230140 VO Techno-Science and Society: Communicating and Interacting. Central Issues, Questions and Concepts (2016S)

The aim of this lecture is to give students an in-depth understanding of the diversity of interaction and engagement processes between techno-science and society.
In a first step, particular focus will be put on the different spaces where science and technology get communicated to different audiences, ranging from classical media, over science fiction and audio-visual media, to museums and the world wide web/social media. We will investigate the processes of communication, how specific audiences get imagined and created in such settings, and what ideas of techno-science and its relation to society get projected. In this context we will also address questions of visual discourses.
Second, we will analyse how citizens/consumers/patients interpret, appropriate, and rearrange scientific knowledge, but also how they attach meaning to new technological possibilities 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. Diverse citizen participation formats, risk communication, 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 science and 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 is accompanied by a discussion class (KO 230 123).