On New Forms of Science Communication and Communication in Science: A Videographic Approach to Visuality in Science Slams and Academic Group Talk [original]

https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800418821531

Qualitative Inquiry

2019, Vol. 25(4) 363 –378

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DOI: 10.1177/1077800418821531

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Visibilities of Science

Introduction

In our study of science communication, we propose a

methodological framework for analyzing visuality and the

use of visuals1 as “communicative actions” (Knoblauch,

2014, p. 159) and demonstrate how we conduct research in

the field of science through a videographic approach trian-

gulated by expert interviews. Specifically, we analyze the

face-to-face-communication and intersubjective validation

of new scientific knowledge during communication pro-

cesses in science slams and within the weekly group talks

of a research team operating in the field of computational

neuroscience (CNS). We focus particularly on the multi-

modal process of embodied communicative action by

which (scientific) reality is built up in historical chains of

interaction (Collins, 1998).

In contemporary science communication, we are witness-

ing a shift toward intercontextuality and translation. That

puts pressure on speakers or lecturers, whose opportunities of

communication have increased at the price of being bound to

new standards. We would like to show how communication

changes through the shift from a linear text (re-)producing

“speaking machine” (Goffman, 1981) to the contemporary

multireferential magicians of science communication

involved in transdisciplinary science slams or interdisciplin-

ary group talks. To understand these shifts, we combine two

approaches: focused ethnography (Knoblauch, 2014) and

videography (Knoblauch, Tuma, & Schnettler, 2014) to eval-

uate how the shift in institutional structures plays out in com-

municative actions and vice versa.

After a prologue on science and science communication,

which explains the necessity for our research, we explain

our methodological strategy. Following this outline, we

briefly introduce the reader to our fields of investigation.

Then we relate our empirical findings on visuals and com-

municative action in science communication. Based on

these findings, we summarize new forms and challenges for

science communication in the context of the current

821531QIXXXX10.1177/1077800418821531Qualitative InquiryWilke and Hill

research-article2019

1Technische Universität Berlin, Germany

2Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany

Corresponding Author:

René Wilke, Institut für Soziologie, Technische Universität Berlin,

Fraunhoferstraße 33, 10587 Berlin, Germany.

Email: [email protected]

On New Forms of Science Communication

and Communication in Science: A

Videographic Approach to Visuality in

Science Slams and Academic Group Talk

René Wilke1 and Miira Hill2

Abstract

In this article, we focus on the communicative character of visuality and visual representations (“visuals”) in transdisciplinary

science communication (science slams) and interdisciplinary communication within science (group talks). We propose a

methodology for the study of visuality and the use of visuals as communicative actions. Both unfold within a triadic

structure of social actors and the objectivations they (re-)produce. Therefore, we combine the approach of videography

and focused ethnography. This research design allows not only putting actions under an audiovisual microscope but also

to combine ethnographic knowledge stemming from fieldwork with the audiovisual analysis in front of screens. Using data

from our empirical fields (science communication in science slams as well as communication within science in group talks),

we illustrate the vital role of visuality of new practices in the communicative construction of (scientific) reality. In doing so,

we also emphasize the importance of audiovisual methods for qualitative empirical social research today.

Keywords

videography, focused ethnography, communicative construction, science communication, visualization, interdisciplinarity,

transdisciplinarity

364 Qualitative Inquiry 25(4)

“Kommunikationsgesellschaft” [English: “communication

society”] (Knoblauch, 2017, pp. 329-377) as a problem of

legitimacy. We close with an evaluation of our findings and

the implications of our research for the methodology of sci-

ence research and qualitative research practice in general.

Communication, Visuality, and

Embodied Action: Interdisciplinarity

and Transdisciplinarity as Problems for

Science Research

By focusing on the visual, the social sciences have

responded to a paradigm shift that was promoted most

prominently in cultural sciences (Mitchell, 1992) and the

humanities (Boehm, 1994). Mitchell and Boehm

bemoaned—each within their cultural diagnostic frame-

work—the lack of analytic attention to a crucial medium of

constructing (social) reality: visuality. A great deal of social

scientific research on visuality has since been conducted.

