Images of science in science fiction film and novels

HPS Reading Option, Summer Session 2006-7


This essay seeks to examine images of science and technology in a societal context as presented by a range of science fiction texts. Uncovering images of science in the popular media is an important step toward discovering how the public understand science and technology. Analysis of these science fiction texts will not presume any specific theory of media effects or public understanding of science, but focus on the content and attitude of the texts to reveal what images of and beliefs about science they depict, as these may both reflect public understandings as well as shape them.

Public understanding of science (PUS) – three approaches

Broadly speaking there are three main approaches evident in PUS literature, distinguishable by their attitude to the public and assumptions about the propagation and resolution of scientific and technical controversies (table 1). The first approach, often referred to as the deficit model, assumes a poorly educated and largely irrational public. In this understanding the biggest contributor to public controversies is the public's lack of ability to distinguish good science from bad and thus make decisions about scientific and technological policy. The logical conclusion this approach draws is that a “scientifically literate” public who are able discriminate between sound science and pseudoscience can make a positive contribution to the resolution of policy debates (Miller 1998). The typical deficit model response to the consistently low level of scientific literacy revealed in national surveys (Miller 1998) is to push for scientists to become more involved in the popularisation of their work, more engaging initiatives to bring science to the masses (e.g. Winter 2004) and better formal science education

The approach which I have termed “media effects” is more concerned with the media's influence over the public. There is a certain amount of overlap between the deficit and media effects models, but they differ in that media effects writers will often call for journalistic reform in scientific and technical reporting (e.g. Goodell 1987), a position that is rarely suggested by adherents to the deficit model. Media effects writers stress the dependence of the public on the media for scientific and technical information (e.g. Nelkin 1987, Hamm 1991, Elliot & Rosenberg 1987) and/or the powerful effect the media has on shaping public beliefs, opinions and attitudes (e.g. Gerbner 1987, Gerbner et al 1981, Nisbet et al 2002, Friedman 1987, Steinke 2005). Most media studies have focussed on news and non-fictional media (Dhingra 2003, Lewenstein 1995) but there are an increasing number devoted to fictional images and representations of science (e.g. Nisbet et al 2002, Gerbner 1987, Gerbner et al 1981, Kirby 2003).

A different approach is found in the work of Brian Wynne. As in the deficit/scientific literacy model, Wynne stresses democratic participation in public controversies involving science and technology. Unlike the deficit model, however, Wynne's belief is that scientific literacy, as it is commonly defined (e.g. Miller 1998), is not as relevant to lay publics as the basis of trust between the public and scientific expertise (Wynne 1993). Technical ignorance is not necessarily a bad thing, and under some circumstances may be a sign of a sophisticated understanding of organisational and institutional structures and divisions of labour (Wynne 1993). Likewise, scientific controversy and science's loss of credibility may not be a product of the public's irrationality, but of a failure of authorities to recognise and include relevant lay knowledge, such as in the case of the Cumbrian sheep farmers (Wynne 1989), or to recognise and include public interpretations of controversial issues (Wynne 2002).

Science as a social institiution

The term “institution” can be used to denote organisational entities, sets of norms or singular rules, norms or conventions of a formal or informal nature (International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences 2001). Although the interdependence of institutions is well established, they are usually conceived of as belonging to a distinct social sphere, such as kinship, education, economy, politics or culture (International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 1968). In this academic sense, science is classified as belonging to the cultural sphere.

Science is usually thought of in isolation from the social and political context it inhabits, however there is ambiguity over whether science is a process or a profession (Nelkin 1976) and whether its supposedly distinguishing features are unique to science, or even exist in scientific practice (Gieryn 1983). Professional scientists are employed by or funded by various organisations from many different social spheres, such as corporations, non-governmental interest groups, government departments, the military and universities. Unlike medicine, for example, science has very few norms or standards for dealings outside the scientific community, which may mean that science is badly equipped to deal with external pressures (Nelkin 1976).

