230140 VO Techno-Science and Society: Communicating and Interacting. Central Issues, Questions and Concepts (2015S)

The aim of this lecture is to give students an in-depth understanding of interaction processes between science, technology, and society.
In a first step, particular focus will be put on the different spaces where science gets communicated to different audiences, ranging from classical media, over science fiction and audiovisual media, to museums and the world wide web/social media. We will investigate the processes of communication, how specific audiences get imagined in such settings, and what ideas of science and its relation to society get projected. In this context also questions of visualisation visual discourses will be addressed.
Second, we will analyse how citizens/consumers/patients interpret, appropriate, and rearrange scientific knowledge with their own experiences and knowledge. This is of particular importance when looking at situations where they are asked to make choices or to find a position towards a techno-scientific issue at stake. Citizen conferences, referenda concerning techno-scientific problems, but also public protests against certain technological developments will be investigated.
This leads to the third group of issues which will be studied: the politics of scientific communication. It means to look into issues of who holds expertise and thus power in the public arena when it comes to decide on techno-scientific orientations, to understand the role technologies play in making (national) identities, and to study major techno-scientific controversies in detail.
Throughout the lecture, students will be introduced to important approaches and concepts that have been developed to address those questions. The lecture will be accompanied by a discussion class (No. 230141).