Antecedentes

This question of breadth of readership is another that reveals character-istic differences between subjects. Table 9 lists some results of a Dutch survey that examined how many publications aimed at a general audience, rather than fellow-researchers, came out of various university departments.³⁸ (The results listed refer to the maximum found for a given type of department.) These differences can be related to the question: what characteristics of a research topic make it more, or less, suitable for communication to the gen-eral public?

A first answer can be found by considering what type of research receives preferential mention in the mass media. Media reporters and produc-ers are particularly concerned with topics that can be considered "newswor-thy." Such topics have a number of characteristics. Firstly, to be regarded as important, an event should have happened recently, or, even better, be about to happen. Secondly, it should be in some way relevant to ordinary human life. Finally, it should have an element of entertainment. It is not expected that all newsworthy events will contain all three elements in equal amounts. In reporting research, the last element tends to be toned down; although any researcher who claims to have defined a sense of humor, or shown that astrol-ogy is true, will almost certainly be reported.

As these examples may suggest, the priorities of the mass media in reporting research differ considerably from those of the research communi-ty. This affects the extent to which different subjects are reported in the media. Table 10 compares the space devoted to different branches of science in a "quality" daily newspaper during the course of a year.³⁹ These propor-tions bear little resemblance to the relative amounts of research that are

Table 9

Maximum Proportion of Publications Aimed at a General Readership Produced by Dutch University Departments

Maximum proportion of Subject "popularizing" publications (%) Linguistics 8.5

Experimental psychology 10.4 Social history 35.0 Dutch literature 43.0

Communication to a Wider Public 71 Table 10

Relative Space Devoted to Different Scientific Topics in a Daily Newspaper

Topic Biomedicine Technology Astronomy /space Earth sciences Chemistry Physics

Space devoted to topic (%) 48

30 17 3 1 1

being published. Chemistry, for example, is one of the major producers of research articles in the sciences, yet it rarely rates a mention in the newspa-per. One study of the contents of popular science magazines has compared subject coverage with researcher population (measured by the number of doctoral graduates being produced in each subject). Chemistry again per-formed well below expectations, whereas astronomy (including space sci-ence) scored higher than the size of the astronomical research population would suggest.40

These differences are not difficult to understand in terms of the media priorities previously outlined. Much chemical research cannot be related eas-ily to immediate human concerns. Understanding its significance requires an extensive theoretical and practical grounding. Hence, major developments can be difficult both to identify and to interpret. Compare this with research in botany or zoology. Though the research may be just as complex, members of the public find it easier to relate to the objects of study and to be interest-ed in the research outcome. From a minterest-edia viewpoint, in fact, sciences fall into the two groups mentioned previously—the experimental or the obser-vational. Laboratories are not part of everyday life for most people. Sciences, such as physics or chemistry, that rely mainly on laboratory experiments therefore lie at one remove from most human experience. By comparison, such sciences as astronomy, geology, and the "natural history" part of botany and zoology are concerned with observing things that form a part of the human environment. Consequently, these latter sciences tend to be overrep-resented in the media in terms of their research output. The observational sciences are also often more photogenic than the experimental sciences, which is a bonus for science reporting on television. So astronomy and space science, the progenitors of many exciting graphic images in the last few decades, are even more overrepresented on television than they are in

news-papers. The major exception is biomedical research, that may be laboratory-based but is widely reported (as Table 10 indicates). Here the negative factors are offset by its great relevance to human life.

The same mass media priorities also apply, of course, to research in the social sciences and humanities. It might be expected that these disciplines would benefit from them comparatively more than the sciences. Archaeology, for example, concerns itself with matters that relate both to human life and to the environment in which we live. Little background is necessary in order to understand the significance of new discoveries. Archaeological excavations and the objects found are often pictorially satisfying. So archaeology is reported by the media more often than would be expected from the amount of archaeological research produced. But there are some counterinfluences at work. The nature of research in these disciplines means that "breakthroughs"

are less easily definable than in the sciences. In addition, the increasing research emphasis on abstract theory has distanced some parts of these disci-plines from the general public.

The public presentation of research in the humanities poses an intrigu-ing conundrum. Across a broad swathe of humanities subjects, media interest is mainly in the object of study, rather than in the research, itself. For exam-ple, a television program may be devoted to a painting. Discussion of the painting is often based on a variety of research investigations; but it is the painting and its painter that dominate the program. It may not be at all evi-dent to the viewer how much research lies behind the discussion. Similarly, the production of a play may rely heavily on many years of research, but this will usually not be obvious to the audience. Even where the mix of research and production has been especially intimate—for example, in exploring and restoring the scores, musical techniques, and instruments used in early music—the research element can be easily ignored. The problem is increased for some humanities subjects, where the borderline between investigating an object and creating an object can become confused. An obvious example is provided by university staff in departments of English literature who write novels, which may be turned into television programs. These novels and tele-vision programs may, in turn, become the objects of scholarly study.

