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Social Studies of Science
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Long-Term Trends in the Public Representation of Science Across the ‘Iron Curtain’: 1946-1995

Martin W. Bauer

London School of Economics, M.Bauer{at}lse.ac.uk

Kristina Petkova

Institute of Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Pepka Boyadjieva

Institute of Sociology

Galin Gornev

Department of the Sociology of Science and Education within the Institute of Sociology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

This paper compares changing patterns of science news over a period of 50 years. The study analyses a biannual corpus of 2800 news articles in Britain (the Daily Telegraph) and 5800 in Bulgaria (Rabotnichesko Delo), and shows divergent and convergent trends. Britain carries considerably more science news than Bulgaria all through the period, while the coverage shows parallel swings: increasing intensity during the 1950s, a turning point in the early 1960s, declining into the 1970s, and rising again in the 1980s and 1990s. Media coverage in both countries shows similar swings in public appeal. The trends in the medicalization of science news, the reporting of controversy and the evaluation of science diverge in the two contexts. The paper concludes with speculative explanations of these results. Similarities and differences in these long-term trends point to common factors and specific differences at work on either side of the (former) ‘Iron Curtain’.

Key Words: Britain • Bulgaria • longitudinal content analysis • public representation of science • science in the mass media

Social Studies of Science, Vol. 36, No. 1, 99-131 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0306312705053349
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