Science and entertainment represent two of the most powerful cultural institutions that humans have developed to understand and explore their world.
David Kirby
Studying the cultural meanings of science reveals where cultural narratives about science fit within the science-society relationship. If popular culture represents public perspectives on science and scientists, what can we learn from those representations?
Popular media plays an important role in influencing our ideas of science by constructing images of our reality.
If popular culture promotes public discourse about science, how has this contributed to or undermined the public good? How can scientists use popular culture to engage people with their science? How has popular culture driven scientific advancement and technological innovation, historically and today? What pop cultural media and themes have excited the public imagination about science, and how? How can comics and animated films, aliens and clown robots – and more! – be used in and for science communication?
The stupendous (inter)connections between science and popular culture and entertainment teach us about the status of science as a cultural force – science in and as culture – and about the ways science has excited the public imagination. Studying cultural meanings of science reveals transmedial strategies used to manipulate not only the object but also the observer: to enchant and beguile an audience – how scientific research is connected to and expressed by creative imagination. Exploring sciences in pop culture contextualises and broadens our understanding of the relationships between fact and fiction – and is a source of great academic fun!
