Federico Neresini and Paolo Magaudda, La scienza sullo schermo. La rappresentazione della tecnoscienza nella televisione italiana, Il Mulino, 2011
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17042
application/pdf
2038-3460
17042
1
en
Paola Pallavicini
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
Federico Neresini and Paolo Magaudda, Science on the Screen. The Representation of Technoscience in the Italian Television, Il Mulino, 2011
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
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Book Reviews
2012-06-16
2023-05-25
2012-06-16
2023-07-10
131-135
TS
Paola Pallavicini
2012/06/16
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17042
131
University of Torino
2038-3460
1
en
135
Federico Neresini and Paolo Magaudda, Science on the Screen. The Representation of Technoscience in the Italian Television, Il Mulino, 2011
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17042/15936
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                                                                        BOOK REVIEWS       131




However, overall this book shows                Federico Neresini and Paolo Magaudda
that even if the various fields of the             La scienza sullo schermo. La
social science and humanities are                     rappresentazione della
assembled in one volume, they do                  tecnoscienza nella televisione
not necessarily speak to one another.                        italiana
The book does not give a coherent
message and a tension between                    (Science on the Screen. The Representa-
different modes of reasoning persists.              tion of Technoscience in the Italian
For instance, whilst some chapters                              Television)
take pains to show that “biotechnol-                    2011, Il Mulino, 250 pp.
ogy” is not a coherent actor, others
tend to take biotechnology – and its
power and agency – as a given. This                         Paola Pallavicini
tension is addressed in Latour’s                          (University of Torino)
contribution, which, however, re–
mains at a distance from the volume’s
topics. Yet, such a tension does not            The volume, edited by Federico
necessarily detract from the value of           Neresini and Paolo Magaudda, col-
this volume. Rather, it is productive           lects the main results of a research
and thought-provoking, triggering               project on technoscience in Italian
reflections not only on what kind of            television programs. Started in 2007
phenomena we are witnessing, but                at the Department of Sociology of
also on how we might want to reflect            Padova University, the project was
on them and engage with them.                   led by the PaSTIS research unit
                                                (Padova Science, Technology and
References                                      Innovation Studies) and, inside a
                                                strictly sociological frame, involved
Agamben, G. (1995) Homo sacer. Il potere
   sovrano e la nuda vita, Einaudi, Torino.     scholars from both the fields of
Benjamin, W. (1963) Das Kunstwerk im            Science and Technology Studies and
   Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduz-       Media and Communication Studies.
   ierbarkeit; drei Studien zur Kunstsoziolo-   The common reference to the
   gie, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am
   Main.
                                                sociological culture has oriented the
                                                intradisciplinary     analytic   work
                                                toward the long tradition issue of the
                                                agency of media contents in social
                                                context (i.e. the way in which media
                                                content acts socially), investigating
                    ***
                                                how the television communication
                                                takes part in and, at the same time,
                                                gives form to the social sharing of
                                                technoscience knowledge.
                                                Starting from the assumption that
132 TECNOSCIENZA – 3 (1)




    television communication – seen as a      single articles collected in the
    particular and specific field in media    volume).
    communication, and identified with        A first reference horizon is the
    television programs broadcasted – is      interweaving of public policies that,
    part of the process of social             since the eighties, have been
    construction of technoscience know-       designed to support a socialization of
    ledge (today a common understand-         technoscientific knowledge as a
    ing in STS studies), the authors          structural element of economic and
    suggest a step forward, that consists     political development: starting from
    in considering media “as they             the Royal Society Report on “The
    actually are”: not a neutral arena for    public understanding of science”
    debates or information circulation,       (1985) up to the assessment in
    but an autonomous actor in the            communication strategy included in
    process, with its own logic and its       EU funding policy for R&D projects,
    own interests. A step that opens, in      the public communication of science
    the authors' explicit intentions, to a    and      technology     has      become,
    privileged dialogue with the studies      internationally,    a     stable     issue
    on public communication of science        involving public and private subjects,
    and technology (PCST), more than          media professionals and scientist,
    to a critical revision of the basic       politicians and company executives.
    assumptions of media sociology,           As Neresini points out, today
    today deeply challenged by the            scientific research lives in this frame.
    radical outcomes – technological as       A second frame of reference may be
    well as social – of digitalization.       identified in the growing popular
    Throughout the very large database        interest in science and technology
    produced (two full years of television    issue – perhaps backed by the
    programs recorded from the seven          impetuous growth of the new media
    major free channels with national         market. Although this is a long
    distribution in Italy), the research      lasting tradition in Italy, the present
    group selected those useful for the       widespread circulation of scientific
    eight case studies presented in three     metaphors in common language
    distinct sections of the volume:          bears witness of a culturally open
    technoscience and television genres,      attitude     towards     technoscience,
    expert and disputes, bodies and           which finds confirmation in the
    machinery.                                media audience's good welcome
    In the first chapter Federico Neresini    towards every new form of scientific
    illustrates the structure of the          popularization: news, publications,
    research project, providing a very        public events, as well as television
    clear and articulate description of the   programs.
    different frames of reference faced,      The third frame of reference consists
    and of the analytical relevance of the    of the specific role that the television
    issues specific to each of them (as       medium plays in the media system, or
    they have been developed in the           better, the role it was still playing in
                                                                BOOK REVIEWS        133




