怎样讲好科学故事:赵致真和他的《播火录》

给大众讲述科学史,是进行科学传播、提高公民科学素质的重要方式。《播火录》是一部科学史的散文集,讲述了众多相对独立并兼具科学性和思想性的真实故事,真实再现了近代科学在发展过程中的生动片段。本文从作者的创作动机、创作经历切入,通过分析作品的特质,揭示了《播火录》的科学传播价值。     

Theory into practice: Connecting theory and practice: Women scientist role models in television programming

Bern's gender schema theory (Bern 1981, 1983, 1993) provides a useful framework for examining the influence of women scientist role models on girls’ perceptions of science and scientists. The purpose of this paper is (1) to describe how Bern's gender schema theory serves as a framework for guiding future research, (2) to examine the fundamental premises of Bern's gender schema theory as they relate to the processing of information about science and gender roles, and (3) to identify key conditions and criteria from gender schema theory to guide the design of television programs that use role models to reduce gender‐stereotyping of science.     

数据故事的自动生成与工程化研发

[目的/意义]明确定义数据故事化的内涵与特征,正确理解数据故事与文学故事的区别,实现数据故事化的自动生成和工程化研发是推动数据故事化这一新研究领域的关键所在。[方法/过程]首先,在调查分析数据故事化领域的研究现状的基础上,提出了数据故事化的内涵与特征;其次,采用数据科学与数据工程方法提出数据故事的自动生成流程;最后,运用软件工程方法设计出数据故事的工程化研发的参考架构。[结果/结论]数据故事的自动生成流程的提出对于数据故事化领域的理论研究具有重要借鉴意义,而数据故事的工程化开发参考架构的设计为研发数据故事产品组件及培育产业生态系统具有较大的参考价值。     

Communicating resilience in actual and imagined boundaries: narrative plots and meanings of retention in organizations

The paper examines the narratives of STEM (Science, technology, engineering and mathematics) career pathways constructed by women scientists and engineers through the theoretical lens of resilience. Based on in-depth interviews conducted with 45 women who are currently employed in STEM organizations in Singapore, I explore the narrative actions women deploy to survive in largely masculine STEM organizations. Using narrative analysis, I explore the stories women craft as strategies of resilience when negotiating STEM career pathways. Given the critical role of storytelling in resilience, the study points to the role of communication in enabling networks, and in making available opportunities for circulating stories. Moreover, the cultural and structural challenges to women’s work in STEM suggest the key role for communication interventions that are directed at changing sociocultural attitudes toward women’s work in STEM.     

Peril in the personals: the dangers and pleasures of classified advertising in early twentieth‐century Britain

The question of how newsbook storytelling contributed to the cultivation and development of thinking about particular political practices during the English Civil Wars in the 1640s needs systematic attention. A sustained examination of newsbook narratives reveals assumptions about political order, activity and legitimacy that were being continuously reiterated in public discourse. Examining how the author of the Royalist Mercurius Aulicus chronicled, selected and ordered recent events into a series of narrative episodes across a number of issues, this article offers a preliminary approach towards understanding how newsbooks contributed to everyday political thinking. Using Charles Taylor's notion of ‘social imaginaries’, it outlines the ideas and assumptions that constituted Aulicus' discussion of the Solemn League and Covenant's introduction in September and October 1643. As an important form of political engagement, the stories newsbooks told were used to shape ideas about political propriety on a weekly basis.     

有意义的故事，有意义的展览——科技馆展览讲故事的难点和对策分析

科技馆展览如何讲故事,是近年来探讨的热门话题。在分析展览讲故事的作用和意义的基础上,重点剖析和归纳了导致科技馆展览讲故事的五个难点:演示“科学现象”与“叙事性”的矛盾、科学“共性”与故事“特殊性”的矛盾、展品“碎片化”与“故事线”的矛盾、“大题目”与“小故事”的矛盾、疏于文献研究与讲故事所需丰厚素材的矛盾,提出了针对这五个矛盾的解决方法,并强调更重要、更紧迫的是转变传统的观念意识和设计思路。     

Qatar's Hidden Women: Symbolic Annihilation and Documentary Media Practice

This article explores how documentary film practice and visual storytelling can be used to help portray Qatari women's narratives, even though many are prohibited by cultural norms from appearing in visual media. We investigate which communication and media practices can provide a work-around, ensuring that women's stories and testimonies are documented. We also explore whether Qatar's social and cultural restrictions result in a form of “symbolic annihilation” for Qatari women, as articulated by Gaye Tuchman, and how this impacts Qatari women's position and visibility in local society.     

Defining the scientific community: A rhetorical perspective on demarcation

Long traditions of philosophical and sociological research have addressed questions of the demarcation of science, i.e., how to identify the “unique and essential” characteristics of science which are taken as ostensibly distinguishing it from other forms of human conduct. In contrast, this essay argues that demarcation is most usefully viewed as a practical matter, rhetorically negotiated by scientists (and other social actors) in particular interest‐driven rhetorical contexts. A case study of the 1989 cold fusion controversy illustrates an implicit demarcation rhetoric which grew out of the professional physics community's interest‐driven need to provide a plausible explanation for the errors committed by the Utah cold fusion team. Close analysis of the discourses in the controversy reveals the active construction of working definitions of science and suggests that those definitions ultimately circumscribed the evidential grounds on which the ontological status of cold fusion was a judicated by the scientific community.     

