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English to Spanish: EL GIRO COMUNICACIONAL EN LAS TECNOCIENCIA CONTEMPORÁNEA. Detailed field: Journalism
Source text - English Chapter 1
The ‘Communicative Turn’ in Contemporary
Techno-science: Latin American Approaches
and Global Tendencies
Carmelo Polino and Yurij Castelfranchi
Abstract Between the Second World War and the end of the Cold War, dramatic
changes have occurred both in the mode of production of scientifi c knowledge and
in the relationships between knowledge, innovation, the economy and civil society.
We hypothesize that the reconfi gurations in science made possible by a closer
relationship with capitalism stimulated a ‘communicative turn’ in science commu-
nication. Public communication of science and technology (S&T) has transformed
into a structural value within the core axiological pluralism of contemporary techno-
science: journalistic values, persuasion, publicity, opinion etc. converge within the
axiological core of techno-science. Therefore, science communication is today not
only a ‘right’ for the publics and a ‘moral duty’ for scientists, but a need for society
and an unavoidable, intrinsic process in the metabolism of contemporary capitalist
democracies. We map the present forms of techno-scientifi c practices and dis-
courses, and show how public communication of S&T has a central role (within
fl uid, confl ictive, global and mediatized scenarios) in understanding both the
production of knowledge and the governance of contemporary techno-science.
We describe three different aspects of communication: in research institutions, in
global mass media, and in civil society and ‘participatory movements’. We show
how new mediators and communicators (or no mediators at all), new stakeholders
in science communication and new ‘sources’ of scientifi c knowledge emerge today
Chapter 1
The ‘Communicative Turn’ in Contemporary
Techno-science: Latin American Approaches
and Global Tendencies
Carmelo Polino and Yurij Castelfranchi
C. Polino (*)
Centro REDES, Associated to the National Council of Science and Technology ,
Buenos Aires, Argentina
e-mail: [email protected]
Y. Castelfranchi
Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) , Belo Horizonte , Brazil
e-mail: yurij@fafi ch.ufmg.br
In the case of Yurij Castelfranchi, part of his research was funded through a grant of the
Federal University of Minas Gerais: ‘Programa Institucional de Auxílio à Pesquisa de Doutores
Recém- Contratados- PRPq/UFMG’.
4 C. Polino and Y. Castelfranchi
in this interesting scenario. Finally, in a preliminary analysis to be completed in
further work, we present examples and possible case studies from Latin America.
The region is exposed to global pressures and trends similar to those in the devel-
oped countries (S&T policies; intellectual property rights; relationships between
government, university and market; public participation, inclusion and engagement
in S&T etc.) but, at the same time, is subject to very diverse and very specifi c boundary
conditions and historical trajectories.
Keywords Sociology of S&T • Contemporary techno-science • Science communica-
tion theory • Models and practices in public communication of S&T • Latin America
1.1 Introduction
Scholars investigating public communication of science and technology (S&T)
today face an insidious interdisciplinary challenge: that of unraveling changing
confi gurations and recombination in the co-evolving entanglement between the pro-
duction, circulation, appropriation and governance of scientifi c knowledge and
socio-technical systems. On the one hand, almost all the sociological models and
diagnoses of the contemporary world (‘risk society’, ‘network society’, ‘refl exive
modernization’ and so on) focus explicitly on the roles played today by S&T in all
spheres of human activity: subjectivity and cultural changes; social stratifi cation
and public policies; social control and governance; market dynamics and social
networks; and so on. At the same time, such theoretical approaches emphasize
important changes in both the functioning and practices of science communication
and its actors. On the other hand, S&T studies have also focused, in the past decades,
on the hypothesis that scientifi c practices today may be quite different from those of
the times of Newton, Darwin or even Einstein in their norms, organizational and
epistemic structure, and relationships with the market and politics.
These circumstances came together with an increasing public exposition of S&T
during recent decades. Different social movements since the 1960s began to
denounce the industrialization model, as well as the serious environmental conse-
quences of science-based technological applications. The present confi guration of
techno-science shows an engagement of different agents and institutions participat-
ing in global science communication fl uxes that do not accept a more or less passive
role as ‘audience’ or ‘consumers’, as in traditional communication models, and
reclaim a role as participants and producers of information and knowledge. All this
has important impacts on the dynamics of both the production and the diffusion of
knowledge, and also changes communicative strategies for internal communica-
tions between scientists, communication in the public arena, relationships with mass
media, marketing, political propaganda and expert consulting. Public communication
of S&T has, therefore, a central role (within fl uid, confl icting, global and mediatized
scenarios) in our understanding of both the production of knowledge and the
governance of contemporary techno-science.
1 The ‘Communicative Turn’ in Contemporary Techno-science... 5
1.2 Science, Technology and Capitalism: From ‘Big Science’
to ‘Techno-science’
Between the Second World War and the end of the Cold War, dramatic changes
occurred both in the mode of production of scientifi c knowledge and in the relation-
ships between knowledge, innovation, the economy and civil society. The transfor-
mations in the regimen of capitalist accumulation meant a kind of reorganization in
which the production and appropriation of scientifi c knowledge came to play an
important and strategic role.
Several scholars studied those transformations, and some of them formulated a
strong claim: that science changed radically during the past 40 years, having become
today an activity epistemically and institutionally different from the ‘Big Science’
we were used to in western nations for much of the twentieth century. Some authors
have stressed the economic aspects (reorganizations in the capitalist regime in which
the production and appropriation of scientifi c and technological knowledge play
novel, deeper strategic roles). Others have emphasized institutional, organizational
or epistemological changes in science. ‘Post-industrial’ society, as proposed by Bell
( 1994 ) and others, Weinberg’s ‘trans-science’ ( 1972 ) , ‘regulatory science’ (Jasanoff
1995 ) , ‘post-normal’ science (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1993 ) , the ‘Mode 2’ of knowledge
production (Gibbons et al. 1994 ; Nowotny et al. 2001 ) , ‘post-academic’ science
(Ziman 2000 ) , and ‘techno-science’ (Latour 1992 ; Echeverría 2003 ) are some
examples. More generally, recent sociological diagnostics of contemporary societies,
such as ‘risk society’ (Beck 1999 ) and ‘network society’ (Castells 1997 ) analyses, also
showed the crucial role of these changes in the relationships between science,
technology, politics and the market.