Empirical findings in the field of science and technology

studies (STS) soon suggested that visuals in science are

generated and interpreted by people who communicate in

social processes (Alać, 2008; Amann & Knorr-Cetina,

1990; Beaulieu, 2002; Lynch, 1988). Production and inter-

pretation processes have been described as visual and

esthetic practices that are influenced by the intentions of the

actors (Latour, 1990), the materiality of the representational

devices used (Tibbetts, 1988), by already objectified knowl-

edge (Woolgar, 1990), and by public dissemination strate-

gies, for example, in science journalism (Molek-Kozakowska,

2018). Also, the correspondence between individualizing

and responsibilizing societal structures and the activation of

subjects through visual strategies has recently come under

scrutiny (Engel, 2018). Hence, what is visible and what can

be seen is sociological (Fleck, 1935/2011; Goodwin, 1994)

and built up in processes of communicative action

(Knoblauch, 2013a, 2017).

Even if STS researchers have already made STS the lead-

ing source of public insight into science-in-action (Yearley,

1994), a lot of research has yet to be done. Scholars have

already addressed the problem that past STS research on sci-

ence communication was “disembodied” (Davies, 2009,

2013)—a lack we now seek to overcome by stressing the

active, communicative, and therefore bodily character of

everyday accomplishments in scientific life. A handful of

scholars also focused on kinaesthetic and affective entangle-

ments in science communication (Myers, 2008, 2012) or on

aspects of body movement and sociotechnical arrangements

in (science) communication (Goffman, 1981; Goodwin,

1981; Hedenus, 2016; Kiesow, 2016; Knoblauch, 2007;

Ochs, Gonzales, & Jacoby, 1996; Tuma, 2012). These stud-

ies are right in closely connecting what social constructivists

call objectivations (Berger & Luckmann, 1966) to the human

body and its performance in social situations. Other work is

explicitly devoted to visuals as elements of scientific talk

(e.g., Rowley-Jolivet, 2004) and public science communica-

tion (Trumbo, 1999, 2000). Yet, despite these studies, more

research is needed to understand the processes by which

(scientific) knowledge comes to be (inter- or transdiscipli-

narily) socially established as reality. These are embodied

processes of “communicative action” (Knoblauch, 2014, p.

159) highly interwoven with visuals and visual practices,

especially, in the growing areas of inter- and transdiscipli-

narity. Before we introduce our methodological and theoreti-

cal framework, we therefore need to describe general

transformations of the scientific landscape, which is charac-

terized by a strong political imperative for inter- and

transdisciplinarity.

“Modes” of Communication and the Problem of

Legitimacy

According to Thomas Kuhn (1972), a feature of modern

science is that knowledge is produced in relatively closed

communication and argumentation communities, com-

posed of relatively small groupings of specialist col-

leagues. Every community produces the truths about its

subject matter in self-government. The metaphor of “aca-

demic tribes” (Becher & Trowler, 2001) has therefore

been widely used to characterize differentiation in sci-

ence. As a result of communicative closure, professional

associations have developed different and often incom-

patible criteria for presenting and assessing new knowl-

edge within their “epistemic cultures” (Knorr-Cetina,

1999/2002).

Research policy actors were already critical of a (sup-

posed) tendency of fragmentation of academic knowledge

cultures in the 1970s. They feared that the professional asso-

ciations would impose limits on their own knowledge as part

of their communicative closure. Since then, the demand for

more interdisciplinarity has been a constant in research pol-

icy. The term interdisciplinarity was coined by the organisa-

tion for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

to describe different teaching and research formats that serve

to exchange models, methods, and persons between subject

areas. At OECD meetings, economists, politicians, and phi-

losophers of science argued that interdisciplinary formats

were better suited to dealing with interdisciplinary research

questions and, by extension, the problems of the real world

(Gibbons et al., 1994, pp. 147-149).

According to a number of prominent sociological diag-

noses labeled “mode 2” (Gibbons et al., 1994; Nowotny,

2003; Nowotny, Scott, & Gibbons, 2001), institutional

reforms did not fail to meet their research policy goals. The

authors of these studies diagnosed that professional associa-

tions were increasingly losing their orientation and control

Wilke and Hill 365

functions in the production of knowledge. The authors even

saw that these functions were being transferred to a project-

oriented “context of application” (Gibbons et al., 1994, pp.

3-8). Within this framework, researchers are increasingly

switching from disciplinary “mode 1” to “mode 2,” orient-

ing their research activities to inter- or transdisciplinary

research problems and social contexts of application (e.g.,

politics, business, social movements).

At the same time, modern science has had to adjust to the

demands of becoming increasingly public. Science not only

is required to be interdisciplinary but now also has to be

transdisciplinary. In a civil society that is knowledge-ori-

ented and that increasingly understands itself as innovative,

communicative, and participatory, the necessity to gain

public affirmation and legitimacy is growing (Hill, 2015).