2007-2010, before the web became a       the single technoscientific knowledge
serious competitor either in the         data, from the information level up
television audience choices, either in   to the imagery level, seamlessly; and
the contention (between media) for       by creating a new scene, different
authoritativeness in scientific issue    from that in which scientific
debates. At that time (recent but far,   knowledge is originally formulated
in Italian television history) was       and validated, where the authority of
easier and possible considering          scientific knowledge is negotiated
television like an insulated medium –    anew, according to new and different
as the research group does, more for     principles proper to the medium.
a methodological purpose, than for       Television has an ambiguous and
theoretical choice – because of the      complex position in this negotiation.
actual dominion that it had on other     From one side, television confirms
mass media (newspaper and radio in       social utility and reliability of
primis), not only by its economic        technoscientific data, using them as
supremacy, but even in defining          starting point for debates or as
agenda-setting and aesthetic rules.      sources for news; on the other side,
Given this analytical background,        television continues to impose and
Neresini highlights how the presence     reproduce the old model of scientific
of technoscience in television           undisputed objectivity – as la Follette
programming largely outreaches the       already remarked in 1982 –
canonical boundaries of popular          pretending      the     existence     of
science television programs and          homogeneous hierarchies and scale
creeps in non-specialized areas –        of values, without ever showing the
such as news, advertising, fictions,     process of scientific knowledge
talk shows – showing today a great       production, with its own conflicts. At
capacity to inhabit the territories of   the same time television tends to
the present social experience and        impose its own criteria (from
imagination. This theme is studied in    audience approval up to political
deep in the two following chapters of    interests) in the selection of topics as
the volume – by Stefano Sbarchiero       well as of “telegenic” experts,
and Cosimo M. Scarcelli, and by          superimposing them to the criteria of
Paolo      Magaudda       –   focused    the professional scientific commu-
respectively on television news          nity. Likewise in the television
programs and on television adverti-      context the role of scientist as expert
sing.                                    is, by itself, ambivalent: from one
The complexity of the mediation          side, her or his professional expertise
conducted by television in the social    actually represents the scientific
sharing of scientific knowledge is       world in the media world, becoming
recognized by Neresini mainly on         a sign for it; from the other side,
two levels, both textual: by             aside of the actual complexity of
intervening directly in the generation   scientific world, this same emphasis
of multiple levels of significance of    on professional expertise tends to
134 TECNOSCIENZA – 3 (1)