It is now difficult to imagine what the social institution of science would look like if divorced from its military ties. The effect of these links on the scientific community, including scientists' professed norm of openness, has scarcely been examined, still less their consequences for the public perceptions of the nature of science, its autonomy and its value (Shapin 1990, p.1004)

“The myth of a self-governing community of science” (Nelkin 1976, p.27), a unified and distinct sphere of its own, seems to underpin most research into the public understanding of the nature of science as an institution. In reality, science is embedded into many economic, political, military, legal and educational institutions (Barnes 1985).

Public understandings and social intelligence

In public controversies involving scientific and technical issues such as safety or risk, there is no distinct “science” side to the debate – scientists and scientific evidence can be mustered to speak on behalf of any interested party. However in public controversies regarding the ethics or morality of certain kinds of research a unified “science” suddenly coalesces out of the seething mess of industrial, political and educational institutions or affiliations that bind most scientists to their work. Arguments about the need for scientific autonomy, the inherent progress in scientific research and unlimited benefits the public can expect from the free pursuit of controversial lines of enquiry are trotted out to counter the public's moral indignation. Given such circumstances it is reasonable to assume that the public's understanding of the institutional nature of science is going to be complex, contingent and not easily revealed by standardised survey methods.

Undoubtedly the biggest failure of mainstream PUS is that of researchers and theorists alike to find out, first of all, what the public understands by the term “science” before they start measuring how much the public knows about it and their attitudes toward it. For example, Elliott and Rosenberg (1987) suggest, after having undertaken their study into the effects of media exposure on beliefs about science and technology, that future studies “should attempt to determine how the public defines science and technology” (p.186). However their study is one of the few that even recommend such a step be taken. Sturgis and Allum (2004) criticise the deficit model for failing to take into account factors such as “culture, economic factors, social and political values, trust, risk perception and worldviews,” (p.58) that potentially influence public understanding of and attitudes toward science. However they do not abandon the deficit model completely, nor do they problematise the concept of science.
Michael (1992) is one of the few authors that express concern over the presupposition of a singular “science” in PUS studies. His discourse analysis study of the understanding of science by various groups of laypeople led him to conclude that the public distinguishes between two kinds of science, namely “science-in-general”, based around the production and acquisition of knowledge, and “science-in-particular”, consisting of specific cases where science is involved in the achievement of some defined goal (Michael 1992, p. 313).

A quantitative attempt to assess public understandings of science was made by Bauer et al (2000). Their intention was to measure how public perceptions corresponded to “sedimented traditional” or “recent realist” views (p.34), as well as measuring general and specific attitudes toward science. They drew attention to the fact that within a survey context it is difficult to ascertain if a general attitude response is based on a specific attitude to an issue that happens to be associated in the mind of the respondent. The weak statistical relationship between general and specific attitudes may support Michael's (1992) conclusions about lay conceptions of science-in-general and science-in-particular. Bauer et al (2000) also point out another, often overlooked, dimension of PUS, namely the influence of institutional images. They assert that researchers have ignored the institutional side of science and failed to take into account the problematic difference between what social institutions say about themselves and what they actually do.

Public understanding of science and the media

The relationship between media images and public opinions, attitudes and beliefs is contested and ambiguous. It would be disingenuous to suggest that there is a perfect correspondence between the media content and public understandings, but the extent to which public opinion shapes media images, or media images affect public opinion, is difficult to determine. As Rae Goodell (1987) suggests, the media may not affect public opinion as much as it affects authorities' assessments of public opinion. Despite this media images may still usefully function as proxy measurements of public understandings and images of science (Lewenstein 1995).

Studies media content (Gerbner 1989, Gerbner et al 1981) find that the greatest volume of images of science and technology occur in entertainment media, on prime-time television. While there is agreement that the mass media is an important source of information about scientific and technological issues for the public (Nelkin 1987, Hamm 1991, Elliott & Rosenberg 1987, Dhingra 2003), how the public gets this information and selects some images over others is unclear. Do audiences uncritically absorb the images they are shown, or do they interpret these images in light of their own beliefs, or is there, as Crisell (2006) suggests, an interaction between the content and the viewer's personal experiences?

