paper it is argued that in a context of life politics and an increasing displacement of politics, one has to account for the trajectories of issue formation and the detours of public-ization to understand the dynamics of techno-scientific issues.

Volume 6Issue 012007

Mar 21, 2007 Letter

The output for the Master’s degree in Science Communication at SISSA of Trieste

by Donato Ramani , Nico Pitrelli

What professional future awaits those who have attended a school in science communication? This has become an ever more urgent question, when you consider the proliferation of Masters and post-graduate courses that provide on different levels a training for science communicators in Europe and all over the world. In Italy, the International School for Advanced Studies of Trieste has been for fourteen years now the seat for a Master’s degree in Science Communication that has graduated over 170 students. This letter illustrates the results of a survey carried out in order to identify the job opportunities they have been offered and the role played in their career by their Master’s degree. Over 70% of the interviewees are now working in the field of science communication and they told us that the Master has played an important role in finding a job, thus highlighting the importance of this school as a training, cultural and professional centre.

Volume 6Issue 012007

Mar 21, 2007 Article

Scientists and science communication: a Danish survey

by Kristian Hvidtfelt Nielsen , Carsten R. Kjaer , Jørgen Dahlgaard

This paper summarizes key findings from a web-based questionnaire survey among Danish scientists in the natural sciences and engineering science. In line with the Act on Universities of 2003 enforcing science communication as a university obligation next to research and teaching, the respondents take a keen interest in communicating science, especially through the news media. However, they also do have mixed feeling about the quality of science communication in the news. Moreover, a majority of the respondents would like to give higher priority to science communication. More than half reply that they are willing to allocate up to 2% of total research funding in Denmark to science communication. Further, the respondents indicate that they would welcome a wider variety of science communication initiatives aimed at many types of target groups. They do not see the news media as the one and only channel for current science communication.

Volume 6Issue 012007

Mar 21, 2007 Editorial

Patterns for dialogue: under construction

by Pietro Greco

NASA has decided to cut by 50% the next two-year budget for the Astrobiology Institute (NAI), and for all of the studies on life in outer space. This reduction follows an announcement made by Dr Michael Griffin, the Administrator of the space agency of the United States Government when, in addressing the Mars Society last summer, he clearly stated that xenobiology studies are marginal to the mission of NASA.

Volume 6Issue 012007

Dec 21, 2006 Article

Challenges of an exhibit on nanoscience and nanotechnology

by Sandra Murriello , Djana Contier , Marcelo Knobel

This article presents some of the challenges faced in developing an interactive exhibit on nanoscience and nanotechnology in Brazil. Presenting a scientific-technological area which is still in formation and which is little known by the population leads to a (re)consideration of the role of museums and science centers in the conformation and consolidation of scientific practice itself. Museographically, the exhibit deals with the challenge of making matter visible in an expression which is distant from the human perception. Some reflections are presented here on the option of musealization chosen which come from a broader evaluation of the exhibit.

Volume 5Issue 042006

Dec 21, 2006 Editorial

Systematically sceptical

by Pietro Greco

One can no longer rely on the presumption that scientists comply with the Mertonian value of disinterest and assume that they always tell the truth when spreading the results of their research projects. This can be rightly considered as the gist of the four-page report submitted to the board of the American journal Science by the committee chaired by the chemist John Brauman, from the Stanford University, and comprising three members from the Senior Editorial Board of the same journal, two eminent biologists specialised in stem cell research and a top editor from the other major general press medium of the Republic of Science, the British journal Nature.

Volume 5Issue 042006

Dec 21, 2006 Article

Apriti Cielo: the public’s astronomical imagery as a key to evaluate a museum project

by Stefano Giovanardi

An effective communication of astronomy cannot take place without considering the view the general public has on the universe. Through a number of narrative interviews with non-experts, a research was carried out on personal cosmologies, to outline the public’s heterogeneous astronomical imagery. The result is a bundle of conceptions, perceptions and attitudes which are useful to interpret the difficulties the public experiences when facing the contents of astrophysics, and to establish an ongoing dialogue.

Volume 5Issue 042006

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