You Can’t Eat if There’s Nothing on Your Plate
Jack Johnson
Name one modern astronaut. Can you? Most people can’t. It takes a kidnapping
scandal or a shuttle explosion to shine a little light on those who used to be household
names. Name one modern medical researcher who has changed the world in the last ten
years, and no, McDreamy doesn’t count. Sure, we heard about those Australian guys who
did the work with ulcers, but what happened to them? Where are our modern Jonas Salks
(polio vaccine), our Christiaan Bernards (first heart transplant), our Robert Jarviks
(artificial heart)? And of course, the scientists. Name one modern celebrity scientist. “Oh,
you know, that one guy, the guy in the wheel chair who talks like a robot and was on the
Simpsons. What’d he do anyway? Hey! Did you see Paris Hilton on Larry King?”
Where are our Jane Goodalls (primatology), our Richard Feynmans (physics), our
Jacques Cousteaus (oceanography)? What happened to the scientist folk heroes that our
parents remember? Turn on the T.V., open a magazine, what do you see? Anna Nicole,
Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, reality T.V. show after reality T.V. show. People famous for
being famous. As Jack White of The White Stripes said in a July 2007 Nylon interview,
“...I strongly believe that if you’re famous it should be because you did something, and
the fame is the side-effect of accomplishment. In this day and age nobody seems to be
looking at it that way anymore (78).”
We live in a consumerist culture where entertainment and money are the first
priority. We value people not by what they have done, but by what sort of “star quality”
they possess, and this is shaping the way people are growing up viewing the world. Mass
communication’s cultivation theory says that, “Individuals who are heavy consumers of a
particular form of media, or a particular form of content in such media, will by nature
come to adopt the dominant perspectives reflected in prevalent content (Traudt, 2005, p.
97).” In other words, what you see is what you get. Here’s your future. Just look in the
back of that paper for the science section, that’s if there is one at all that day.
To be literate is to be well-read, and as any business school drop-out can tell you,
there’s nothing harder than reading about something you’re not interested in. Few people
outside of the scientific community have the time or energy to read up on science beyond
what is easily accessible, i.e. the mainstream media, and most don’t even care. Although
discouraging, it is understandable. How can you expect a single mother to care what
string theory is when she has to work overtime and stay up all night with her sick kids?
We can’t expect most non-scientists to care more about science than is
reasonable; otherwise, they would be scientists. And although science in this country
needs some help, if everyone were a scientist, whom would you call to fix a broken pipe
in the middle of the night? What we can expect, though, is for the information people are
receiving to be not only accurate and abundant, but, interesting, and here it comes...cool.
That’s right. America needs to make science cool. Not for the adults who have already
established careers and beliefs, but for the next generation, who will have to pick up the
slack when the buck is passed, and it will be. Because in a day and age when the kids are
more concerned about what kind of shoes they are wearing than the severity of global
warming, the fact is, Spiderman is not going to save the world, the scientists are. And
really, what’s cooler than saving the world?
Turn on the T.V. and global warming seems more like a game of blue versus red
than anything. The only reason it has received so much popularity is because of a video
you can rent at Blockbuster. How long has the information about the future of our planet
been available for anyone who cared enough to do a little reading? Al Gore didn’t
discover that stuff; he’s a politician. When the media tells us global warming is real, we
get scared. When the media tells us having a glass of wine a day will improve our health,
we get drunk. People listen to this stuff, maybe a little more than they should. Therefore,
in a society that places such importance on the media’s messages, whether we realize it or
not, the responsibility falls on the gatekeepers of the message, not those on the receiving
end.
According to Dr. Susanna Priest, Associate Professor of Journalism and Mass
Communications at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, “Most journalists I’ve
met would argue that it’s simply not their job to educate people about science – in fact,
just the same as for political reporting, they are likely to see their actual role as more of a
matter of highlighting controversial issues and showing both sides than it is explaining
anything (just as a political journalist would be unlikely to write a piece explaining how
Congress works).” Journalists aren’t the only force in the media, but if they aren’t going
to make the first move, then who will? Advertisers? Media Owners? Ha! If scientists are
largely regarded as dorky old white guys, and science coverage is presented on a
sparingly, facts only basis in the age of “cool,” then the future of scientific popularity,
and in turn, advancement, is bleak.
What science needs, as silly as it sounds, is a public relations campaign. We need
to beat them at their own game. Not an intrusive, obvious one like “Got Science?” or,
“Science, it’s what’s for dinner,” but a subtle one, somewhere along the lines of the way
public relations pioneer Edward Bernays invented the bacon and eggs breakfast to help
the pork industry. We need to invent a new public view on science that not only states the
facts, but appeals to larger audiences by showing them how science affects them directly,
and do it in a way that is cool. Because unfortunately, right now, being cool is what
matters. To do this, we need not only enlightening journalism, but scientific role models.
We need more than Paris Hilton stumbling down the red carpet wearing a lab coat. We
need to drum out those rare individuals who possess not only a brilliant scientific mind,
but the ability to connect with the people (physicist Simpsons writers, anyone?). We need
the next generation of scientist folk heroes to step out of the shadows, and when they do,
we need the media to wake up and give them more than 15 minutes of fame, because too
much is at risk, and they deserve it more than anyone. Only when the media starts telling
people what they should care about will they start caring. It’s a sad reality, but we created
it for ourselves, and now it’s time for us to fix it. People that don’t care about science are
people that don’t know about science. Let them know, and do it with style.
Works Cited
Long, April “The Road Less Traveled.” Nylon July 2007: 78.
Traudt, Paul J. Media, Audiences, Effects: An Introduction to the Study of Media
Content and Audience Analysis. Boston: Pearson. 2005.