Who’s for the planets? An analysis of the 'public for space exploration' and views of practitioners of science communication on 'their publics' and public communication in the UK

摘要

Over the last decade, there has been a fundamental revolution in how scienceudshould be communicated to the public. Science communication has been builtudaround a changing preference for “dialogue” where the public, formerly conceivedudas having a passive role, is now seen as an active player in the communicationudprocess. However, there are fundamental questions arising from this revolutionudconcerning the role of the public and the science communicator, and the practice ofudscience communication itself. I take a look at the way in which this transformationudhas been reflected in the communication of astronomy and space exploration to theudpublic from the perspective of social sciences by drawing on empirical qualitativeudand quantitative data.udI examine the characteristics of the “public for space exploration” and the views ofudthose doing science communication on “this public” and public communication toudprovide as complete a picture as possible of the current meaning of scienceudcommunication in the area of ‘space’ in the UK.udI show that practitioners who deal with “the public for space exploration” assume audgatekeeper role as they try to control public communication rather than simply passudon information. The science communication practice in the ‘space’ scene involvesudboth one-way and two-way communication activities that serve different aims ofudpublic communication to target different audiences. I argue that rather thanudcompeting, both models should be seen as complementing paradigms in theudpractice of communication of ‘space’ with the public. Consequently, outreachudactivities can be characterized as “preaching to the converted” – they attract theud“public for space exploration” who is more likely to be part of theud“attentive/interested” publics and that bring with them less attentive/interestedudpublics, which otherwise would be very difficult to reach through other means.