Dependency theory postulates that images and attitudes presented in the media have more effect on the opinions and beliefs of audiences that have less relevant personal experience with which to compare these images (Criswell 2006, Elliott & Rosenberg 1987). Audiences with less personal experience are also more likely to perceive media images as realistic (Elliott & Rosenberg 1987). But does the public actively seek out information from the media, or passively absorb it? Zukin and Snyder's (1984) study suggests that exposure to media does result in a level of passive learning unrelated to immediate needs. However Miller (1998) believes that better educated audiences can glean more information from the media than those with lower levels of scientific literacy. This effect may result in a distinct knowledge gap between audiences of different education levels (Lewenstein 1995). However a situational model suggests that a community will very rapidly gain relevant information on issues that directly impact them (Lewenstein 1995).

“Mainstreaming” theory, used by Gerbner et al (1981, also Gerbner 1989) proposes that media consumption erodes the differences in attitudes between otherwise attitudinally different groups, and that heavy media consumers hold the attitudes and opinions that are most dominant in the media. This overlaps to a certain extent with framing and discourse studies, in which the way the media frames issues is thought to shape debate and opinion (e.g. Cook et al 2006).

Audience identification with characters or subject matter may also influence their uptake of images and information from the media. Steinke (2005) cites evidence that gender may determine which characters a person pays more attention to. Gender may also play a part in audience reactions to characters. For example in Dhingra's (2003) study girls responded much more positively to the lead female character Dana Scully, from the television series The X Files, than did their male classmates.

Finally, the context in which media is consumed by any given audience member may affect how much influence it has on them (Crisell 2006, Lewenstein 1995). The degree of attention given to the text, the motives for consuming it, where the person is at the time and what opportunities to follow up issues raised are provided (and then utilised) may all contribute to the text's impact (Crisell 2006).

Science fiction (SF) images of science

“Science fiction,” says Karlheinz Steinmüller,

is one of the most successful and perhaps most influential contemporary literary genres, and surely also one of the most significant cultural factors shaping our images of science, technology, and – last but not least – the future (2003, p.175).

Although this praise may be excessive, SF is certainly a popular genre in print, television and film media. SF imagery is also used extensively in science reporting and science popularisation (Mellor 2003). Here, however, I wish to focus on four specific fictional works, two visual and two print, to find out what images of science they present to their audiences. In much the same vein as Collins' (1987) examination of science documentaries, I intend to make a “study of the resources [emphasis in original] which [the media] makes available for the public to interpret” (Collins 1987, p.695). As such I am not interested in assessing the quality, accuracy or plausibility of the scientific knowledge used in these works, only the images of the nature of science and its relationship with society.

The four works (see Appendix A for summaries) have been selected for their similarities as much as their differences. Together they form a spectrum of attitudes towards science, from positive to ambivalent to negative. They are a mixture of more and less popular works, ranging from accessible and widely distributed space operas such as Serenity and Battlestar Galactica, to more niche market “hard SF”, such as Distress. As works of fiction they are likely to be consumed with less critical attention than other media, and as works of science fiction with potentially more suspension of disbelief than other types of entertainment media. The contexts that they are viewed in, then, are more likely to be similar, although consumers of SF do range from casual viewers/readers to more obsessive fans who study the work extensively and discuss it with others*.

In this analysis I focus primarily on depictions of science and technology and the characters that work in these fields, as the boundaries between science and technology are usually poorly defined in fictional media (Gerbner et al 1981). However I deliberately exclude medicine and specifically medical characters because I believe that, despite medicine becoming more overtly scientific and producing technologies that are controversial in their own right, it is still perceived as a distinct field quite apart from science, or even the biological sciences.
Characterisation of scientists

Information about some of the more outstanding characters is collated in table 2. Distress features the most scientists of all these works, and both Distress and Battlestar Galactica feature scientists as main characters (Violet Mosala and Gaius Baltar respectively). However even when scientists are not main characters, their work and its implications or consequences is pivotal to the plot. Almost all the scientific or technical characters are employed in a scientific or technical capacity, but usually by non-scientific organisations such as corporations or the military. They are often, but not always, called by their title, such as “Doctor” or “Professor”, or explicitly referred to in the text as a scientist. The extremely high mortality rate (table 2) accords well with previous findings (Gerbner 1987) about the possible association of science with violence and the relative risk of mortality for fictional scientists as compared to other professions in entertainment media.

