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13th International Public Communication of Science and Technology Conference
5-8 May 2014, Salvador, Brazil
Graduate Program: Master in Communication of Science and Culture,
Department of Sociocultural Studies, ITESO, Guadalajara, Jalisco, México
Susana Herrera Lima
Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente (ITESO)
Guadalajara, Jalisco, México
shl@iteso.mx
Abstract
This Master program has been offered by ITESO, in Guadalajara, México, since 1998,
standing from a sociocultural approach in science communication. It was the first post-
graduate program in this academic field in México. The program looks after the
development of both research skills and the capacity to convey practical projects. The
aim of this work will be to share the results of the program in three main axes: research
projects in science communication developed by students (dissertations); strategic
projects in science communication oriented to solve social problems through dialogic
participation with social groups; and some examples of the research projects of Public
Communication of Science developed by the professors of the MCCC.
Background
The Master in Communication with specialty in popularization of Science and
Culture (Maestría en Comunicación con Especialidad en Difusión de la Ciencia y la
Cultura) was founded in 1998 under the Department of Sociocultural Studies of the
ITESO University, with the objective of promoting the advanced specialization of
professionals in communication and for the training of specialists on other areas (biology,
education, sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy) in the fields of communication
and sociocultural studies. The graduate should be able to influence in the development
and democratization of knowledge, through research, design, planning, management, and
specialized and ethically oriented intervention; by developing projects placed both on the
13th International Public Communication of Science and Technology Conference
5-8 May 2014, Salvador, Brazil
line of public communication of science and on the field of cultural promotion. In 2005
the program changed its name to Master in Communication of Science and Culture
(MCCC), but the objectives and intentions of the program remain unchanged. The Master
is part of the PNPC (National Program of High Quality Graduate Programs) in
CONACYT (National Council of Science and Technology) as a program of international
competence. Since the beginning of the program the MCCC has been developed around
two main lines of knowledge: The Communication and Promotion of Culture, and the
Public Communication of Science, which is the one that will be addressed in this work.
Among the several approaches from which scientific popularization has been
historically engaged the MCCC develops a proposal based in the research and production
of public communication of science from the perspective of socio cultural studies.
The socio cultural studies field provides an academic frame whose fundamental
concepts approach the study of human practices in society, at the level of the
social structure where these are being carried out, and at the level of the actions
and shared codes that give them meaning. This means that in the specific case of
concepts and processes that are related to the communication of science, the
sociocultural studies give the elements that allow to contextualize and understand
the relationships that exist between different practices: the production of scientific
knowledge, its impact and consequences in different spheres of social life, the
technological development, the particular ways in which they incorporate to
society, and the meaning that the social actors give to the relationships with
science and technology in their everyday practice. (Herrera Lima, 2012)
The objective of this presentation is to show the results that have been obtained
in the MCCC during the past sixteen years, organizing these results in three main
categories: In first place, the dissertations that have been developed by students; in
second place the scope that we call Science Communication and Citizenship, with
projects for the application of public communication of science related to specific local or
regional problems, these works have been developed by academics and students of the
Master; finally the scope of research and production of knowledge, with the research
13th International Public Communication of Science and Technology Conference
5-8 May 2014, Salvador, Brazil
projects of Public Communication of Science developed by the professors of the MCCC.
A significant portion of the results are compiled in an academic publication: a collective
book published in 2012.
Dissertations
Since the year 2002 in which the first student got his degree and until 2014, the
Master counts 26 graduated students in the area of Public Communication of Science.
The thesis projects of the students respond to their own research interests in the
knowledge of public communication of science, but they must fulfill with the
requirement of being socially referred: they must have a specific social referent. The
research must be socially and academically pertinent within the frame of the sociocultural
perspective from which Science Communication is approached in the Master.
The topics and problems that the thesis can address are not pre established, but I
propose a classification based on the analysis of the final products and according to the
emphasis of the results shown by the research:
a. Dialogues between different kinds of knowledge: scientific knowledge and not
specialized knowledge. These works analyze the interaction between scientists
and not scientists in the context of some social problems where dialogue is the
main way to get a successful common project.
b. Mediations and narratives: museums, media, printed publications, internet. The
emphasis of this works is in sociocultural mediations and discourses.
c. Studies of reception, publics and audiences. These studies are focalized in the
sociocultural context of the publics, their perceptions and appropriation of
knowledge.
d. Power, reproduction and legitimization. In this field the research works analyze
the relations of power in the social structure within the scientific production.
e. Imaginaries and representations. How science and scientists are socially perceived
and represented by some social groups.
f. Science communication and social problems: environment and health.
