Nicole’s got a library blog (again)

I’m looking back on just about the past week and thinking of several meaningful conversations that took place about, more or less, the topic of democracy. Over our Thursday night pre-quizo dinner the topic traveled from enviromentalism (which is brought upon by talking about Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth), to science in the media. I was recalling a lecture in a class during my undergrad where we talked about several potential trends in the portrayal of science in the media:

• Science was once covered in significant sections of some major national newspapers. In whole sections and of a higher quality. Meaning the coverage was not just about pop-science and food science, but was broader in depth and breadth.

I wouldn’t know how true this is because I haven’t seen (well, also haven’t looked) for any studies supporting this. But I have personally noticed the lack of good science in the newspapers. Another point:

• The public image of science and scientists is tarnished. This begins with scientists on television and film being portrayed as these individuals with intelligence and quirks far beyond that of everyday people. The ‘us’ and ‘them’ idea makes scientific knoweldge seem so unaccessible that most folks would rather just leave it to science to understand.

Personally, looking at the way that librarians are thought of in public opinion – we can clearly see this. We’re seen as tightly wound, strict, quiet maintainers of quiet who work in the dustiest and quiestest (can I say quiest again?) places. People don’t even understand what it is that we do. I have close friends who still think that I scan books for checkout! Right! My point being that the image of scientists and professionals that work in these fields needs to change so that people aren’t so put off by it.

In my opinion certain conversations that are huge in the public discourse could be a bit more fruitful if everyone had stronger science backgrounds or not even that a greater interest in science and science education. The conversation on stem-cell research might not have to be led by the moral police – maybe people would be able to allow for a more open attitude if they already understood science more. The same goes for the important and vital issue of the environment.

I’ve gotten a little bit sidetracked, but we were having a conversation that ended with mutual agreement that something about public opinion and the media. Plenty of evidence is accessible to support the fact that the media is out of the public’s hands and is in no way a reflection of events or opinion. No system and obviously no objectivity exist in so much as to allow the reader confidence in the media that he or she is consuming. By that I mean that the proccesses that we assume facilitate a democratic media are indeed nonexistent and in their fragile existence nothing but flawed and troublesome.

So I mentioned how I think that Web 2.0 technology is brilliantly promising in its potential to communicate ideas and make that communication accessible with greater ease than the owned-media.  I sort of take it back, or reconsider it after looking at Tom Stites guest posting/address entitled “Is Media Performance Democracy’s Issue? ” over at Citemedia.org. Stites asks if the web movement, web authoring and publishing doesn’t also take away from a larger and more relevent issue involving mass-market journalism?

I thought to myself, of course not! (dummy). I use an aggregator and read a ton of blogs everyday, I read several newspapers and listen to NPR about three times a day and podcast my favorite programs that I miss while at work. I switch between favorite columnists in the weeklies that I read and which ones I go to first on a regular basis. I feel like I am engaged in the media that I consume since I get it from multiple sources, Anyhow, how silly am I? I’m a well-educated, somewhat gainfully employed twenty-something in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. This is certainly not a reason for high and mightiness, and Im not making it out to be that way. Its just facts are facts and that is who I am. Tom Stites points out: (more…)