Among several factors, one that most authors emphasize is the remarkable role
played by private capital in contemporary techno-science in most developed and
emergent countries. In the decades of the Cold War, science was strongly and mainly
supported and funded by nation states, and rhetorically seen as a ‘common good’.
That confi guration began to change in the 1980s with strong growth of private funding
for R&D, and scientifi c knowledge began to be seen as something that could, or
even should, be commercialized, sold and patented (Bauer 2008 ) . Of course, we are
not thinking of a sharp and rigid historiographical periodization, separating two
‘eras’ of science, nor claiming that a revolutionary paradigmatic shift has happened.
Several elements of contemporary science were already functioning during Big
Science, or were always present in modern science. Science studies already showed
in the 1960s and 1970s that science is immersed in a fi eld in which economic
pressures, political strategies and interactions with the public are relevant. However,
as we shall show, the contemporary modes in which such factors function, as well
as their meanings, their relative strengths and their effects, are different.
Today, techno-science shares with business and industry several norms and
practices. Economic rationality plays a role in the force fi eld that shapes what science
is and how it is done, so that S&T systems are being thought of, in most developed
countries, as big companies with mixed capital, and many concepts of the business
6 C. Polino and Y. Castelfranchi
world (such as fl exibility, mobility, venture capital, competitiveness, performance
and productivity) are being applied to them. Synergy, effi ciency, spin-offs, failure/
success, marketing, proactivity and entrepreneurialism have entered the daily
vocabulary and practices of researchers in many different areas of science. Narratives
of techno-science tell us today a story in which the production and circulation of
scientifi c and technical knowledge have to be managed in ‘effi cient’, ‘calculated’
forms more directly linked to the ‘national security’, ‘social demands’ and ‘economic
performance’ of the nation states. Both in Latin America and in the ‘developed’
countries, policymakers, managers and techno-scientifi c leaders repeat slogans that
emphasize the need for a reconfi guration in the role of universities and research: they
tell the story of the ‘challenge’ and of the ‘urgent need’ to create ‘entrepreneurial
universities’ able to ‘commercialize’ and ‘sell’ research to society (Etzkowitz 2001 ) .
If such reconfi gurations in the relationship between scientifi c research and the
markets are linked to the present shape of capitalism, the links between science and
politics are also affected by the growing importance of risk and socio-environmental
issues. Both in ‘risk societies’ (Beck 1999 ) and in ‘refl exive modernization’
(Giddens et al. 1997 ) , the problem of the social consequences of S&T is central,
intrinsically political and global. A crisis of legitimization in the Cold War ‘social
contract between science and society’ (Nowotny et al. 2001 ) also emerged from the
increasing visibility of confl icts of interests—biomedicine, genetically modifi ed
organisms, patents—as well as the publicizing of several recent cases of misconduct
in science (Castelfranchi 2008 ) .
Focusing on the axiological aspects, some authors also claimed that some relevant
changes are occurring in contemporary techno-science. Echeverría ( 2003 ) , for exam-
ple, like other authors, argues that economic, political and military progress constitute
the fundamental pragmatic principle that guides techno-science. From this, it follows
that a fundamental principle in techno-science is not knowledge, the basic principle of
modern science, but ‘the capacity of action’ (Echeverría 2003 :267). Techno-science
praxiology therefore assumes wider and more complex values than modern science.
The classic epistemic values are maintained; however, techno-science incorporates new
values or radically modifi es the relative weight of previous values. Echeverría’s axiology
incorporates typical technical and technological values (effi ciency, innovation, etc.);
economic values (patents, resources optimization, benefi ts, management, competitive-
ness, profi tability, etc.); military values (national autonomy and security, etc.); and
ecological, human, political and social values in a broad sense.
1.3 New Values, Practices and Meanings for the Public
Communication of S&T
In this (at least partially) new scenario, we can claim that public communication of
S&T is today not only a moral duty for scientists, a necessity for the publics, or a
tactical need of scientifi c institutions that try to politically legitimate their activity
or to gain funds and sponsors, but also a spontaneous, necessary, physiological
1 The ‘Communicative Turn’ in Contemporary Techno-science... 7
process in the functioning of techno-science. Science and technology are communicated
not only through traditional channels (formal and informal, education, popularization,
science journalism etc.) but by complex fl uxes of communications that do not always
have scientists, institutions or professional communicators as authors (mailing lists,
patient groups, social movements, debates in the media etc.). Our hypothesis is that
the reconfi gurations in science made possible by the closer relationship with capitalism
also stimulated a ‘communicative turn’ in science communication: journalistic values,
persuasion, publicity and opinion converge within the axiological core of techno-
science. Certainly, public communication has always been an important value since
the period of science professionalization in Europe. But with the emergence of Big
Science and, especially, techno-science, communication has acquired a new status:
it has become a structural and structuring feature of contemporary techno-science.