Media reporting priorities do not change greatly with time, but coverage of particular topics may. One reason is because the nature of the research changes, making it more, or less, appealing to the general public. Thus earlier in the twentieth century, there was relatively more reporting of chemical research because it was seen as being more immedi-ately relevant to human life. There have been fluctuations, too, in the wider

Communication to a Wider Public 73

appeal of social science and humanities subjects. Literary criticism provides an example:

until the advent of American and English New Criticism the job of a crit-ic was an appreciation of work as much for the general reader as for other critics. Functionalist criticism makes an extremely sharp break between the community of critics and the general public.41

Another obvious reason for fluctuating coverage is because of major changes in the comparative amounts of research being done. For example, media reporting of space research grew from virtually zero in the early 1950s to reach a peak around 1970 with the first manned landing on the moon. After that, it tailed off as the American space program was cut back.

Table 11 compares the coverage of astronomy and space science in two British daily newspapers at two epochs 15 years apart.42 Clearly, medicine took over from astronomy and space science during this period as a focus for media attention.

A more direct route by which research can reach a wider audience is for the researchers to present it themselves. The two main ways of doing this are either by contributing articles to popular magazines or by writing books at the appropriate level, though some researchers also appear on radio or tele-vision. There are disciplinary differences here, too. In a subject such as histo-ry, many books that present the results of scholarly investigations are written in such a way that their contents are accessible to nonspecialists. In this case, the scholarly text and its popularization are the same thing. In other areas of the humanities—literary criticism, for example—the theory and jargon of many scholarly books may now be too much for a nonspecialist reader. At the same time, there may not be much of a market for popularized versions of literary theory. The average reader is therefore left with the few scholarly

Table 11

A Comparison of the Number of Articles Devoted to Astronomy/Space and Medicine at Two Epochs

Newspaper The Times Guardian

Topic Medicine Astronomy /space Medicine Astronomy /space

1974-1975 86 69 22 26

1989-1990 183

68 125 34

titles in this field that are sufficiently straightforward to be readable. Science is different again. Scientific research normally appears in journals, so any book intended for a wider audience has to be specially written. This may be done by the researchers themselves, but many science popularizations are written by nonresearchers—for example, by people with scientific qualifications who report advances in the mass media. These disciplinary differences in the way the researcher and the general public are linked can be related back to the distinctions drawn earlier in this chapter—for example, between "hard" and "soft" research—and to the discussion of specialization and professionalization in the first chapter. Changes in these latter mean that subject differences in the way research is presented to the general public have grown with time. In the nineteenth century, all types of research were more likely to be presented to a wider public in similar ways than they are today.

Information Technology and Subject Differences

The examples of subject differences cited in this chapter have mostly stemmed from print-based communication. We have noted briefly that cri-teria for public presentation may differ as between newspapers and television.

Might subject differences themselves change somewhat according to the medium employed? For example, we have seen that books are more impor-tant for research in the humanities than in the sciences. Two of the factors involved in this are finance and speed of communication. Both of these relate, in part, to the medium. Books and journals are financed in different ways—that is to say, they represent different ways of packaging print-on-paper—and which is chosen depends, in part, on the sources of finance avail-able for production and consumption. The time taken over production and distribution is likewise related in part to the handling limitations imposed by the print medium. How would a change in medium affect factors of this sort?

The rapid growth of computer networking is beginning to throw some light on the answer to this question. We can begin by considering how the move to computer-based communication may affect research communities differentially. Reading printed matter requires the application of a number of skills (a point to be taken up in a later chapter). For many years past, educa-tion at all levels has been designed to help develop these skills. They are sub-sequently kept in practice by the requirements of everyday life (e.g., reading newspapers). In contrast, widespread access to computers has only become

Information Technology and Subject Differences 75

possible relatively recently, and information handling by computer is still an arcane topic for an appreciable number of researchers. The differences in computer literacy across the research community are therefore much greater than any differences in literacy relating to printed matter. Differences in com-puter usage can be found for groups, as well as for individuals. For example, the keenest users of electronic networks are young males. Female users of electronic bulletin boards and similar communal discussion groups may be deterred by this, especially if they are not experts in computer usage and net-working activities. Again, the level of access to information technology is often determined by the ability to provide the necessary funding for equip-ment, etc. This has meant that humanities subjects have usually been disad-vantaged vis-a-vis science subjects. Though these financial differences are being gradually alleviated, there remains a difference in the level of comput-er expcomput-ertise available to researchcomput-ers in diffcomput-erent subjects. Assistance and advice is still usually more readily available for researchers in the sciences than for those in the humanities.

