Innovative Popular Science Communication? Materiality, Aesthetics and Gender in Science Slams
Research output: Contributions to collected editions/works › Chapter › peer-review
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Genealogy of Popular Science: From Ancient Ecphrasis to Virtual Reality. ed. / Jesus Munoz Morcillo; Caroline Y. Robertson-von Trotha. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2020. p. 517-543 (Wissenschafts- und Technikgeschichte; Vol. 1).
Research output: Contributions to collected editions/works › Chapter › peer-review
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TY - CHAP
T1 - Innovative Popular Science Communication? Materiality, Aesthetics and Gender in Science Slams
AU - Hill, Miira
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2020 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld. All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/11/24
Y1 - 2020/11/24
N2 - This paper is about the communicative construction (Knoblauch 1995, 2017) of science communication in a popular genre called the science slam, and more precisely within the context of materiality, aesthetics, and gender. In science slams, we can observe how popular scientists position themselves. Although seeing the success of female performances (for example Giulia Enders) might lead us to hope for new norms of gender, technical jargon, and visual practices in scientific communication, these hopes are not wholly realized in the science slam genre. Our empirical observations (ethnography, video analysis, interviews) have shown that even if the new genre seems to enable all kinds of revisionist representations of science for men, women remain silent and invisible. Although the technical jargon and visual practices of science slammers are quite different from those used in university lectures, the marginalization of women, among other groups, remains an issue. Drawing on typical tropes of patriarchal societies, successful science slam women are presented as objects of desire, hardworking assistants, or aunts, mothers, and grandmothers. In this way, the science slam can be understood as an expression of still-problematic gender relations in science.
AB - This paper is about the communicative construction (Knoblauch 1995, 2017) of science communication in a popular genre called the science slam, and more precisely within the context of materiality, aesthetics, and gender. In science slams, we can observe how popular scientists position themselves. Although seeing the success of female performances (for example Giulia Enders) might lead us to hope for new norms of gender, technical jargon, and visual practices in scientific communication, these hopes are not wholly realized in the science slam genre. Our empirical observations (ethnography, video analysis, interviews) have shown that even if the new genre seems to enable all kinds of revisionist representations of science for men, women remain silent and invisible. Although the technical jargon and visual practices of science slammers are quite different from those used in university lectures, the marginalization of women, among other groups, remains an issue. Drawing on typical tropes of patriarchal societies, successful science slam women are presented as objects of desire, hardworking assistants, or aunts, mothers, and grandmothers. In this way, the science slam can be understood as an expression of still-problematic gender relations in science.
KW - Media and communication studies
UR - http://d-nb.info/1183942575
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105004960840&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.14361/9783839448359-025
DO - 10.14361/9783839448359-025
M3 - Chapter
SN - 978-3-8376-4835-5
T3 - Wissenschafts- und Technikgeschichte
SP - 517
EP - 543
BT - Genealogy of Popular Science
A2 - Morcillo, Jesus Munoz
A2 - Robertson-von Trotha, Caroline Y.
PB - transcript Verlag
CY - Bielefeld
ER -