Many attempts to describe the stereotypical scientist have been made over the last 20 years or so, most focussing on the images of scientists presented in film. Evil scientists are usually identified as outsiders, working from home on dubious projects which they will pursue at any cost, without thought to the potential consequences for society (Nisbet et al 2002, Jones 1987, Weingart et al 2003). Benevolent scientists are usually found within mainstream society, working for the government or some other formal organisation. They may, very occasionally, be heroic (such as Jones' (1987) “expert boffins”), but are much more likely to find that their work, done with the purest of intentions, has been co-opted to serve the more sinister interests of their employers (Goldman 1989, Nisbet et al 2002). Scientists are likely to have eccentric or antisocial behaviours, be extremely dedicated to their work, to look or dress unusually (e.g. lab coats and wild hair) and be seen as highly intelligent, even elite (Gerbner et al 1981, Nisbet et a 2002, Flicker 2003).

Women scientists, however, may not fit the stereotype exactly. Flicker (2003) asserts that the stereotype of the mad scientist does not apply to women, and that women scientists can successfully combine femininity with their exceptional intelligence, but not success. Steinke (2005) finds that fictional women scientists are often very young for their professional standing, have their authority questioned by their male peers or subordinates and have a terrible time balancing their work and personal life, if they even have a family at all.

A selection of the characters from the four texts have been examined for their degree of correspondence with these established stereotypes and these results are presented in table 3.
Major characters – Violet Mosala (Distress) and Gaius Baltar (Battlestar Galactica)

Interestingly enough, as well as being award-winning scientists at the top of their field, both these characters are celebrities. Mosala is first mentioned in Distress in the context of a potential documentary. The narrator, Andrew Worth, a science journalist, is discussing future projects with his producer, who tells him about a planned documentary on Mosala and her work. Similarly Baltar's first appearance in Battlestar Galactica is on a TV talk show called “The Spotlight”, where the host describes him as a media personality and a close friend of the President. Both Mosala and Baltar are described as controversial – Baltar for his views on advancing the state of computer technology, especially resuming research into artificial intelligence, and Mosala for her approach to theoretical physics, considered by her colleagues to come dangerously close to circular reasoning.

But here the similarities seem to end. “Professor” Mosala is unquestionably a good scientist and a good person. She explains her esoteric research to the media and the public “patiently and concisely” (Egan 1995, p.99). “Doctor” Baltar, on the other hand, is dangerously close to being an evil scientist. He has no qualms about using technobabble to convince senior military officers that an innocent man is in fact an enemy Cylon if it will help secure his position. Baltar's laziness, flagrant disregard for the law and weakness for beautiful women is the reason that the Cylons are able to infiltrate the Colonial Defence Ministry computer systems in the first place, rendering the Colonials defenceless when the Cylon attack finally begins. Luckily for Baltar, the details of his treason are not obvious or well known to others, and after being rescued from the Colonies he attempts to destroy any evidence that could be used against him – after all, treason is punishable by the death penalty! Despite this, Baltar is one of the few characters in these four works who actually survive the story.

By comparison Mosala's death seems especially tragic. Unlike Baltar, Mosala is not involved in any overtly sensitive, controversial or revolutionary research. She is working on a Theory of Everything, seemingly of little significance outside her field of theoretical physics. However she and her colleagues are murdered by a group called the Anthrocosmologists, who believe that a functional Theory of Everything, once understood, would destroy the world. Despite her murder she still manages to finalise and publish her theory, which once distributed does radically alter the world – but only for the better. Mosala is also a more sympathetic character because she has a family – a husband and a young daughter, whereas Baltar apparently has no family but many passionate affairs.

Minor characters – Christopher Mitchell (Count Zero) and the anonymous scientists (Serenity)

The construction of Christopher Mitchell and the anonymous scientists of Serenity are examples of how intangible minor characters can be, whether in a visual medium where the physical representation of those characters is unavoidable, or in a print medium, where a character can be described in such a way that the distance between the reader and that character is insurmountable. Audiences are generally not expected to sympathise with minor characters – we are given very little information about them and they usually get killed off before we can get too interested. Mitchell, despite being crucial to the plot, is only discussed in other characters conversations or revelations, never directly. The scientists in Serenity are nameless, even though the woman scientists who logs the final report on Miranda, which is subsequently used as definitive evidence of the Alliance's wrongdoing and broadcast across the galaxy, probably warrants a heroic commendation for her work.

