Abstract
This chapter is a result of 25 years of research on public understanding of science (PUS) in India. The authors have since 1998 carried out PUS surveys during every Kumbh and Ardh Kumbh Mela (a religio-cultural fair visited by millions of Hindus) held at Sangam (confluence of three holy rivers), Allahabad. The analysis carried out and results obtained during this period were reported after every survey. The conceptual model known as ‘cultural distance model’ and an empirical method to compute cultural distances of various scientific explanations from the thought complex of sampled population were once again put on the anvil of statistical analysis. In this chapter, for the first time, we report and discuss the shifts in cultural distances that have come about since early 2000s. We also have suggested a method to compute the efficacy of media channels using cultural distance model. The analysis has shown that newspaper still remains the most effective channel for communicating scientific ideas. However, like television and radio, it offers a narrow window of opportunity for communicating ideas. This band of opportunity is highly sensitive to cultural distance of a given scientific idea from the thought complex of the target population. The first section of the chapter deals with the history of science communication in India, in brief. The second section reports and discusses the status and shift in PUS and the efficacy of media channels.
Views expressed in the chapter are the authors’ own and not necessarily shared by the editors.
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Notes
- 1.
In India at the dawn of the 20 century, intellectuals were still discussing whether the earth was stationary or moving, and the discourse was deeply religious (Gosling 2007).
- 2.
- 3.
"What Nehru affirmed in England was his concept of a civilised person, the application of reason to human affairs, tolerance for dissenting opinions and a search for truth, all revealed to him by science". Available at http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/michaelis/title342.pdf.
- 4.
Radio broadcasting began in India in 1927, with two privately owned transmitters at Mumbai (then Bombay) and Kolkata (then Calcutta). These were nationalised by the British Raj in 1930 and operated under the name Indian Broadcasting Service until 1936, when it was renamed All India Radio (AIR). Available at http://www.answers.com/topic/all-india-radio Last visited on 6 June 2007.
- 5.
Doordarshan had a modest beginning with the experimental telecast starting in Delhi in September 1959 with a small transmitter and a makeshift studio. The regular daily transmission started in 1965 as a part of All India Radio. The television service was extended to Mumbai and Amritsar in 1972. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doordarshan Last visited 6 June 2007.
- 6.
Jatha is word of Hindi language, which in English language would mean ‘procession’.
- 7.
INR 25,000 was a substantially big sum during 1970s.
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Raza, G., Singh, S. (2017). Current Status of Public Understanding of Science: Results of Kumbh Mela Survey Studies. In: Bagla, P., Binoy, V. (eds) Bridging the Communication Gap in Science and Technology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1025-5_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1025-5_10
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