The confl uence between new values and contexts of practices stimulates quite
remarkable research questions on science communication in global and mediatized
societies. One is about the types of communication and the ways and channels where
communication occurs. Several theoretical proposals have been made, such as that by
Cloître and Shinn ( 1985 ) identifying four scenarios for communication processes,
based on the type of product produced ( intra-specialist , inter-specialist , pedagogical
and popular ). Other typologies look at the relationships between the publics involved
(see Verón 1999 ) or the distinctions among ‘endogenous’ or ‘exogenous’ fi elds with
respect to science. Such taxonomies suggest frontiers at different levels of science
communication and are useful for analyzing traditional scientifi c popularization,
where the key factor is to explain (to share) scientifi c knowledge or ideas with non-
specialized audiences. However, communication practices in techno-science are more
complex. Many authors acknowledge that the traditional frontiers between the com-
municative contexts have become more porous and fl uid, that the separation between
‘science’ and the ‘lay public’ had become less radical, and that communication had
started to look more like a communicative continuum (Bucchi 1998 ) . Several case
studies criticize models in which there is a ‘science which is made’ and, after that,
another science that is ‘popularized’ or ‘socially widespread’. Some examples are
Clemens’ study ( 1986 ) on the extinction of the dinosaurs at the K-T boundary; Nieman
( 2000 ) in relation to the popularization of physics; Lewenstein ( 1995 ) on the ‘cold
fusion’ saga; Bucchi ( 2000 ) on COBE satellite discoveries; and Kiernan ( 2000 ) on
NASA’s information control during the announcement of the ‘Martian meteorite’.
In what follows, we show some tendencies in global and local (Latin American)
practices that are connected to the emergence of communication as a structural
feature of science, the global mass media, and civil society and its ways of
appropriation and participation in social debates.
1.3.1 Research Institutions and Communication
Public communication (in an institutional, political, mediated or marketing context)
is today an essential need for many researchers and techno-scientifi c organizations.
8 C. Polino and Y. Castelfranchi
The search for visibility, legitimization, funding and alliances and the need for
negotiations and dialog with different stakeholders generate new impulses for
science communication. In some cases, scientists metaphorically wear their white
coats when they enter political debates and confl icts, as a symbol of a pure, neutral,
universal knowledge. In other cases, they accept the rules of the mediated game.
In order to sell books, market a company or become ‘visible’, they accept the use of
‘hype’. Of course, ‘selling science’ to the public is not new: rhetorical strategies to
popularize scientifi c claims to wider audiences are known since the seventeenth
century, and the use of the media in order to gain prestige or political legitimization
has been an important part of the work and tactics of ‘academic scientists’ since the
nineteenth century. What is new is not that behavior, but the way the relationship
with media is felt, encouraged, operationalized and institutionalized, for example
by means of media offi ces and explicit incentives for science communication and
engagement activities.
The media offi ces of many big scientifi c institutions today produce multimedia
news and materials for journalists. In several cases, they use (in titles, images and
metaphors) ‘sex appeal’ and the kind of hype that scientists used to see (and criticize)
as a product of ‘bad’ journalists, not of their own media offi ces. ‘God’s machine’,
‘the face of God’, ‘God’s particle’, ‘the pillars of Creation’, ‘the missing link
between ape and man’ and ‘the Holy Grail’ are just some examples of hyperbolic
expressions that have their source not in journalists, but in scientifi c institutions or
even in the offi cial declarations of scientists. At the same time, journals ( Science is
a good example), forums and scientifi c institutions stimulate blogs, wikis and social
networks to communicate science. The same occurs with ‘open days’ in the labs
(for journalists, politicians, businessmen and the ‘general public’). This type of
activity is increasingly used by scientists and their institutions to improve the
penetration and the impacts of their communication.
Science advocacy is another interesting aspect of these processes: marketing,
lobbying and publicity are increasingly important in S&T (Castelfranchi 2002 ) .
What is remarkable is that an important part of such activities is directed not only at
politicians or the business sector, but at civil society, too. The need of techno-science
for accountability, lobbying and public legitimization today joins with the need of
politics to legitimate itself through science. Techno-science needs politics as much
as politics needs techno-science. A strong legitimacy argument in contemporary
politics is to claim that some position is based ‘not on ideology, but on facts’. 1
Effi ciency and effi cacy are used as strong arguments in favor of some public policy,
as are ‘justice’, ‘equality’ or ‘moral values’, so that almost every NGO, party and
coalition searches for some researcher saying that, for example, global warming
exists (or does not exist), that it is not (or is) crucially linked to anthropogenic
emissions, and so on.
1 See Castelfranchi ( 2008 ) for an analysis and sources of this and following claims.
1 The ‘Communicative Turn’ in Contemporary Techno-science... 9
As a consequence, public communication of science today plays a complex role,
not only in the public agenda but also in the governance of S&T and even inside
the lab. It is not exogenous to science; nor does it happen diachronically ‘after’ the
research to diffuse new knowledge. It is also an intrinsic, physiological process that
happens synchronically with new research, shaping the research’s forms and possi-
bilities. Science communication, therefore, serves pedagogical goals, but also
informative, strategic, marketing, and political ones. It is also an important battle-
fi eld for struggles between scientists for prominence, funding, and epistemic or
political authority.
1.3.2 Science Communication in the Media: The Global
and Latin American Contexts
The sociological map of science communication is not limited to the communicative
strategies produced by agents and science institutions. Traditional and new mass
media make possible science communication with a permanent presence and a dif-
ferentiated audience on a global scale. The socio-institutional transformations in the
dynamic of contemporary science and the global expansion of mass media are, in
fact, social phenomena which experienced parallel evolutions (Bucchi 2008 ) .
Besides that, the mass media have come to play a decisive role in contemporary
democratic societies, in which the media are now one of the fundamental social
institutions. And, like many systems, the media have suffered the impact of capital-
istic reconfi gurations. Hallin ( 2008 :43), for instance, says that ‘the mass media are
among the most important of those social institutions which have been subject to
“enclosure” by the logic of the market in the Age of Neoliberalism.’
So, science communication is not comprehensible today outside the actions of
mass media. In the past, most scientifi c controversies remained inside small circles
of the ‘experts’ and ‘colleagues’. Today, many of them are known by nearly everyone,
amplifi ed by the reverberations of the global mass media. Great empirical evidence
exists to show how science follows logics of production, diffusion and battles typical
of the ‘cultural industries’ (Schiele 2006, 2009 ; Cheng et al. 2008 ; Dierkes and von
Grote 2000 ; Castelfranchi and Pitrelli 2007 ; Polino and Castelfranchi in press ;
Friedman et al. 1999 ; Bauer and Bucchi 2007 ) .