In the uncertain and complex relationship between different

subject areas and science and the public, new forms of com-

municative action have emerged. Knowledge communica-

tion has an important role in contemporary knowledge-based

societies. The dominance of knowledge work in industry

has resulted in a strong societal orientation toward scientific

knowledge. A consequence of this development is the need

to communicate knowledge to other fields. The increase of

communications then requires the translation of knowledge

both between science and nonscientific institutional fields

(transdisciplinary) and between different scientific fields

(interdisciplinary).

A problem of communication arises from the expectation

that science should have a straightforward connection to the

public. Early critics called the gap between the scientific

community and the public a “gulf of incomprehensibility”

(Shapin, 1990, p. 994). For the critics, this gulf was proof of

the misleading effects of scientific discourse. The inability

to communicate to a nonscientific audience falls short of the

perceived responsibility of the scientific enterprise to relate

to society at large. A further problem is that of legitimacy:

Today, scientists feel a need to legitimate their activities not

only to their own community or the wider public but also to

other scientific fields. The less knowledge is shared, the

more needs to be communicated (Knoblauch, 2008).

Methodological Approach: Combining

Videography and Focused Ethnography

Our theoretical and methodological framework is built on

central assumptions of interpretive sociology. From this

contextual perspective, the accentuated role of informatiza-

tion, digital media, and performance in the face-to-face-

communication of scientific knowledge is taken into

account. On the basis of empirical data, new forms of pro-

ducing and presenting scientific knowledge are recon-

structed, which are closely related to new patterns of the

scientific persona.

We have argued that the rise of a “Kommunikationsge-

sellschaft” [English: “communication society”] (Knoblauch,

2017, pp. 329-377) raises the institutional pressure on sci-

ence to produce and present knowledge with interdisciplin-

ary or nonscientific relevance, with the increase of visuals

being one response to such communicative demands. To

deepen our understanding of such processes, we turn to

embodied communicative processes and focus on the under-

studied area of visuals in inter- and transdisciplinary science

communication. We discuss some findings of two different

research projects, supported by the German Research

Foundation (DFG), on transdisciplinary science communica-

tion (Hill, 2016, 2017) and interdisciplinary communication

in science (Lettkemann & Wilke, 2016; Wilke & Lettkemann,

2018; Wilke, Lettkemann, & Knoblauch, 2018). Both terms

refer to the communication (and partly intersubjective valida-

tion) of scientific knowledge. Part of our aim in writing this

article is to merge the two perspectives: first, the public com-

munication of scientific knowledge (transdisciplinary sci-

ence communication; Nowotny et al., 2001) and second, the

communication of knowledge within a highly interdisciplin-

ary structured scientific research group (interdisciplinary

communication in science). For the sake of simplicity, we

will refer to both instances of communication as science

communication: Whenever scholars or scientists talk to each

other or to a nonacademic public and whenever they refer to

their scientific expertise on these occasions and insofar as

this reference is essential to the form of communication, we

call this science communication. In our research projects, we

focus on communication in action. What we call science

communication here is therefore beyond (and partly prior to)

the publication and reception of ready-made science qua sci-

entific papers and refers to face-to-face situations (what we

call in action).

Videography and Focused Ethnography:

Reconstructing Embodied Action

Based on the strategy of “focused ethnography”

(Knoblauch, 2005), we observed and videotaped science

communication situations and analyzed their audiovisual

representation later on in data sessions (Knoblauch et al.,

2014). To validate our interpretation, we triangulated our

findings with expert interviews, which provided us with

important insights from the participants of the actual com-

municative situations (experts). We were therefore able to

gain a complex picture of our research fields, which

inspired us to focus on communicative actions. The use of

audiovisual methodology is central to our research prac-

tice and has shown that contemporary science communi-

cation itself is largely shaped by visual practices. This

poses a challenge to ethnographic fieldwork and makes

video analysis an imperative part of an ethnographic

366 Qualitative Inquiry 25(4)

investigation into science communication. First, both the

visual and the bodily communicative actions of the actors

are extremely volatile. A video analysis of communicative

situations is therefore not only helpful but also necessary.

Second, the visual in science communication occurs not

only through bodily action (in communicative action) but

also as an objectivation of meaning: “Communication is

the kind of social action that is coordinated and synchro-

nized by objectivations” (Knoblauch, 2013b, p. 261).

