230208 VO Techno-Science and Society: Communicating and Interacting. Central Issues, Questions and Concepts (2017S)

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.
We will begin the lecture with reflecting on the challenges of communication and engagement with science and technology in contemporary democracies and explore the meaning of 'medialisation'.
We will continue by focusing on the different spaces where science and technology get in touch with 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.
In a next step, 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. We will also reflect what it means to speak of scientific citizenship in a world where technoscientific developments have come to play such a central role.
This leads to finally reflect on the politics of scientific communication and engagement, with a specific focus on governance and future making. 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 what responsibilities are involved in science communication and the diverse forms of engagement with society.
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).