The relation between journalists (mass media) and scientists (research institutions)
is, however, controversial. Science journalists are culturally dependent on scientists
because of scientists’ capacity to produce ‘autonomous information’ (Bourdieu
2007 :104). In contrast, journalism, fundamentally through the triumph of television
and its effects on the social agenda, has imposed the logic of the audience on science.
While such a ‘latent confl ict’ certainly exists, science–media interfaces have
experienced transformations that could be interpreted as structural changes in the
traditional relationship between scientifi c and media cultures. Empirical evidence
shows that interactions between the media and science, present since the profes-
sionalization and institutionalization of science in the nineteenth century, have been
10 C. Polino and Y. Castelfranchi
increasing in recent years. Weingart ( 2001 ) , quoted by Peters et al. ( 2008a ) , observed
a close connection between scientifi c institutions and the media which was con-
nected to the need for legitimacy and political infl uence, but which was also used to
seek public support in cases of disputes within science itself. Scientists now have a
deeper perception of the impact of media on their careers, activities and social purposes.
A mail survey conducted by Peters et al. ( 2008a, 2008b ) in the United States, Japan,
Germany, the United Kingdom and France revealed that scientist–journalist interac-
tions ‘were more common than anticipated’ (Peters et al. 2008a :204). The vast
majority of the respondents acknowledged that ‘increasing the public’s appreciation
of science was the most important benefi t mentioned as an incentive to interact with
the media’ (Peters et al. 2008a :204). In all fi ve countries, ‘a plurality of scientists
who had contact with the media in the past 3 years rated the impact of those contacts
on their careers positively.’ Another cross-national analysis of popular science pub-
lishing among university staff in 13 developed and developing countries counted the
number of articles by scientists in newspapers and magazines over the 3-year period
from 2005 to 2007. The data suggest that academic staff with popular publications
also have higher levels of scientifi c publishing and academic rank—a fact that con-
fi rms previous fi ndings in surveys by Kunth ( 1992 ) . 2
So it is less the social reality of
this correlation that is new than the fact that scientifi c communities now accept it as
they previously did not. This fi nding, Bentley and Kyvik ( 2011 ) show, is consistent
across all countries and academic fi elds. Other independent investigations have
recently identifi ed similar patterns in the relationship of science, popularization and
the media in countries as different as Italy (Bucchi and Mazzolini 2003 ) , Argentina
(Kreimer et al. 2011 ) , the United Kingdom (Royal Society 2006 ) , France (Jensen
2011 ) and Spain (Torres Alberó et al. 2011 ) .
The mass media also have changed science’s work: for example, ‘researchers are
often among the most assiduous users of science coverage by the media, on which
they draw to select among the enormous mass of publications and research studies
in circulation’ (Bucchi 2002 :113). For example, famous work by Phillips et al.
( 1991 ) showed how a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine is
three times more likely to be cited in the scientifi c literature if it has fi rst been men-
tioned by the New York Times . Kiernan ( 1997, 2003 ) demonstrated similar results.
Journalism infl uences scientifi c controversies, too: the mass media shape discussion
about the acceptance of scientifi c theories or technological developments (Brossard
2009 ; Clemens 1986 ; Epstein 1996 ; Wynne 1989 ) . Moreover, the mass media may
be used by scientists as platforms to assure their priority in discovery—a well-
known phenomenon in the sociology of science (Collins and Pinch 1993 ) . Live
press conferences may be called before a formal paper is published, or even submit-
ted. In addition, many scientifi c papers are published in specialized journals and
simultaneously reported by the mass media, amplifying both the audiences and the
contexts of evaluation.
2 See also the analysis and theoretical explanation by Jacobi and Schiele ( 1988 ) .
1 The ‘Communicative Turn’ in Contemporary Techno-science... 11
Other visible consequences are produced by the mediatization of science. The media
have played a decisive role in the amplifi cation of risks associated with the develop-
ment of S&T, as has been apparent in the United States and Europe, and also in Latin
America (see Polino 2009 ; Takahashi 2010 ; Polino et al. 2006 ; Ramalho et al. 2011 ;
Da Silva Medeiros and Massarani 2010 ) . In fact, the visualization of risks is
probably associated with the emerging forms of professionalization and journalistic
institutionalization, fi rst in the industrialized countries and, lately, in the developing
world. This is already evident in countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Colombia
(despite local and regional disparities). As a consequence of the incipient processes
of institutionalization, in many cases science journalists have begun to act like
economic or political reporters in the past:
[J]ournalists who had previously deferred to party and group leaders or to state offi cials
increasingly began to assert their independence and their right to scrutinize elites and estab-
lished institutions on behalf of their readers and of ‘society’ or ‘the public’. (Hallin
2008 :43).
A closer look at the media reveals that certain important social issues have
undergone a ‘shift’ in media coverage, from a pattern centered on ‘scientifi c discoveries’
to a more balanced and complex treatment, taking into account risks, interests, con-
nections with business, environmental and social impacts, science for policy and
policies for science, and so on (see Polino 2009 ; Massarani and Polino 2008 ;
Massarani et al. 2007 ; Vara 2007a ) .
