Examining Representations of Nanoscale Science and Technology in Written Public Media

Clarkson University, Potsdam NY

Investigators

Abstract

This proposal requests support for 4 undergraduate research assistantships over a 2 year period to study the representations of nanoscale science and technology in 22 North American newspapers and 7 news magazines between 1886 and 2006. As nanoscience gains legitimacy and prominence in academic research, and as nanotechnology emerges in various commercial applications, the field has gained considerable public attention. However, little effort has been made to report back to natural scientists, social scientists, advocacy groups, and the science reporting community the specific ways nanoscience has been constructed in leading print media. With such data in hand, social scientists and natural scientists can better contribute to agenda setting, policy making, and normative and ethical judgments about the social impacts of nanoscale science and technology. The chosen time frame will capture the early emergence of nanoscience in public texts and will record and assess the formation of the field in written public media. Working from Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the study will construct narratives of written documents by using the variables of theme, topic, text-frame and representation. Educational tasks include mentoring 4 under-represented, at-risk undergraduate students, science writing modules for high school English and university-level writing courses, and an on-line database created to disseminate study data. The study's findings will contribute to our growing understanding of nanoscience as a field and its emerging place in American society. Products from this study will include publications in academic and popular contexts, conference papers at local and national scientific meetings, and an on-line, freely accessible database. Research findings will be key for scientists, funding agencies, and interest/advocacy groups who currently have to way to fully understand how nanoscale work is being represented in written media.