Symbols and material objectivations used to communicate

with others are (audio-)visualized (by speech and/or

images) or are themselves visual (like objects). These ele-

ments challenge analysis because of their complex con-

current meaning structures and high degree of

intercontextuality. We therefore analyzed our video data

with sequence, hermeneutic, and genre analysis and trian-

gulated this data with our ethnographic knowledge, gained

in observations and expert interviews.

Our audiovisual data were analyzed through videogra-

phy and media product analysis (Knoblauch et al., 2014). In

the case of videography, we deal with video recordings of

natural situations recorded by researchers for the purpose of

methodological analysis. Media product analysis refers to

the analysis of so-called process-generated data. In the case

of the science slams, these are video recordings of the rele-

vant events, which were produced by the organizers them-

selves and published on media platforms on the Internet. In

the case of the group talks, the selection of the recorded

lectures was strongly limited by the agreement of the

respective scientists, so that not all group talks could be

recorded in the observation phase. Nonetheless, full partici-

pation in all events during this period was made possible,

ensuring that the data examples discussed here are repre-

sentative. In the case of the science slams, the case selection

was based on a quantitative evaluation. During the investi-

gation period, the 10 most successful slams (measured by

click counts) were selected.

Videography and media product analysis are not about

the illusion that one can preserve “reality” in its entirety.

Rather, the researchers must be aware of the fact that the

video recording can show only a part of reality. Preliminary

knowledge, field experience, and field survey expertise are

therefore needed to guide video analysis. Our focused eth-

nography is therefore not based solely on video recordings

but on a methodological triangulation which is typical of

qualitative research designs. Our design combines videog-

raphy, participant observation, expert interviews, and (to a

lesser degree) document analysis. To supplement the video-

graphic approach, the media product analysis of science

slams presented here is triangulated with the analysis of 10

hours of interview material with science slam organizers

(collected by Miira Hill), ethnographic experiences docu-

mented by several field protocols (also by Hill), and an

analysis of the content of science slam websites. The bene-

fits of this trianglulation will be demonstrated in the presen-

tation of the case studies. For research in communication

processes within the field of CNS, Wilke, additionally to the

videotaped events, observed the regular meetings of the

research group in CNS for 14 months (45 group talks in

total). Fourteen hours of video data were recorded during

the group talk. In addition, Wilke and colleague Eric

Lettkemann performed twelve 90-min interviews with the

aim of reconstructing knowledge and experience structures

within this field. In addition, for contrast purposes, another

6 hours of an interdisciplinary humanities research collo-

quium were recorded and analyzed audiovisually. The

research also showed that meticulous document analysis

was necessary to gain a basic understanding and be able to

contextualize the highly specified contents discussed in the

field. In both cases, the interview data were analyzed by

qualitative content analysis following Philipp Mayring

(2010) using the software MAXQDA.

The Communicative Construction of New Forms

of Science Communication

Our theoretical framework is closely related to our

research paradigm. From a social constructivist’s perspec-

tive, we refer to the latest elaboration on Berger and

Luckmann’s (1966) Social Construction of Reality: the

communicative construction of reality (Keller, Knoblauch,

& Reichertz, 2013; Knoblauch, 2017). Communicative

constructivism is based on a fundamental critique and

therefore revision of prior social constructivist versions. It

replaces the prefix social with the prefix communicative to

focus on the actual modus of social construction in a more

empirical fashion (Knoblauch & Wilke, 2016). This

approach regards action as communicative: “Because

social action requires a form of objectivation allowing us

to coordinate our conduct with that of others in a way that

makes sense to others, it is, in fact, communicative action”

(Knoblauch, 2013b, p. 162). In the face-to-face-communi-

cation of scientific knowledge, the role of informatization,

digital media, and performance has become more accentu-

ated. Objectivations of meaning in the form of visual rep-

resentations and bodily expressions have therefore become

the focus of our research.

From this perspective, the question arises as to how the

increasing importance of visuality in communicative pro-

cesses affects (the) social (construction of) reality.

Communicative constructivism sees digitized information

and its medialisation as deeply shaping modern societies

(e.g., Couldry & Hepp, 2013; Knoblauch, 2017; Traue,

2014). The communication society is defined by ubiquitous

computerized communication processes and technological

cascades of (re-)presentations of digital information bytes.

Wilke and Hill 367

We share the major assumptions of communicative con-

structivism within this empirical–theoretical framework.