There are other interesting tendencies in the institutionalization of science com-
munication activities in Latin America. Countries where national S&T systems are
more developed or growing faster (such as Brazil, Mexico and Argentina) are also
countries that experienced, during the past two decades, a strong growth in science
communication. In Argentina and, particularly, Brazil, science communication has
been growing through both public and private activities. In the past year, the
Brazilian ministries of Science and Technology and of Education have given a very
strong push to science communication and to mechanisms of social inclusion and
participation in S&T. Brazil’s S&T Week is today a huge constellation of events,
occurring from the Amazon rainforest to southern villages. Currently, there is
research on the public perception of S&T fi nanced by the public sector in both
countries. In Argentina, a public TV channel (Encuentro) has for nearly 10 years
produced a high-quality scientifi c program ( Científi cos Industria Argentina) with
very good ratings. Other private sector channels are launching special programs in
S&T. One of the most popular infotainment TV programs in Brazil, Fantástico , has
a very strong S&T component and is broadcast by Globo Network to a huge audience.
Other private enterprises also see an important niche market in popular science:
increasingly, the main publishing houses in Argentina and Brazil produce popular
science books covering a huge range of issues and publics, as do the publishing
arms of public universities and other institutions. There are Argentine and Brazilian
editions of Scientifi c American magazine, as well as several other very popular
science magazines. Public research foundations have also developed magazines for
the ‘lay’ public. Journals such as Revista Pesquisa Fapesp (of the São Paulo state
12 C. Polino and Y. Castelfranchi
foundation for the advancement of research), Ciência Hoje (Brazil) and Ciencia
Hoy (Argentina) are today not only distributed to scientifi c institutions, libraries and
universities, but also sold in kiosks. Some postgraduate or master’s degree courses
in science writing and public communication of S&T have been created in both
public and private institutions. And some very famous scientists have decided to
become science writers, editorialists or educators, or to take on active public roles
(for example, in politics or as entrepreneurs).
From all these developments, we see that the growing importance of science
communication seems to be strongly linked to the emergence of new confi gurations
and needs in the relationships between science, politics and the market, but that the
process is not identical to that happening in the North, since it is affected by important
historical conditions linked to several factors. Those factors include a tradition of
top-down policymaking, often not transparent and in some cases with an authoritarian
fl avor; a great cultural diversity across the country (mainly in Brazil) and an important
role for social movements, especially in fi ghts for indigenous rights, small farmers
rights, the environment, etc. ; the very recent re-democratization in the 1980s, after
some 20 years of military dictatorship; and a strong presence of the private sector in
basic and higher education alongside a weaker presence in R&D.
1.3.3 Civil Society, Participation
and Techno-scientifi c Communication
The crisis in industrialization models and the environmental consequences of
technological applications have affected the communicative fi eld by opening it to
the actions of other agents and social institutions. During recent decades, those
agents and institutions have started to intervene directly in scientifi c and technological
issues: a ‘participatory turn’ in science and technology, supporting the idea of
governance and the democratization of science and technological decisions.
(Lengwiler 2008 ; López Cerezo 2003 ) .
‘Lay’ users want to participate in the construction of knowledge, or at least in its
validation and governance. In the medical area, increasingly strong, organized and
informed patient groups can help to guide the research agenda. In some cases, they
even have a say in establishing what should be considered ‘good science’ or ‘bad
science’, as shown, for example, in the classic case study by Epstein ( 1995 ) . In fact,
in contemporary medicine, NGOs not only defend the rights of patients, but in
some cases can collect more money than governments and decide how to use it. In other
cases, knowledge production occurs, at least in part, outside the universities and
centers of traditional research. Local communities and pressure groups can order
reports and experiments by ‘independent scientists’. In some cases, grassroots orga-
nizations may orient research demands, produce data, facts, and truth effects, circulate
discursive fragments and do research, having an infl uence on scientists’ behavior or
even over methodological decisions, and transforming themselves in an integral part
of techno-science (Bucchi 2009 ; Castelfranchi 2008 : Chap. 4 ).
1 The ‘Communicative Turn’ in Contemporary Techno-science... 13
Petras and Veltmeyer ( 2006 ) , analysing the cases of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia
and Ecuador, identifi ed three basic modalities of social change and political power
in the region: electoral politics, social action in the direction of local development,
and the construction of social movements. In Latin American countries, there have
been some remarkable recent events that have put civil society into the center of the
technological development discussion and, more widely, of debates on democracy
and sustainable development. Examples include social resistance to open-pit
mining in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru (Svampa and Antonelli 2009 ) , social
mobilization and organization against the installation of pulp mills on the margins
of the River Uruguay (Vara 2007b ) , and the public discussion on lithium extraction
in Bolivia. In Brazil during the past decade, governmental rhetoric has placed a
stronger emphasis on e-democracy, social inclusion, participation and engagement.
Several mechanisms for ‘bottom-up’ deliberation, such as participative budgeting,
public consultations and plebiscites, have assumed stronger roles in governance
processes. Science and technology were not immune to the process. ‘Civil society’
participated in the debate on the constitutionality of stem-cell research (Cesarino
2007 ) , and participates, at least partially, in bioethics and bio-security committees
(Leite 2007 ) ; an on-line public consultation was recently held to formulate a pro-
posal for a new law on intellectual property rights to music; consensus conferences
were organized on biotechnology; public engagement programs were planned to
stimulate the debate on nanotechnology; and so on. Recently, Amazonian indige-
nous people participated actively, not as ‘subjects of research’ or ‘informants’ but as
co-authors, in researches published in international journals (Heckenberger et al.
2003 ) . Social movements and indigenous NGOs have also produced scientifi c data
and funded scientifi c research useful to their campaigns (Castelfranchi 2008 ) .
Some academic areas in Latin America are also traditionally, and strongly, linked to
social movements, and a culture of civic duty, of a responsibility to the people and the
nation, is quite strong among some intellectuals. Every university in Brazil, Argentina
and other countries in the region has three duties: to research, to teach, and to engage
in ‘extension’ (that is, to diffuse and transfer knowledge to generate social inclusion
and transformation). In some senses, ‘accountability’, the social responsibility of
science and ‘engagement’ are not novel here. Gramsci’s theories, as well as Paulo
Freire’s critical ‘pedagogy of the oppressed’, greatly infl uenced some intellectuals and
practices of knowledge communication in community radios, schools etc. As a conse-
quence, on the one hand, communication theory and practices were developed in Latin
America with peculiar infl ections and political fl avors, as in Martin Barbero’s theory of
mediations. On the other hand, neoliberal science policies and university management
based on market demands, as well as globalized science communication practices, are
not the only forces in action, and in some cases may not be the dominant ones.