13th International Public Communication of Science and Technology Conference
5-8 May 2014, Salvador, Brazil
Projects of Science communication applied to local problems: Science and
Citizenship
In the frame of one of the Master’s assignments, offered once a year: Analysis
and design of Public Science Communication Projects, projects are developed through
the identifying of local problems in which scientific knowledge can contribute to the
understanding of the different phases of the problem and to the empowerment of the
affected social actors. The idea is to contribute to the development of informed and
participating citizens.
The work of the professors and students in the projects of this assignment consists
in the linking of the knowledge produced by scientists of diverse disciplines with that of
civil organizations, social groups or communities, by identifying and diagnosing the
problematic situation in which they are immersed and by proposing and developing
science communication strategies in different places, media and channels, all this in a
continuous dialogue process with the affected actors.
One of the objectives of the Master is to place students in real sceneries with
social problems, in which interdisciplinary scientific knowledge is necessary for the
understanding of the different phases of a situation and for the positioning of the affected
actors.
Some examples of these projects are:
-Pollution of the Santiago river with the civil organization “Un salto de vida”
In this case the problem came from a damaged area next to the metropolitan area of
Guadalajara, in which the Santiago river has been receiving for years the industrial
disposes of the enterprises located at its shore, the loads of black water from the city and
the leachate of the municipal dump next to it. The objective of the project was first to
spread information of the problem in Guadalajara metropolitan area and then to provide
argumentation elements to the people living there. Chemists, hydrologist and urban
planners were involved in the process.
-Environment Communication for the Bosque Los Colomos. The urban forest Los
Colomos is one of the main water providers for the city, as well as an important lender of
environmental services for the region. It is threatened by real estate developments and the
pollution of groundwater, among other things. The objective of the strategy was to place
13th International Public Communication of Science and Technology Conference
5-8 May 2014, Salvador, Brazil
the forest into the public agenda as part of a vulnerable eco system. We worked alongside
with biologists, environmental engineers, experts in environmental ecology and
economical ecology.
-Flooding in Guadalajara’s Metropolitan Zone, from the project: “Guadalajara Pluvial”.
- The Temacapulin affair. The problem of basins and dams.
-Science, enterprise and society. CIATEJ (Center for the research and application of
technology of the state of Jalisco): strategic communication of biotechnology. This
instance will be addressed in detail during the congress.
Academic research projects
There are two main lines of research in Public Communication of Science in the
Department of Sociocultural Studies.
a) Public policy in science and technology in México.
b) Scientific-technological mediation in the relationship between nature and society.
Academic Publication
In the year 2010, during the 10th anniversary of the Master, we decided to
summon the graduates from the area of public communication of science to participate in
a book integrated by their dissertations, re-shaped into chapters of the book, plus a
section devoted to write about their own professional projects that are related to science
communication. The book also counted with the collaboration of the scholars that have
been professors of the program, providing the national context of science communication
in Mexico and the particular context in which the Master in Communication of Science
and Culture has evolved. The book is named: From Academy to public space. To
communicate science in Mexico, and it was coordinated by Susana Herrera Lima and
Carlos Enrique Orozco.
Science communication in the ITESO
-Café Scientifique of ITESO. With 10 years of existence, the Café is a place of leisure to
think and discuss science. It belongs to the Center of Cultural Promotion.
13th International Public Communication of Science and Technology Conference
5-8 May 2014, Salvador, Brazil
-Quarterly supplement “Clavius”. Communities and Knowledge” (Comunidades y
Saberes), developed by scholars and students of ITESO and published by the newspaper
La Jornada, Jalisco. It’s a project of public communication of social sciences referred to
regional and local problems.
This has been a brief summary of the results of the works in the Master in
Communication of Science and Culture, in ITESO University. This collective effort has
made an important contribution to the professionalization of the public communication of
science in, at least, two ways: the production of knowledge through specialized research
and the development of applied projects.
References
Herrera Lima, S. (2012). “La profesionalización de la comunicación pública de la
ciencia: hacia la construcción de un campo académico”. en Herrera Lima, S. & C. E.
Orozco, De la academia al espacio público. Comunicar ciencia en México, Guadalajara,
Jal, ITESO, pp. 49-63.
Full text of dissertations can be consulted in:
http://www.portal.iteso.mx/portal/page/portal/Dependencias/Rectoria/Dependencias/Dire
ccion_General_Academica/Dependencias/DESO/Programas_academicos/MC