Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Editors’ Preface
- How Well Do Facts Travel?
- Part One Introduction
- Part Two Matters of Fact
- TWO Facts and Building Artefacts: What Travels in Material Objects?
- THREE A Journey through Times and Cultures? Ancient Greek Forms in American Nineteenth-Century Architecture
- FOUR Manning’s N – Putting Roughness to Work
- FIVE My Facts Are Better Than Your Facts: Spreading Good News about Global Warming
- SIX Real Problems with Fictional Cases
- Part Three Integrity and Fruitfulness
- Part Four Companionship and Character
- Index
- References
SIX - Real Problems with Fictional Cases
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Editors’ Preface
- How Well Do Facts Travel?
- Part One Introduction
- Part Two Matters of Fact
- TWO Facts and Building Artefacts: What Travels in Material Objects?
- THREE A Journey through Times and Cultures? Ancient Greek Forms in American Nineteenth-Century Architecture
- FOUR Manning’s N – Putting Roughness to Work
- FIVE My Facts Are Better Than Your Facts: Spreading Good News about Global Warming
- SIX Real Problems with Fictional Cases
- Part Three Integrity and Fruitfulness
- Part Four Companionship and Character
- Index
- References
Summary
To convey science to a wider non-specialist audience, it is usually necessary to “translate” the content of specialist scientific publications into so-called “popularisations” (e.g., see Royal Society 1986). Popularisations aim to make scientific facts and theories available to audiences who do not have scientific training (see Shinn and Whitley 1985; Burham 1987). Although they are not exclusively written for nor only read by non-specialists, the popularisation is characterised by a more broad-based accessibility than would typically be found within a specialist technical publication. The nominal target audience is not assumed to possess specialist knowledge.
Therefore, popularisations are vehicles by which scientific facts travel to a wider audience. These audiences are not an homogenous mass, but comprise a variety of “publics” with different needs and different levels of scientific training. Scholarship within science studies eschews the notion of a unitary “science” and a unitary “public” in favour of more nuanced, multiple conceptions of both “science” and “public.” As Silverstone states: “There is no such thing as the communication of science; … There is no such thing as the public” (Silverstone 1991, p. 106). This view has become conventional among scholars working within science studies (e.g., Hilgartner 1990; Locke 1999; Yearly 2000; Mellor 2003; Einsiedel 2007).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- How Well Do Facts Travel?The Dissemination of Reliable Knowledge, pp. 167 - 192Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010