    confirm the traditional “deficit         Looking at television from an
    model” of scientific knowledge           historical point of view it seems to be
    transmission, so hardly criticized by    impossible to ignore the technologi-
    scientists because of the simplifica-    cal changes that, during the last three
    tion it produces in presenting           decades, so deeply altered its
    technoscience.                           traditional pattern of agency. The
    This theme is common to all the          ancient     analogical    broadcasting
    contributions collected in the           model – which has been the matrix
    volume, but finds an articulated         of the mass communication paradigm
    analysis in the three chapters of the    – lost its constituent elements when
    second section, which consider the       digitalization allowed the broad–
    role of experts in talk-shows and        casters to control the access to the
    infotainment     programs      (Renato   signal. The authority that television
    Stella), the function of scientific      communication gained during the
    evidence in television debates           Sixties, coming to be considered the
    (Andrea Lorenzet), and the differing     most powerful medium in the mass
    configuration of the representation of   media system (due to the possibility
    scientific controversies in two popu–    to reach “all” the people at the same
    lar science television programs          time), has been rapidly eroded by the
    (Michela Drusian)                        Internet growth; and it is not
    The third section of the volume is       currently (and will not be)
    less consistent, perhaps because of a    compensated by the broadcasters
    short circuit generated by the title –   involvement in it. Television studies
    “Bodies and machinery” – that            and media studies still tend to ignore
    allows expectations outside the          how this technological process
    analytical apparatus that gives coher–   historically worked on the definition
    ence to the volume. Coherently with      of the television social authority in
    the previous sections, both bodies       the media system.
    and machinery are considered more a      Nevertheless it is still true that the
    textual theme than an object (i.e.       current social discourse about the
    human or non-human beings in             television social authority is today
    Latour's hypothesis). The three          still strong enough to allow us – or
    articles deal with three case studies,   better to allow those of us involved in
    respectively on how the body is          public communication studies – to
    presented in talk-shows on medical       think that since “so many people”
    issue (Mauro Turrini), on the way        still watch television, the television
    television debates trivializes the       may be still considered “by itself” a
    eating disorders issue (Claudio Riva),   powerful and influential medium.
    and on the way the main                  But this is a way to look at the past
    infotainment Italian programs argued     before us. What we need to face the
    into the concept of “technological       present change. The technological
    failure” in the Thyssen-Krupp case       history of television tells us that the
    (Marco Rangone).                         authority of television has changed,
                                                                    BOOK REVIEWS        135




rather than ended: this is why we             As the three editors state in the
need to find the way to consider              introduction, the volume aims to fill
together text and technology to               two gaps in social sciences focusing
understand how television socially            on how society and identity are
worked and works.                             shaped in the knowledge society,
                                              which is characterised by the
                                              pervasiveness of technology. The first
                   ***                        gap is the lack of attention given to
                                              the impact of social scientists’
                                              representations on their analyses of
Gabriel Gatti, Iñaki Martinez de Albéniz      society and identities (sociology is
     and Benjamín Tejerina (eds)              not purely descriptive but also
                                              performative). The second gap is
 Tecnología, cultura experta e
                                              related to the material dimension of
  identidad en la sociedad del
                                              the construction of identity, which is
           conocimiento
                                              mediated by technologies, embedded
(Technology, Expert Culture and Identity in   in heterogeneous artefacts, rather
         the Knowledge Society)               than being the exclusive result of
     2010, Servicio Editorial de la           social construction, as a phenomeno-
  Universidad del País Vasco, 275 pp.         logical perspective has claimed so far,
                                              privileging symbolic and inter-
                                              subjective aspects. The book is
            Barbara Pentimalli                organised into two sections, dedi-
                                              cated to these two points.
    (University of Roma La Sapienza)
                                              The first section, "Expert Knowledge
                                              and Identity", adopts a sociology of
The book is a collection of contri-           science perspective to point out the
butions presented at the seminar              influence of scientific representation
“Knowledge Society, Identity and              in the construction of identity and
Social Change – The Material Sup-             society, which are not static or given
ports of Identity”, organised in 2005         once for all, but must be regarded as
at the University of País Vasco,              dynamic,      heterogeneous,     fluid,
Bilbao, by the CEIC (Centro de                porous, hybrid and malleable.
Estudios sobre la Identidad Cole-             The first chapter, "The Problem of
ctiva) and the Department of                  Materiality     in     Science     and
Sociology, and it is a material proof         Technology Studies", is written by
that Actor-Network Theory (hence-             Miquel Domènech and Francisco
forth ANT) is becoming a very dyna-           Javier Tirado, members of the
mic field of investigation in Spain,          GESCIT (Grup d’Estudis Sociales de
thanks to an increasing number of             la Ciència i la Tecnologia), at the
conferences and publications pro-             Department of Social Psychology of
moted by universities and research            the     Autònoma      University     of
centres.                                      Barcelona. The authors have actively
