Disassembling the Mass Mediation of Research – A study of the construction of texts, relations and positions in the communication of social science

Tid: Fredag d. 27 Nov. 2009, kl. 13.00 præcis. Af hensyn til kandidaten lukkes dørene præcis.

Sted: Institut for Kommunikation, Virksomhed og Informationsteknologier, RUC. Bygning 41.1 (Biografen).

About the thesis:  

The thesis explores how a focus on relations and negotiations may help us think differently about the mass mediation of research. Most conceptions of the relationship between scientists and journalists take for granted that a particular ‘media logic’ governs science communication, that there is a fixed, antagonistic relationships between ‘slow, incomprehensible researchers’ and ‘quick, superficial journalists’, and that the mass mediation of science is a question of simplifying and distorting researchers’ knowledge claims. In contrast, this thesis offers conceptual and empirical contributions which invite us to question the view of mass mediation as a machinery processing research-based knowledge claims in particular ways. Drawing on insights from Actor-Network-Theory, the thesis engages the concepts of assemblages, actants and translations in detailed case studies of how mass media texts emerge out of diverse assemblages of journalists, editors, and researchers, together with non-human elements such as symbolic resources, technologies and co-constructed ideals. These empirical exemplars add to our understanding of the complexity of the mass mediation of research, and in the thesis it is argued that it is ANT’s most important contribution to the study to provide an analytical sensitivity in relation to capturing the processes whereby media texts come into being and the emergence of professional positions and relationships. For the actors involved in the communication of science, the thesis opens up for a reconsideration of their practice as being less structured by commonly agreed-upon logics and norms, and more dependent on the particular networks they are part of and contribute to.

Bedømmelsesudvalget:
Mike Michael, professor of Sociology of Science and Technology, Goldsmiths University of London.
Massimiano Bucchi, professor of Sociology of Science and Sociology of Communication, University of Trento.
Kim Schrøder, professor and chair, Roskilde University.

Chair of defence:
Keld Bødker, associate professor and head of CBIT doctoral school, Roskilde University.

Supervisors:
Louise Phillips, Roskilde University ● Maja Horst, Copenhagen Business School.

The dissertation is available at Roskilde University Library and can also be downloaded here.