Since 2000, the UK government has funded surveys aimed at understanding the UK public's attitudes toward science, scientists, and science policy. Known as the Public Attitudes to Science series, these surveys and their predecessors have long been used in UK science communication policy, practice, and scholarship as a source of authoritative knowledge about science-related attitudes and behaviors. Given their importance and the significant public funding investment they represent, detailed academic scrutiny of the studies is needed. In this essay, we critically review the most recently
Throughout the second half of the twentieth century a varied collection of pressure mechanisms were deployed from nuclear technology exporting countries — mainly from the US — to obstruct the development of a group of semi-peripheral countries’ autonomous nuclear capabilities. Argentina was part of this group. This article focuses on how “fear” of nuclear proliferation was used by US foreign policy as one of the most effective political artifacts to construct and protect an oligopolistic nuclear market. Spread by the press and by some prestigious social science sectors from the US and some
This paper tries to 1) identify the dominant media frames of science and 2) compare media selection and framing of science-related articles in Croatian daily newspapers during two politically and socioculturally different periods: the late socialism and the (post)transition. The research methodology was based on content and frame analysis which encompassed articles on science in daily press with the highest readership between 1986–1988, and 2006–2008. The main findings indicate changes in the selection of science topics as well as in the representation of individual frames. Changes reflected
This essay attempts to contextualise the experience and documentation of the world’s first space tourist, a multi-millionaire American businessman Dennis Tito, who vacationed on the International Space Station in 2001. The essay brings together two parallel elements of this historical event: the political transformation of the Russian space programme which made the private flight possible and the cultural significance and impact of the event. The first space tourist is both a direct product of the newly commercialised space programme and a reflection of a new worldview, with new values and
Focusing on the experience of working with Russia’s cultural, industrial and political sectors, this paper investigates how the development of new contacts and partnerships has contributed not only to the loan of material of historic significance to the Science Museum’s exhibition, but more broadly changes perceptions about Russia and its space programme in the western world. Addressing the multiple challenges involved – legal, political and security, among others – it reveals the importance of many of the space objects themselves as well as demonstrating how the Science Museum has helped to
The collection of Leonardo da Vinci historical models at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan is one of the largest and most important in the world. Created in 1952–53 to celebrate the fifth centenary of the birth of Leonardo and the opening of the Museum, the collection is made up of more than 140 models, interpreting the studies of Leonardo da Vinci and helping Museum visitors to understand and visualise his ideas. Before 1952, Leonardo models were already created and displayed in Florence (1929), Chicago (1933) and above all in the great Leonardo Exhibition held in Milan
A large and successful exhibition to mark the 500th anniversary of the birth of Leonardo da Vinci was held at the Royal Academy, Burlington House, London, in 1952. It was an important event for the public appreciation of Leonardo’s genius. The proposal for the exhibition had come from the Science Museum, whose staff arranged a ‘scientific section’ of the exhibition, providing and displaying photographs and models. The story of these early models is particularly interesting in the light of the subsequent expansion in the use of mechanical models and animations to interpret and present Leonardo
The first outside broadcast ever made by the British Broadcasting Company from a natural location was the Nightingale broadcast of 19 May 1924, in which the world-famous virtuoso cellist Beatrice Harrison performed a ‘duet’ with nightingales in her garden. The broadcast was made possible by the Marconi-Sykes magnetophone, an improved microphone developed for the early BBC. This paper explores the historical and cultural significance of the Nightingale broadcasts, with a particular emphasis on the emotive aspects, and explains the role of the magnetophone in this context. This paper was
In 2010 the Royal Society journal Biology Letters published an article, ‘Blackawton bees’, which caused something of a sensation: the findings, on bees’ foraging patterns, were original, but the true originality lay in the fact the experiments were in part devised, and the paper written, by a group of 8- to 10-year-old children at Blackawton Primary School in Devon (Blackawton et al., 2011).[1] The article attracted considerable media attention, troubling, as it did, the boundaries of professional science, and distinctions between scientific practice and education, not to mention the
Increasing numbers of museums and galleries worldwide have developed an array of working practices that might be termed 'participatory' or 'co-creative', which seek to involve visitors, non-visitors, community and interest groups with diverse forms of expertise and perspective in their activities. Frequently the central aim of such practices has been to strengthen relationships between a museum and its audiences through projects that are jointly conceived and developed with local communities. However, relatively little attention has been given to participatory practice within the work of
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Katy BunningJen KavanaghKayte McSweeneyRichard Sandell
This paper examines the approach of a major new gallery on information and communication technologies in the Science Museum, situating it in the context of current ideas around the history of technology and exploring the way the curatorial team addressed the challenges of display and interpretation. As a short discussion piece it looks at four broad questions: How has the concept of information, and more importantly an ‘Information Age’ been conceived across differing disciplines? What opportunities can user focused histories present to a gallery on information and communication technologies