One conclusion is that interest groups, pressure groups and social movements
cannot be viewed as ‘passive’ or ‘ignorant’ ‘lay’ people. In some cases, they refuse
to be considered simply as ‘audiences’ or ‘consumers’. They use new information
technologies (blogs, social networks, wikis, YouTube etc.) and validate themselves
as activists and information producers. They know their actions can infl uence
policies (and politics) and affect the dynamics of knowledge production.
14 C. Polino and Y. Castelfranchi
1.4 Concluding Remarks
In this chapter, we argue that reconfi gurations that occurred in the past 40 years in
the relationships between science, politics and the market in developed and devel-
oping countries are deeply linked to the emergence of new practices, new modes
and (partly) new roles for the public communication of S&T. Science communica-
tion is today an unavoidable and intrinsic process in the metabolism of contemporary
societies. A trend is clear: techno-science is synchronically produced and commu-
nicated. The alliance between techno-science and capitalism has stimulated a
‘communicative turn’ in science communication, incorporating new agendas, problems,
agents, institutions and social scenarios. Such a turn has two aspects. On the one
hand, R&D, S&T policies and science communication practices are more and more
linked to market demands, cultural industries and political interests: this is a global-
ized, neoliberal techno-science. On the other hand, that confi guration also creates
interesting possibilities for novel mutual feedbacks between techno-science and
society, and for expanded social participation mechanisms in the production and
governance of S&T, catalyzed and strengthened by new models and practices in
public communication of S&T.
New actors emerge: science communication today does not only pass through the
traditional channels of science journalism, popular science and formal or informal
education. Several modes of diffusion are active. Sometimes, there is no mediator
(for example, technical scientifi c information diffuses among mailing lists of patient
pressure groups or environmental NGOs, or scientists communicate directly to their
publics via blogs, wikis etc.). In some cases, the ‘public’ is also a producer of scien-
tifi c information (for example, indigenous movements and environmental activists
collect and produce data).
Latin America, where these global trends are immersed in specifi c situations and
diverse boundary conditions, is a very interesting region to study such phenomena.
In most countries of Latin America, a tradition of centralization, statism and author-
itarianism has existed alongside strong and important social mass movements, cultural
processes of resistance and assimilation, and an academic culture that eventually
showed itself to be not so closed up in its ivory tower, but willing to listen to and
cope with societal demands. In parts of Latin America, globalizing trends in techno-
science and science communication are visible and accelerating strongly.
At the same time, the region shows that market is not the only force shaping
science communication today. Latin America does not merely ‘follow’ global trends
but, on the contrary, is immersed in trends and global forces with different condi-
tions and follows diverse, peculiar and interesting trajectories. We think the
examples and commentary we have provided give an idea of some peculiar and
partly heterodox practices in Latin America. Nonetheless, we are aware that more
research is needed to produce analytical comparative models. We hope to develop
such studies soon.
1 The ‘Communicative Turn’ in Contemporary Techno-science... 15
Acknowledgement We would like to thank the referees for their very careful work on our text
and for several important questions they raised, which generated insights both for this chapter and
for future research.
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Translation - Spanish CAPÍTULO 1
EL GIRO COMUNICACIONAL EN LAS TECNOCIENCIA CONTEMPORÁNEA: EL ENFOQUE LATINO AMERICANO Y LAS TENDENCIAS GLOBALES.
Carmelo Polino and Yurij Castelfranchi
Formulamos la hipótesis de que las reconfiguraciones en la ciencia posibilitadas por una relación más cercana con el capitalismo, estimularon un cambio en la comunicación de las ciencias. La comunicación de la ciencia es hoy no solo un derecho para el público y una obligación moral para los científicos, sino también una necesidad para la sociedad y un proceso intrínseco inevitable en el metabolismo de las democracias del capitalismo contemporáneo.
1.1 INTRODUCCIÓN
Los especialistas que estudian la comunicación pública de la ciencia y la tecnología hoy enfrentan un desafío interdisciplinario: el de los cambios en las configuraciones y recombinaciones en el enredo entre la producción, circulación, apropiación y gobierno del conocimiento científico y los sistemas socio- tecnológicos.
La presente configuración de la tecnociencia muestra un compromiso de diferentes agentes e instituciones participando en los flujos de comunicación de la ciencia global que no aceptan un rol pasivo como audiencias o consumidores, tal y como ocurre en los modelos de comunicación tradicional, y reclaman un rol como participantes y productores de información y conocimiento. Todo esto impacta en la dinámica tanto de la producción como de la difusión del conocimiento y también cambia las estrategias de comunicación para la comunicación interna entre científicos, la comunicación en el terreno público, las relaciones con los medios masivos, marketing, propaganda política y asesoramiento de expertos. La comunicación pública de la ciencia y la tecnología tiene, por lo tanto, un rol central (en los escenarios fluidos, conflictivos, globales y mediatizados) en nuestra comprensión tanto de la producción del conocimiento como del gobierno de la tecnociencia moderna.
1.2 CIENCIA, TECNOLOGÍA Y CAPITALISMO: DE LA “CIENCIA GRANDE” A LA “TECNO-CIENCIA”
Entre el final de la segunda guerra mundial y el fin de la guerra fría, cambios dramáticos ocurrieron tanto en el modo de producción del conocimiento científico como en la relación entre el conocimiento, la innovación, la economía y la sociedad civil. Las transformaciones en el régimen de la acumulación capitalista significaron un tipo de reorganización en la cual la producción y apropiación del conocimiento científico vino a ocupar un importante rol. Varios especialistas estudiaron dichas transformaciones y afirmaron que la ciencia cambió radicalmente durante los últimos 40 años, habiéndose convertido hoy en una actividad epistémica e institucionalmente diferente a la de la Ciencia Grande (The Big Science) a la que estábamos acostumbrados en las naciones occidentales durante gran parte del siglo 20.
