Draft proposal from Nick Hopwood, which will be revised and could be adjusted to accommodate talks that fit the broad theme:
This session explores transformations in the web of communication (to use Bruce Lewenstein’s term) in biology and biomedicine in the decades after World War II. As science grew and disciplines multiplied, so did journals, which also commercialized and internationalized. Publishers, scientific societies, science journalists, and government agencies put more energy into cultivating the public appreciation of science. From the 1960s the scene was transformed, we are told, by greater competition to publish discoveries (especially from newspapers and giveaway journals) and to report science news (not least from television), and especially by more critical attitudes to the life sciences and medicine. But what really changed, how can we best map the new webs of science communication, and how should we think about this period between the end of the war and the digital revolution?