Historically, use of computers by researchers has depended on what the computer can offer them. Different disciplines have turned to computers at different times and for differing purposes. In the beginning, computers were designed as number-crunchers. They were therefore used mainly by researchers in the hard sciences, though social scientists concerned with ana-lyzing large sets of statistical data also made use of them. More recently, efficient text-crunching has become commonplace, which has extended reg-ular use of computers throughout all disciplines. There are still differences between researchers in terms of access to computers, but they are less pre-dictable than formerly. It is generally agreed that regular use of a computer for information purposes requires that access to it should be immediate—

either in the office or laboratory. A large-scale survey of UK researchers in the early 1990s found, as would be expected, that most physicists and mathe-maticians have such immediate access.43 More surprisingly, they were matched by the social scientists who, in this respect, were well ahead of the biologists, chemists, and engineers. This reflects the high importance many social scientists now attach to computer access. Even within specific subjects, use of information technology can differ according to what it can offer the researcher. For example, in the world of chemical research, organic chemists tend to make most use of computer-based information systems, followed by inorganic chemists, with physical chemists coming at the bottom. This order correlates quite well with the number and range of information systems available in the different branches of chemistry.⁴⁴

By the early 1990s, both scientists and social scientists were using infor-mation technology for a range of applications, including on-line communi-cation. Researchers in the humanities were more restricted in their interests, with a much greater emphasis on using computers in isolation for their word-processing capabilities. However, on-line access to texts has been avail-able for some time, and the range of other humanities information resources on-line in increasing. Consequently, the use of networks for communication in the humanities is rapidly coming to resemble that in other fields.

Differences of perception are likely to linger. For example, a survey carried out for the American Council of Learned Societies found that sociologists were considerably more likely than their colleagues in the humanities to see computers as aiding the quality and creativity of their research.⁴⁵ The basic property of computers—that they can store and handle large quantities of data (numerical, textual, graphical)—is particularly helpful in empirical research. It is less obviously helpful to qualitative theoretical analysis, such as is common in the social sciences and humanities. But discussions of such the-ory can be aided by the communication properties of the new medium—

more especially by the creation of electronic lists and journals. In fact, some two-thirds of all the electronic journals made available on-line in the first half of the 1990s were devoted to social science and humanities topics. Many (e.g., Postmodern Culture) had an especial interest in conceptual issues.

Most of the electronic journals devoted to research in the first half of the 1990s were "free" (i.e., no fee was charged for accessing them, though readers might need to expend money in order to get on the network). They were put together by groups of enthusiasts, usually in the academic world in North America. The emphasis on social sciences and humanities in these journals may seem surprising, since rapid publication is less important in these fields (though practitioners obviously do not object to it). A major rea-son is the limited space available in the printed journals in these subjects and their high rejection rate for articles. To the extent that these are related to lack of finance, electronic networks, which are usually free to academics at the point of use, offer a practicable way of circumventing the limitations.

Moreover, the prime concern of much research communication in the social sciences and humanities tends to be with text. Handling this via information technology is fairly trouble-free today. In contrast, science articles often con-tain graphics and, perhaps, mathematical equations, as well as text. Until recently, the handling and transmission of such material has been consider-ably more complex than for text, which has meant that electronic journals have been harder to create in the sciences.

Information Technology and Subject Differences 77

A more general academic query relates to the quality control of infor-mation communicated electronically. How does the social norm of "orga-nized skepticism" apply to the new medium? Because electronic communi-cation is fast and not usually limited by space considerations, on-line discussions of research can be both more informal and more prolix than printed discussions. This has led to a feeling, especially among scientists, that electronic publications may be less carefully controlled as regards the quality of the research they report than printed publications. It is undoubtedly true that idiosyncratic material may circulate electronically. It has been suggested, for example, that some distinctly odd ideas about AIDS were first mentioned in electronic discussions, from whence they contaminated the mainstream research literature. Rigorous refereeing is, of course, as feasible for an elec-tronic journal as for a printed one. The increased ability to use different methods of refereeing and to be flexible in their application may, however, prove particularly helpful in the reviewing of discursive articles such as are often encountered in social science and humanities research.

Where the sciences undoubtedly gain from a change to electronic communication is in the speed of dissemination and response. The debate over cold fusion at the end of the 1980s provides an interesting case study.

The idea that energy from nuclear fusion could be tapped by what were essentially chemical means was first announced in March 1989. If true, this result was of great significance, so a large number of researchers immediately moved into the field. Within a month, some 40 articles on cold fusion had been sent to refereed (printed) journals. It rapidly became apparent that research was proceeding at too great a pace to use the traditional outlet of printed publications. An electronic newsletter on cold fusion was started.

This, together with individual electronic-mail messaging, came to be the main method of exchanging information during the few months that the topic was at the center of debate. In fact, by the time the refereed articles were actually appearing in printed journals, most of the research community had already decided that the topic was not worth pursuing further.

There is an implicit question raised here about the "research front" dis-cussed earlier in this chapter. It seems that the duration in time of research front activities may diminish with the introduction of electronic communi-cation, whereas what is meant by a research front publication may also change to encompass something less formal than has been customary with printed sources. At the same time, the fact that the scientific community obtained much of its early information about cold fusion from mass media sources provides an unusual illustration of the value of multimedia