SCIENCE AT THE MIKE Retracing the EARLY DAYS of broadcast science communication REVIEWED BY CELIA HENRY ARNAUD
BILL NYE, “Science Friday,” “NOVA,” the
Discovery Channel. These are some of the people, programs, and channels communicating science to contemporary radio and television audiences. But these purveyors of science might never have found a niche if not for the pioneers of early radio and television. In her book “Science on the Air: Popularizers and Personalities on Radio and Early Television,” Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette tells the story of broadcast science coverage from 1923 to the mid-1950s. She draws lessons from those early days for modern scientists and science communicators. Foremost among those lessons is that science has always needed to compete for airtime. Modern science communicators may think that they’ve got it tough with so many options vying for the public’s attention, but such competition is not new. LaFollette starts with Austin Hobart Clark, an ambitious curator at what is now called the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History. In October 1923, a Washington, D.C., radio station invited Charles D. Walcott, the head of the Smithsonian, to speak; Walcott, uncomfortable with public speaking, sent Clark instead. Clark jumped at the chance and, after the success of his first presentation, helped arrange subsequent “Smithsonian Radio Talks” by other scientists at the Smithsonian and nearby institutions. The series lasted until June 1927. For Clark, delivering a radio address was a formal affair that required formal attire. He “asserted that the speaker who was for-
mally dressed would make a more dignified presentation at the microphone,” LaFollette writes. Like many scientists, Clark saw these public forums as an opportunity to teach about science and to enhance its reputation. Watson Davis, on the other hand, was the prototype of the modern science journalist. He trained as a civil engineer but became a journalist early in his career. Davis was the managing editor of Science Service. In its early days, Science Service was a syndication service that provided material, often scripts from radio programs, to other publications. Now called the Society for Science & the Public, the organization is best known as the publisher of the magazine Science News. If LaFollette’s book has a weakness, it is that it rapidly devolves into a hisSCIENCE ON THE tory of Science AIR: Popularizers Service. One might and Personalities on Radio and Early wonder whether Television, the organization by Marcel commissioned the Chotkowski book. Science SerLaFollette, University of Chicago vice undoubtedly played a major role Press, 2008, 314 pages, $27.50 (ISBN: in science com978-0-226-46759-7) munication in the early days of radio, but I for one would have appreciated a warning about how much the book focused on this single organization. Even in the early days, scientists and science journalists had divergent opinions about whether the goal of science popularization was education, publicity, or public accountability, LaFollette writes. Some popularizers, like Davis, tried to choose topics of interest to their audience. Others, like Clark, took more of a spinach approach, choosing topics they thought would be good for their audiences. As radio, and later television, became increasingly viewed as entertainment, broad-
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION ARCHIVES
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casters encouraged the first approach and pushed science programs to focus more on people and personalities than on the dry delivery of facts, LaFollette continues. The popularity of music, comedy, and drama on the radio pushed science programs— often viewed as a public service—to less prominent time slots where they attracted a smaller audience. World War II brought limits on science communication, LaFollette writes, some voluntary, some imposed. The amount of science coverage did not decline. Instead, the tone changed. Scientists grew reluctant to speak on topics that might have military value, such as atomic physics, and science became increasingly politicized. Censorship became the norm even before it was government policy. After the war, the purview of science coverage expanded to include aspects that were not strictly scientific. “Popular science content began to seem incomplete without attention to the social, political, economic, and ethical aspects of science— and to the impacts that society, politics, economics, and moral values were having on science,” LaFollette writes. “A broadcast or magazine article that offered only simple summaries of research results or descriptive talks about current knowledge now seemed sterile and inadequate.” LaFollette spends the majority of the book focusing on radio and relegates televi-
“Popular science content began to seem incomplete without attention to the social, political, economic, and ethical aspects of science.” WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
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professionals who interposed themselves between scientists and the public. “Once again, broadcast science became ‘brokered’ sci-
AIRING SCIENCE A
1945 broadcast on forensic science by Watson Davis (left), shown here interviewing FBI Assistant Director Hugh H. Clegg.