These characters also appear to be dupes, pawns of their employers or higher powers. The implication is that Mitchell has made a Faustian bargain with the AIs that inhabit the cyberspace. They give him the knowledge and insights to develop the biosoft technology and facilitate his rise within the Maas-Neotek company research department and in return they benefit from the production of the new technology. Mitchell's actions and destiny are not his own – he is locked into a contract with Maas that has no legal exit and assigned to a remote research facility which is constantly alluded to as a prison or fortress while others profit from his work. His suicide seems to be the only way he can reclaim his freedom.

Similarly the anonymous woman scientist is visibly upset by the atrocity she realises she has been complicit in. The language she uses in her report is significant – the chemical that “we” added to the air, the fact that “we” had good intentions when doing so. So much for the autonomy of science! She identifies with her employers to the point that she has internalised their objectives and values and apparently cannot distinguish between the public interest and the interests of the government.


Location of science

The geographical location and institutional affiliations of certain characters is also collated in table 2. Each work positions science and technology in a very different way, both in their location in society and geographical base. Distress emphasises the academic side of science, the “invisible college” of peers dispersed across the world. Count Zero presents science and industrial R&D as a secret world of power and intrigue. Contrasting this picture is Battlestar Galactica and Serenity, where commercial science doesn't even rate a mention. In these stories it is the government and military who are shown as creating and depending on science

In Distress, technology is all-pervasive but science is confined to laboratories and universities. The implication is that relationship between science and technology is linear, with science creating the basic, but not immediately useful knowledge needed to develop technology. Science is constantly contrasted with the vehemently anti-science “ignorance cults”, whose members turn up to the Einstein Centenary Conference to protest the against Theories of Everything. All the significant scientist characters we are introduced are part of a dispersed international community, working in universities from India to Japan, America and South Africa. None are involved in commercial science, although commissioned science and commercial patents and applications, especially of biotechnologies, are frequently referred to. There is only one, very brief, mention of government science when it is revealed that the narrator's girlfriend works at a CSIRO facility. The impression given of science in this text is overwhelmingly academic, autonomous and progressive.

The world of Count Zero revolves around corporate machinations, and as such does not refer much to science outside of commercial research settings. Mitchell, the corporate insider, is contrasted with Rudy, the freelance outsider. Both are university educated, but Mitchell has physically attended a prestigious institution, whereas Rudy has studied from home. The implication is that university is just a stepping stone to a real career with a giant multinational corporation – Rudy is described by his brother as “stuck” (Gibson 1986, p. 224), having failed to make the jump into something bigger and brighter despite much interest from corporate recruiters. Geographically speaking, the arcology where Mitchell lives and works is located in the Arizona desert, protected by its inaccessibility as well as tight company security. This sheltered world is the antithesis of the huge tract of suburbia that forms the Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis, but suspiciously reminiscent of Rudy's home in rural Ohio, which is also remote and guarded against intruders by augmented dogs of Rudy's own invention.
Serenity and Battlestar Galactica are both predominantly set on spaceships, although these are not necessarily sites of scientific or technological activities. In fact scientific activity isn't shown in Battlestar Galactica at all. Baltar discusses his work at the Ministry of Defence once while out walking with his Cylon lover, and at one point on Colonial One is busy with paper, pencil and pocket calculator, apparently trying to figure out how the Cylons managed to pull off the surprise attack. However Baltar twice pretends to be doing, or have done work, relying on his position as a scientist (and genius) not to be questioned about what it really is that he is doing (namely destroying or obscuring evidence of his treachery). The first such instance is in the command centre of the Battlestar Galactica, no less, which is revealing about how much power and status he is automatically accorded. But it comes at a price – Baltar is only given these opportunities because the military and the new President are relying on him for expertise to counter the Cylons. To avoid suspicion and exposure as a traitor he must be seen to be working hard and honestly, even if everyone else is prepared to believe that the specific details of what he is doing is beyond their comprehension.

