Science in media and social discourse: new channels of communication, new linguistic forms

Abstract

Scientific knowledge is no longer transmitted solely through a one-way channel of communication from scientific communities to `lay' readers through the knowledge transmission `chain'. Communication between the two communities has now been extended into media and everyday social discourse where it crops up in news debates about issues such as public health and food safety. In this process, scientific academic discourse has lost much of its original form. This article examines part of the current research at the Centre de recherche sur les discours ordinaires et spécialisés (Research Centre for ordinary and specialized discourses, Sorbonne Nouvelle University). It provides evidence of new discursive forms adopted by science in media and social discourse, such as the emergence of enunciative standpoints ( the expert, the citizen), the redefinition of the role of the journalist as mediator between science and the general public, the use of specific forms of intertextuality and the interweaving of scientific elements in general social discussions. This research on new data implies renewed definitions of certain concepts used in linguistic descriptions: discursive meaning and signification, interdiscursive memory bank, etc. These recent forms of discourse have brought about a change in the status of science so that science has now become an object of debate in the public arena — a sign of its crucial social role.

Engajamento e redução do espaço dialógico no gênero notícia de popularização científica

“…Com base em um corpus de notícias de PC em inglês e em português, Motta-Roth e Lovato (2009, p. 259-260) identificaram que esse gênero [...] (BEACCO et al, 2002;OLIVEIRA;PA-GANO, 2006;MOTTA-ROTH et al, 2008). Tais estratégias intertextuais caracteristicamente demarcam a retomada, pelo jornalista, de textos anteriores dos âmbitos científico (p.…”

“…Pesquisas recentes têm apontado um efeito de monologismo em notícias de PC em português (MOTTA-ROTH; LOVATO, 2011 conforme MOIRAND, 2003 e inglês (MOTTA-ROTH; MARCUZZO, 2010), nas quais há um predomínio da voz da ciência e um apagamento de outras vozes possíveis como o governo ou o público, já identificados na mídia de PC francesa (BEACCO et al, 2002;MOIRAND, 2003 …”

Ciência em debate: uma análise do gênero notícia de popularização da ciência

“…Essas vozes marcam diferentes posições enunciativas (BEACCO et al, 2002), ou seja, o "lugar de dizer no discurso" (MUTTI; AXT, 2008, p. 353). Nos textos do corpus, além do jornalista que escreveu a notícia, foram identificadas quatro posições enunciativas diferentes, a saber:…”

“…As vozes identificadas nas notícias de PC podem ser agrupadas em quatro posições enunciativas diferentes (BEACCO et al, 2002): o pesquisador responsável pelo estudo reportado na notícia de PC; o pesquisador colega/técnico/instituição ligada ao assunto reportado; o governo; e o público em geral, além do jornalista que escreveu a notícia de PC.…”

Science, Twitter and election campaigns: tracking #auspol in the Australian federal elections

“…We chose to exclude retweets as the study of original tweets has received little research attention [Veltri and Atanasova, 2015] and we are interested in examining this "first degree of sharing" [p. 3]. The stream of data generated during this timeframe was further analysed to ascertain the nature and interest in politically relevant general and scientific topics by the public and the level of scientific discussion in the political debate [Beacco et al, 2002]. The content of tweets was searched using IPython [Perez and Granger, 2007] for keywords taken from the exit poll and media round ups, such as economy, climate, employment and health, [Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2013;Blumer, 2016;The Climate Institute, 2013;The Climate Institute, 2016].…”