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- Convenor:
-
Pawel Jarnicki
(Ludwik Fleck Zentrum at Collegium Helveticum at ETHZ)
Send message to Convenor
- Location:
- Economy 46
- Sessions:
- Friday 19 September, -
Time zone: Europe/Warsaw
Long Abstract:
Rooted in social sciences, the science and technology studies since the beginning have been interested in investigating the changes of the social world caused by operating science and spreading technologies. The "Shifting publics" session will focus on various ways of transforming the public in many studied contexts. One of the presented papers refers to the important subfield of the public understanding of science, crossing it however with the risk studies. Research on the public attitudes tends to stress either cognitive or emotional factors, avoiding broader perspective taking both into account. Another paper focuses on the very mechanisms of social change: following the general observations about the laboratorization of the society, it studies the bodies and institutions deliberately constructed as laboratories of social change, which transform the social order by negotiating with different actors and ontologies. Another classical STS theme will be brought to attention by yet another paper - that of the important role of technological artifacts and material infrastructure of transport and communication for the emergence and competition of disparate (sometimes contradictory) social orders. The field of the media and its public will be also addressed by another paper, in the context of development and spreading of the new biotechnologies and ethical issues they rise. The papers collected in the session share a general interest in the type of processes, yet clearly follow different paths of investigation.
The papers will be presented in the order shown and within one session
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 19 September, 2014, -Paper long abstract:
This study examines how food knowledge, value and affection an individual has affect the person's positive and negative attitude toward functional food. Concerning of studies on public attitude toward application of science and technology, a lot of studies have been examined in the articles on Risk Psychology and Public Understanding of Science (PUS). Studies in Risk Psychology have analyzed on affection as factor of perception of risk. However concrete knowledge and individual value has not been analyzed to study on universalistic psychology. On the other hand studies in articles of PUS have analyzed on concrete knowledge and individual value as factor of attitude toward science and technology. However affection has not been examined to study on public understanding. Accordingly all of concrete knowledge, individual value and affection have not been analyzed at the same time. So this study analyzed all of them in the case of functional food.
In Japan function of biological regulation in food was researched from 1984 to 1986 funded by The Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture. A lot of functional foods are developed and marketed since then. This study carried out the focus group and the questionnaire surveys using web monitor to analyze public attitude and its factor.
Such research in Japan is very few in the STS literature. The findings of this study could be contributed to the STS literature.
Paper long abstract:
Today, the privately owned, manually driven car is challenged by rebound effects (lack of space and resources , air pollution) which arise from the success of the 'system of automobility' (J. Urry) itself, by advocates of alternative modes of transportation, and by technological, ecological and cultural developments. Alternative approaches of traffic focus on multi- and inter-modular mobility, combining public transportation, car sharing, bike use and mobile communication infrastructures into concepts and service products. By this means everyday mobility is becoming a repeatedly choice between more or less comfortable, expensive and ‚ethical' products.
By replacing the individually owned and used car with these forms of transportation the spatial arrangements of mobility shift. With customers' choice for or against a transportation device and service they decide to use an infrastructure as well as a spatial architecture. This shift is not only connected to different forms of the public and private (Sheller 2004) but represents and promotes a new type of space (Löw 2001) which spans to other dimensions like body, action, and subjectivity.
With this in mind I want to explore the spatial logics such commodities of service contain by taking a close look at specific concepts and commercial offers currently developed and brought into (German) market by municipal administrations, car manufacturers, or railroad companies. By analysing the (textually and visually) imagined use-cases as well as the exposed infrastructure I want to show empirically how a new economy of traffic is intertwined with an altered notion of space that reaches beyond traffic and mobility itself.
Paper long abstract:
In the recent years there has been a surge in popularity of lab-like organisations aiming to improve the quality of public life. For many the name 'laboratory' is only a metaphor, yet there are also some that bear resemblances to the STS model of understanding how laboratories work.
In the paper I present some preliminary assumptions from a qualitative research encompassing selected Polish organizations operating at the intersection of academic social sciences and various areas of public life, which are designed to make an effective impact upon the social reality and, accordingly, can be compared to the laboratories as seen from the STS viewpoint. These organizations are characterized by a strong dedication to bottom-up, context-driven approaches in tackling micro, yet complex social issues. At the same time, they are guided by a global purpose of reinforcing the civil society and modernizing the state. To reach these objectives, they work with a plurality of actors, especially those engaged in the making of policies on local and national level and the local communities. Moreover, these specific labs are focused on creating practical knowledge and successful solutions. Not only do they aim at translating academic concepts into practice, but also act as research units and think tanks, designing umbrella policies for other organizations and actors.
As a result, the organisations under research operate somewhat as mediators between the state, society and science, reshaping the relationships between them on micro and macro level in the name of social development.
Paper long abstract:
The rapid progress of stem cell research (SCR) have not only brought a lot of bio-medical knowledge but also variety of debates on the ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI). In the course of debates on ELSI regarding SCR, mass-media influenced frames of discussions and the public attentions. Also in Japan, there are huge amount of news on SCR particularly after human ES cell. This situation was accelerated by the appearance of human iPS cell. However, there regarding Japan, the changes of media attentions and their discourses concerning SCR has not been examined. In this study, we will give a discussion about empirical analysis of media attentions regarding SCR and its theoretical functions such as agenda building/setting or attention cycle.
We collected over 7000 news articles from three major newspaper sources and conducted quantitative analysis: co-word network analysis and content analysis. As the result of our media analysis, we gained some insights. One of the most significant findings is about a change in co-word network structures and contents such as "ethics" in discourses found in Japanese media over the after the establishment of human induced pluripotent stem cells in 2007. The number of connections of the keywords related to ethical aspects decreased rapidly. This result implied a change in position and treatment of ethical aspects for stem cell research, and suggested the peripheralization of ELSI in the Japanese media.