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Knowledge Production Between Popular Culture and Scientific Culture

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Handbook of Popular Culture and Biomedicine

Abstract

The increasing fusion of science and entertainment has led to concerns amongst scientists and policy makers about how entertainment depictions might impact public perceptions of science and, thus, influence various arenas of society including science itself. Anxiety over Hollywood science has led many scientists and scientific organizations to become consultants for movie productions in order to influence how stories about science are told through this medium. In this chapter I explore how Hollywood filmmakers have utilized science consultants to examine scripts, participate in pre-production meetings and advise during production. I demonstrate how cinematic science does not merely focus on scientific facts but also incorporates the entirety of the “systems of science”, which includes the visual cultures of science. In addition, I elaborate upon how filmmakers’ growing use of science consultants is linked to an increased desire for cinematic realism over the last 20 years. But I also show how the concept of “accuracy” is not a stable category when applied to movie science because of issues related to fantastical science, scientific controversies, natural variability, and the constraints filmmakers face when attempting to incorporate science into their film texts. In the end I demonstrate how popular cultural images and narratives can have a significant impact on the public’s conceptions of science by provoking reactions from encouraging enthusiasm for the scientific endeavour to instilling fear about science and technology and often both.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Information about these organizations can be found at: www.scienceandentertainmentexchange.org; www.hollywoodhealthandsociety.org; and www.eiconline.org

  2. 2.

    The rationale behind my book Lab Coats in Hollywood was to treat popular culture seriously as vehicles for science communication. Therefore, I examined the role that scientists play as consultants for major Hollywood film productions. I explored the ways in which science consultants shaped cinematic stories about science including scientific images and the depictions of scientist characters.

  3. 3.

    Taking a media text as a ‘cultural given’ means considering the text as an entity that exists outside of its production process. Understanding a media text as a ‘cultural process’ means acknowledging the text as the product of creative development undertaken by individuals who exist within a specific culture.

  4. 4.

    ‘Real Science of…’ style analyses almost always accompany major motion picture releases. An article in Time magazine about the science of Interstellar (Nolan 2014) is representative of a ‘Real Science of…’ response (Kluger 2014).

  5. 5.

    I refer to facts that are likely to be known by a majority of the public fall into the category as “public science”. Facts that are relatively unknown outside an expert community I designate as “expert science”. While I use “folk science” to refer to incorrect science that is nonetheless widely accepted by the public as true. See Kirby (2011, Ch. 5).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    David A. Kirby

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  1. David A. Kirby
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Correspondence to David A. Kirby .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Research Unit Communication Design, Bern University of the Arts HKB, Bern, Switzerland

    Arno Görgen

  2. Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences (FFLCH) University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    German Alfonso Nunez

  3. Department of History, Theory & Ethics of Medicine, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Heiner Fangerau

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Kirby, D.A. (2019). Knowledge Production Between Popular Culture and Scientific Culture. In: Görgen, A., Nunez, G.A., Fangerau, H. (eds) Handbook of Popular Culture and Biomedicine. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90677-5_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90677-5_2

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