sion to the last chapter. The early science shows pretended to portray scientific “reality” by showing images directly from microscopes and telescopes, LaFollette says, and by re-creating laboratories in the studio. The technical difficulty of early television broadcasting pushed scientists to the sidelines in favor of broadcasting
EDUCATION
continued from page 44 than those with a variety of majors because he can tailor his class examples to be relevant to their medical training. Seeing the well-equipped lab teaching facilities at WCMC-Q—for example, all students have their own fume hoods— sealed the deal for him. “When I walked into the lab,” he says, “I saw the lab I had only dreamed of in Canada.” Besides the teaching, Smith has also enjoyed watching the city progress so rapidly. He says he hopes to stay in Doha until he retires. At Carnegie Mellon Qatar, Terrance B. Murphy is the sole chemistry faculty member. He is teaching lecture-based classes while the lab teaching facility is being completed. Murphy has taught university-level chemistry in Middle Eastern countries for the past 20 years and joined Carnegie Mellon Qatar in July. He says he is quite content with the small classes and attentive students. Murphy also enjoys using Western-style curricula as a way to empower his students to expand their capabilities. “Middle East education is based on rote learning rather than thinking,” he says. But in Education
ence,” LaFollette writes. Anybody concerned about public scientific literacy knows that these issues have not disappeared. If anything, they have worsened. The advent of satellite radio and digital television creates more space for science programming, but it also subdivides the audience into increasingly thin slices of viewers who seek out only those things that interest them. The likelihood of using radio and television as a way to educate a broad audience about science is vanishingly small. The best lesson that today’s science communicators can take away from this book is the knowledge that the challenges they face are not new. We are once again in the early days of a changing communication landscape, with podcasts in the role of
City, chemistry students must learn how to solve problems on the test that are different from the homework. Applying the principles to different problems can be a revolutionary concept for Middle Eastern students, and lab work may be totally new to some, Murphy says. Qataris, for example, are not used to working with their hands. “This is not a culture where guys work on cars,” and it is a culture where women have maids who do their dishes, he says. But once the students get the hang of it, they tend to like setting up lab equipment, he has found. IT’S NOT ONLY the students whose hori-
zons are expanded. “We are here to teach, but we are also here to learn” about, for example, regional research issues surrounding oil and gas, finance, and government, explains Charles E. Thorpe, Carnegie Mellon Qatar’s dean. Perhaps most important, he adds, “only by being on the ground can you absorb some of the outlook and values of the local culture.” Although students, professors, and administrators generally describe absorbing the local culture and importing bits of American university culture as a positive and enriching experience on all sides, there have been some difficulties in Education WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
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radio and “YouTube” in place of television. The ease of production made possible by modern technology gives today’s popularizers more of a voice than ever but makes it less likely that they will be heard. CELIA HENRY ARNAUD is a senior editor at C&EN.
NEW & NOTEWORTHY High Resolution Electron Microscopy, 3rd Ed., by John C. H. Spence, Oxford University Press, 2009, 424 pages, $80 paperback (ISBN: 978-019-955275-7) Gives the basic theoretical background needed to understand how electron microscopes allow us to see atoms, together with practical advice for electron microscope operators. The book covers the usefulness of seeing atoms in the semiconductor industry, in materials science, and in condensed matter physics.
City. On one hand, Middle Eastern students take a little time to adjust to greeting other students with the enthusiastic “Howdy!” that is customary in College Station. On the other hand, professors and deans say some Qatari students, who have been separated by gender since their early schooling, initially have to adjust to coeducation and working in mixed groups. Students in Education City have created opportunities for cultural exchange and professional development. For example, Farhat, who is the first president of the Student Engineers’ Council at TAMUQ, says the group communicates regularly with its counterpart in College Station. In addition, he says he has already noticed advantages to being part of an American engineering program while participating in local engineering conferences. He says international companies quickly recognize Texas A&M and are pleased to learn that it has extended its program to Qatar. The Middle East is famous for it bountiful oil and gas reserves, but with innovative education projects—including New York University’s new Abu Dhabi campus—the region is expanding its global scientific and technological profile by tapping into local talent, too. ■