Our research projects focus on the empirical modes of inter-

and transdisciplinary science communication within the

frame of scientific knowledge production (Bechtel, 2004),

(re-)presentation (Alać, 2008) and communication

(Lettkemann, Wilke, & Knoblauch, 2018). We have found

that both these spheres are tremendously shaped by new

communication practices and technologies of visualization.

From this point of view, the contemporary visuality of sci-

ence communication has an enormous importance for the

construction of reality and cannot be negotiated within a

methodological and theoretical frame that concentrates on

words and texts. Thus, both bodies and objectivations (what

others call artifacts) are intended to be acoustically and

visually (audiovisually) perceived. Presenters are also

aware of the importance of the visual for their presentations

and act accordingly. Therefore, the means of communica-

tion cannot be seen as a distraction from what is thought to

be the real message (Goffman, 1981). In our fields of inves-

tigation, visualization is part of the routine grounds

(Garfinkel, 1967) of everyday action. This knowledge con-

sists of routines of (esthetic) practice that involve situational

performance (bodies), situated spaces, technological infra-

structures, as well as digital information and its objectiva-

tion in signs and symbols. The relation between knowledge

and visual practices is therefore interactive: Knowledge

gives shape to visuality in science communication, whereas

visual objectivations—by virtue of their virtual or material

resistance and persistence—shape knowledge and further

practices. Thus, what is said and what is shown cannot be

separated without destroying the communicated message.

Solely analyzing printed slides, as Tufte (2006) did in his

critical analysis of the Columbia accident, indeed makes

PowerPoint “evil.” The fact is that both what is said and

what is shown are elements of the intersubjective construc-

tion of meaning and therefore reality. This is why we have

decided to deal with new forms of scientific discourse

genres in their own right.

Two Case Studies: Science

Communication and Communication

in Science

As mentioned earlier, our data were collected in two differ-

ent projects funded by the DFG: Data referring to science

slams was collected within the PhD research project

“Slamming Science. The New Art of Old Public Science

Communication” (Miira Hill). Data referring to CNS and

group talks were collected as part of the research project

“Visual Communication in Science Based on a Case-Study

in Computational Neuroscience” (principal investigator:

Hubert Knoblauch) by René Wilke and Eric Lettkemann.

Science Communication in (Transdisciplinary)

Science Slams

New genres of public science communication began to

emerge in the 1980s. Events like TED Talks (invented in

1984 in the silicon valley), Café Philosophique (1992),2 and

Café Scientifique (1998)3 could be seen as the start of a

communicative movement.

Recently, the number of public science events has multi-

plied and diversified (Hill, 2016). Public science communi-

cation events are designed to reinvent science communication

by using popular and artistic formats. In events like science

slams or lecture performances, scientists are asked to pres-

ent their knowledge in new ways that address lay audiences.

Some of these events can claim to attract huge audiences,

despite their scientific content. The genre is presented by its

proponents as new and better ways of legitimizing and com-

municating science. Popularized genres, like the German

science slam for example, address a diverse audience and

adopt stylistic strategies from poetry slams to present scien-

tific findings in a competitive environment.

Inspired by the poetry slam, the science slam was estab-

lished in 2006 in the German town of Darmstadt by the psy-

chologist Alexander Deppert.4 The science slam is an

institutionalized genre of communicative action, following

set guidelines for actions and aesthetic practices, such as

time limits, competition rules, the need to present new self-

made scientific content, the need to translate it, and the

requirement to create emotional responses and establish a

special atmosphere. These communicative acts generally

name an occasion that creates a scientific need for action

and enable an assessment of one’s own research based on its

social relevance. The talk has to tackle the basic communi-

cative problem of differentiated societies to communicate

the researcher’s public practice of science as relevant for

society. It addresses the communicative problem of present-

ing a scientific topic as accessible to and relevant for the

audience (Hill, 2018).

(Visual) Communication in (Interdisciplinary)

CNS Group Talks

Our second case deals with communication between scien-

tists. But likewise, it is a field which allows the study of

visualization in science communication in general. Today,

scientists from many different disciplines are involved in

CNS research. The term was coined by Eric L. Schwartz

(1990) in the 1980s. Today, CNS is the predominant modus

operandi and regarded as the spearhead of modern brain

research. In a nutshell, CNS is an interdisciplinary field

linking physics, statistics, and mathematics to investigate

information processing in the (human) brain. In practical

terms, it involves the computation of more or less biologi-

cally plausible mathematical models of neural systems,

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