Algunos autores han enfatizado el aspecto económico (las reorganizaciones en el régimen capitalista en el cual la producción y apropiación del conocimiento tecnológico y científico juegan nuevos y estratégicos roles), otros han enfatizado los cambios institucionales organizacionales o epistemológicos en la ciencia. Recientes diagnósticos de sociólogos de sociedades contemporáneas mostraron también el rol crucial de estos cambios en las relaciones entre la ciencia, la tecnología, la política y el mercado.
Entre otros factores, uno que muchos enfatizan es el rol destacado jugado por el capital privado en la tecnociencia contemporánea en la mayoría de los países desarrollados y emergentes. En las décadas de la guerra fría la ciencia fue fuertemente y principalmente sostenida y financiada por países estado y visto retóricamente como un “bien común”. Esa configuración comenzó a cambiar en la década de 1980 con un fuerte crecimiento de la financiación privada el conocimiento científico comenzó a verse como algo que pudiera o incluso debiera ser comercializado, vendido y patentado.
Hoy la tecnociencia comparte con los negocios y la industria varias normas y prácticas. La racionalidad económica juega un rol en el campo que da forma a lo que es la ciencia, por lo que los sistemas de ciencia y tecnología son pensados, en la mayoría de los países desarrollados, como grandes compañías con capitales mixtos y muchos conceptos del mundo de los negocios (tales como la flexibilidad, movilidad, competitividad, performance y productividad) son aplicados a ellos.
Las narraciones de la tecnociencia nos cuentan hoy una historia en la cual la producción y circulación del conocimiento científico y tecnológico deben ser manejados de forma eficiente y calculada, más directamente relacionados con la “seguridad nacional” la “demanda social” y la “performance económica” de los estados nación. En latino América y en los países desarrollados, los desarrolladores de políticas, gerentes y líderes tecno-científicos repiten slogans que enfatizan la necesidad de la reconfiguración del rol de las universidades y de la investigación: ellos cuentan la historia del “desafío” y de la “necesidad urgente” de crear “universidades empresariales” capaces de comercializar y vender los trabajos de investigación a la sociedad.
Los lazos entre la ciencia y la política son también afectados por la creciente importancia de los temas socio- medioambientales. Una crisis de legitimación del “contrato social entre la ciencia y la sociedad” habido durante la “guerra fría”, también surgió debido a la creciente puesta en evidencia de conflictos e intereses- biomedicina, organismos genéticamente modificados, patentes- así como debido a la publicación de varios recientes casos de conductas dolosas en la ciencia.
Algunos autores aseguran que el principio pragmático fundamental de la ciencia hoy es el progreso político, económico y militar. De lo cual se desprende que el principio fundamental de la tecnociencia no es el conocimiento sino la “capacidad de acción”.
1.3 NUEVOS VALORES, PRÁCTICAS Y SIGNIFICADOS PARA LA COMUNICACIÓN DE LA CIENCIA Y DE LA TECNOLOGÍA.
En este nuevo escenario, podemos asegurar que la comunicación pública de la ciencia y la tecnología es hoy no solo una obligación moral para los científicos, una necesidad para el público o una necesidad táctica para las instituciones científicas que tratan de legitimar políticamente su actividad o sumar fondos y sponsors, sino que también es un proceso espontáneo, lógico y fisiológico en el funcionamiento de las tecno-ciencias.
Cloître y Shinn(1985) identifican 4 escenarios para los procesos de comunicación basados en el tipo de producto (intra-especialista, inter-especialista, pedagógico y popular). Otras tipologías miran la relación entre los públicos involucrados o las distinciones entre campos endógenos y exógenos respecto de la ciencia.
Muchos autores afirman, sin embargo, que las tradicionales fronteras entre la ciencia y la comunicación se ven ahora más como un continuum. La búsqueda de la legitimidad, visibilidad, fondos y alianzas y la necesidad de negociar y dialogar con distintos grupos de interés generan nuevos impulsos para la comunicación de la ciencia.
1.3.1 INSTITUCIONES DE INVESTIGACIÓN Y COMUNICACIÓN
Las oficinas de los medios de comunicación de muchas grandes instituciones científicas producen noticias para los periodistas. En muchos casos ellos usan (en títulos, imágenes y metáforas) el “sex appeal” y el tipo de hipérboles que los científicos solían criticar como un producto de los “malos” periodistas. Este tipo de actividad es usada cada vez más por los científicos y sus instituciones para mejorar el impacto de la comunicación.
La necesidad de ser responsables, de hacer “lobby” y de la legitimación pública de la tecno-ciencia se une hoy a la necesidad que la política tiene de legitimarse a través de la ciencia. La comunicación de la ciencia por lo tanto, tiene objetivos pedagógicos pero también informativos, estratégicos, de mercado y políticos. Es también una batalla entre científicos por prominencia, fondos y autoridad epistemológica o política.
1.3.2 LA COMUNICACIÓN DE LA CIENCIA EN LOS MEDIOS: LOS CONTEXTOS GLOBALES Y LATINO AMERICÁNOS.
La comunicación científica no es comprensible hoy fuera de los medios masivos de comunicación. En el pasado, la mayoría de las controversias científicas quedaban dentro de pequeños círculos de expertos y colegas. Hoy, muchas de ellas son conocidas por casi todas las personas, amplificadas por la reverberación de los medios masivos. Los científicos tienen ahora una mayor conciencia del impacto de los medios de comunicación en sus carreras.