There is no major scientist character in Serenity, but those that we do see are busy employees of the Alliance government. The first setting is a secret underground laboratory on an unspecified planet, a large facility personally inspected by members of Parliament, devoted to covert military research , essentially brainwashing unwilling subjects until they are living “weapons”. The second setting is a “Research and Rescue” ship that appears to have crash-landed on the surface of the dead planet Miranda, where an unsuspecting population of 30 million have become the victims of a botched Alliance experiment in social control.

Conclusion

Hints about the effect of institutional embedding on the public's attitude to scientific controversy appear in Cook et al's (2006) study, despite their attempt to interpret institutional attitudes as “frames” (p.21). The images of science and technology that appear in fictional texts also support the notion that the public understands science not as autonomous, but as deeply embedded in institutional and authoritative structures. Goldman's (1989) discussion concerning engineers' lack of autonomy and its depiction in films may equally apply to scientific characters in fictional media, and to public perceptions of scientists in real life. At any rate, useful lessons about lay understandings of the complex and contradictory nature of science in society are waiting to be discovered in all kinds of fictional media*.

References

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Appendix A

Summaries of discussed works

Battlestar Galactica
Universal, 2004.
TV miniseries.
Space opera.

40 years after the first Cylon war, the Cylons, a machine race created by the 12 Colonies to serve humanity, return to destroy their creators once and for all. Despite their meticulous infiltration of the Colonial defence systems through their manipulation of Dr Gaius Baltar, the Battlestar Galactica and around 50 civilian spaceships carrying around 50 000 survivors manage to escape annihilation. These survivors, hopelessly outnumbered and overpowered by the Cylon forces, decide to flee to the long-lost 13th human Colony, Earth, to escape the Cylons and continue the human race.

Count Zero
William Gibson (USA), 1986.
Cyberpunk novel.

A team of mercenaries is assembled to help a brilliant scientist defect to a rival corporation. Meanwhile a naïve wannabe hacker tests a mysterious piece of software and is nearly killed, and a struggling gallery owner and art dealer is engaged by the richest private individual in the world to find an anonymous artist. All three story lines are bound together by the involvement of warring multinational corporations and the AIs in the form of voodoo gods who inhabit the Matrix.

Distress
Greg Egan (AUS), 1995.
Hard SF novel.

The jaded science journalist Andrew Worth pulls rank to be assigned a less stressful project – a documentary on the physicist Violet Mosala and the presentation of her Theory of Everything (TOE) at the Einstein Centenary Conference. However upon arriving at the conference venue, the independent, man-made anarchist island of Stateless, Andrew is caught up in the activities of an obscure pseudo-science cult that seems to think Violet's research must be stopped to prevent it causing the end of the world. Despite their efforts, Violet creates a working TOE and it does alter the universe and human society, but in a positive, not destructive, way.

Serenity
Universal, 2005.
Film based on 2002 TV series Firefly.
Space opera/western.

Malcolm Reynolds, the captain of a small smuggling ship called Serenity, and his crew are finding their existence increasingly marginal since sheltering on board a young doctor, Simon, and his unstable teenage sister, River. The Alliance, who rule the system since winning the civil war some years previously, are searching for River, who has been rescued from a secret military research facility by her brother, but not before being exposed to sensitive information about Alliance abuses of power.
As the crew of the Serenity are pursued by an Alliance operative, River leads them to a dead planet and uncovers its terrible secret. A chemical added to the planet's air processors by the Alliance to calm the population and render them more productive and less aggressive has had unexpected consequences. The majority of the 30 million inhabitants have died of apathy, but a small percentage have become the hyper-aggressive “Reavers” that terrorise the outlying settlements. The Serenity crew mount a daring attempt to make the story of the dead planet known to the wider public, to deter the Alliance from ever undertaking such an experiment again.

* However I reject any assertion that writing academic papers on SF is indicative of obsession.
* Lessons I learnt from these SF texts are included in table 4, which is a purely gratuitous table meant for entertainment purposes only.