Los medios masivos de comunicación dirigen el debate acerca de la aceptación de teorías científicas o desarrollos tecnológicos. Lo que es más, los medios masivos de comunicación pueden ser usados por los científicos como plataformas para asegurar su prioridad en el descubrimiento.
La mediatización de la ciencia tiene además otras consecuencias visibles. Los medios han jugado un rol decisivo en la difusión de los riesgos asociados con el desarrollo de la ciencia y la tecnología.
Existen otras importantes tendencias en la institucionalización de las actividades de comunicación de las ciencias en latino América. Países como Brasil, México y Argentina han experimentado, durante las últimas dos décadas, un gran crecimiento en la comunicación de las ciencias. En Argentina y particularmente en Brasil, la comunicación de la ciencia ha crecido tanto en la actividad privada como en la pública. En el último año, los Ministerios de Ciencia y Tecnología y de Educación de Brasil le han dado un fuerte empujón a la comunicación de la ciencia y a los mecanismos de inclusión social y participación en la ciencia y la tecnología. Actualmente existen trabajos de investigación sobre cómo el público percibe la ciencia y la tecnología, financiados por el sector público en ambos países. En Argentina un canal de televisión público ha producido por casi 10 años un programa científico de alta calidad (Científicos Industria Argentina) con muy buen rating.
Otras empresas privadas también ven un importante mercado en la ciencia popular. Las principales editoriales en Argentina y Brasil producen libros de ciencia populares que cubren una gran variedad de temas y públicos. Lo mismo hacen las universidades públicas y otras instituciones. Las fundaciones de investigación pública también han editado revistas para el público llano las cuales son distribuidas en instituciones científicas, librerías y universidades pero también en kioscos. Tanto en instituciones privadas como públicas se han creado algunos cursos de postgrado en redacción científica y comunicación pública de ciencia y tecnología y algunos famosos científicos se han convertido en escritores científicos, columnistas o educadores.
Como vemos la creciente importancia de la comunicación de la ciencia parece estar fuertemente relacionada con el surgimiento de nuevas configuraciones entre la ciencia, la política y el mercado pero los procesos no son idénticos a los del norte debido a varios factores: una tradición de políticas impuestas desde arriba no siempre transparentes y en algunos casos con carácter autoritario; una gran diversidad cultural a lo largo y ancho del país y un importante rol de los movimientos sociales.
1.3.3 LA SOCIEDAD CIVIL, PARTICIPACIÓN Y COMUNICACIÓN TECNO-CIENTÍFICA.
La crisis en los modelos de industrialización y las consecuencias medioambientales de las aplicaciones tecnológicas han afectado el campo de las comunicaciones abriéndolo a la acción de otros agentes e instituciones sociales. En las últimas décadas agentes de dichas instituciones han comenzado a intervenir directamente en temas de ciencia y tecnología, sosteniendo la idea del control y de la democratización de las decisiones de la ciencia y de la tecnología. La producción del conocimiento se da en parte, al menos, fuera de las universidades o centros de investigación y los grupos de presión pueden ordenar informes y experimentos a científicos independientes.
En los países latino americanos, algunos destacados eventos han puesto a la sociedad civil en el centro de las discusiones sobre el desarrollo tecnológico, y aún más, en debates sobre democracia y desarrollo sustentable. Como ejemplo podemos citar la resistencia social a la minería de cielo abierto en Argentina, Chile, Bolivia y Perú.
En Brasil, la sociedad participó en debates sobre la constitucionalidad de la investigación sobre células madres y participa, al menos parcialmente, en comités de bioética y bioseguridad.
Algunas áreas académicas en latino América están tradicionalmente vinculadas con movimientos sociales y la cultura del deber cívico y de responsabilizarse de la gente y de la nación es muy fuerte entre algunos intelectuales. Todas las universidades en Brasil o Argentina u otros países de la región, tienen tres obligaciones: la investigación, la enseñanza y la “extensión” (transmitir el conocimiento para generar inclusión social y transformación). La responsabilidad social no es nueva aquí.
Por otra parte, las políticas científicas neoliberales o las gerencias de las universidades basadas en las demandas del mercado, además de las prácticas de comunicación científicas, no son las únicas fuerzas en acción.
Una conclusión sería que los grupos de interés, grupos de presión y movimientos sociales no pueden ser vistos como pasivos ignorantes o gente llana. Ellos usan nuevas tecnologías de información (blogs, redes sociales, “wikis”, ”youtube”, etc) y se validan como activistas y productores de información. Saben que sus acciones pueden afectar las políticas y la dinámica de producción del conocimiento.
1.4 CONCLUSIÓN
La tendencia es clara: la tecno-ciencia se produce y se comunica sincrónicamente. La alianza entre la tecnología y el capitalismo ha estimulado un cambio en la comunicación de la ciencia, incorporando nuevas agendas, problemas, agentes, instituciones y escenarios sociales. Por un lado las políticas de la ciencia y tecnología y las prácticas de la comunicación de la ciencia están cada vez más relacionadas con las demandas del mercado, la industria cultural y los intereses políticos: esta es una tecno-ciencia globalizada y neoliberal. Por otro lado, esta configuración también crea interesantes posibilidades para una nueva retroalimentación entre la tecnociencia y la sociedad, y para expandir los mecanismos de participación social en la producción y gobierno de la ciencia y la tecnología, catalizados y fortalecidos por los nuevos modelos y prácticas en la comunicación de las ciencias.
En la mayoría de los países de latino América, una tradición de centralización, estatismo, y autoritarismo ha existido en importantes movimientos sociales masivos, procesos culturales de resistencia y asimilación y una cultura académica que eventualmente se muestra no tan encerrada en su “torre de marfil” pero en cambio dispuesta a escuchar y lidiar con las demandas sociales. Latino América no sigue las tendencias mundiales, por el contrario, está inmersa en diferentes tendencias y fuerzas globales con diferentes condiciones.
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Years of experience: 29. Registered at ProZ.com: Nov 2019.
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