面向青少年科学职业理想培养的场馆科学教育研究——来自英国两家科普场馆的启示

为激发青少年科学家潜质,储备科技创新人才,提升青少年科学职业理想愈发重要。科学职业理想会影响个体从事科学领域的职业选择,而场馆教育情境对其培育具有重要促进作用。本研究梳理了英国伦敦科学博物馆和纽卡斯尔生命中心的场馆生涯教育实践,以资借鉴。英国科普场馆教育以提升青少年科学职业理想为目标,在个体维度关注职业关联性感知,在社会维度聚焦机会公平,并衍生出了以生涯理念指导馆本课程、在教育空间开展体验活动、加强馆校结合、发挥科学家群体榜样作用和关注女性等弱势群体等生涯教育策略。结合英国两个场馆的实践经验,我国科普场馆可通过创新活动设计,融入科学家精神,汇集多元主体,实现面向科学职业理想的场馆科学教育变革。     

Clogging the Machinery: the BBC's experiment in science coordination, 1949–1953

In 1949, physicist Mark Oliphant criticised the BBC's handling of science in a letter to the Director General William Haley. It initiated a chain of events which led to the experimental appointment of a science adviser, Henry Dale, to improve the ‘coordination’ of science broadcasts. The experiment failed, but the episode revealed conflicting views of the BBC's responsibility towards science held by scientists and BBC staff. For the scientists, science had a special status, both as knowledge and as an activity, which in their view obligated the BBC to make special arrangements for it. BBC staff, however, had their own professional procedures which they were unwilling to abandon. The events unfolded within a few years of the end of the Second World War, when social attitudes to science had been coloured by the recent conflict, and when the BBC itself was under scrutiny from the William Beveridge's Committee. The BBC was also embarking on new initiatives, notably the revival of adult education. These contextual factors bear on the story, which is about the relationship between a public service broadcaster and the external constituencies it relies on, but must appear to remain independent from. The article therefore extends earlier studies showing how external bodies have attempted to manipulate the inner workings of the BBC to their own advantage (e.g. those by Doctor and Karpf) by looking at the little-researched area of science broadcasting. The article is largely based on unpublished archive documents.     

“Snow Fall”-ing Special Collections and Archives

“Snow Fall” is a Pulitzer Prize winning, digital storytelling project produced by the New York Times. It represents the next step in long-form digital journalism. The web application tells a compelling story about the fate of sixteen skiers and snowboarders during an avalanche. The textual element of the story is wrapped in a slick interface with gently appearing and disappearing images, strategically positioned HTML5 video and image slideshows, maps, and 3-D visualizations. Its title, “Snow Fall,” has become a verb in the digital journalism world. Upon seeing “Snow Fall” and other similar projects, the authors started to make the connection between this form of storytelling and Special Collections. Special Collections are full of interesting, rich, and unique stories. Their digital representation, however, while widespread in systems such as ContentDM, can be lacking in sensory appeal. Because of this, the authors developed a “Snow Fall”-like application for a Special Collections’ exhibit, “Cradle of Coaches,” in the fall of 2013. In addition to this exhibit, they have developed two more using the same template. They feel that this is a new and exciting medium to tell the stories within special collections and archives, as well as general stories about libraries themselves.     

Organizational storytelling as a method of tacit-knowledge transfer: Case study from a Sri Lankan university

Sri Lanka has a long history and culture of storytelling but the use of stories for transferring tacit knowledge is absent. This paper is the first to examine the application of orgnisational stories as a method of tacit-knowledge transfer management tool in the library domain.

The study had two objectives; 1) To explore the potential of storytelling to transfer tacit knowledge from the Librarian to the junior executives. 2) To examine whether captured stories serve the pursuit of knowledge by the junior executives. Two research questions were formulated to achieve these objectives. The first research question (RQ1) How can the tacit knowledge of a retiring senior executive be captured through stories? was framed and addressed to achieve objective one and the second research question (RQ2) Can the captured “stories of work” benefit knowledge workers in their pursuit of tacit knowledge? was framed and addressed to achieve objective two. The study was based on primary data collected from the Librarian and executive staff of the Library by means of two Interview Schedules and the entire study was underpinned by an extensive review of research literature related to organizational storytelling. Qualitative as well as quantitative methods were used to analysis and interpretation data.

The findings of the study proved in response to RQ1 that organizational stories can be captured using a six-step process and a story capturing model which could be used by the other researcher emerged from the research. Nevertheless, findings also established that the comprehensiveness of the tacit knowledge that could be captured through stories would depend on the degree of confidentiality of the contents of the stories. Therefore all stories could not be recorded as they are told. Responding to RQ2 the findings proved that, captured “stories of work” can be used for the benefit of knowledge workers in their pursuit of tacit knowledge.

Based on these findings it was recommended that, the library should take initiatives to exploit the already prevailing habit of organizational storytelling in the library as a method of transferring tacit knowledge in a deliberated manner and for this several activities were recommended.

The findings were based only on a single case, in a single organization carried out during a six-month period, within the boundaries of a specific organizational and social culture. Therefore additional case studies would be necessary to test the validity and reliability of the story capturing model.

This research is the first of its kind carried out in the library domain of Sri Lanka. Therefore it provides significant insights on which future researchers can build their studies.     

从不同角度讲述宇宙探索的故事 ——美国三个博物馆展示内容和叙事结构对比

在博物馆展览中讲故事的重要性已经得到普遍认可,通过讲故事的形式可以让科学入脑、更入心,可以得到更好的展示效果。然而,选择什么样的故事、怎样讲述故事、如何将故事与展览相结合,则成为重要的探讨话题。笔者在美国博物馆中看到了三个关于宇宙探索的不同展览,希望通过对展览内容和叙事结构的剖析,能够对国内科技馆展览策划有所启发。     

Narratives in a Science Center: Interpretation and Identity

Abstract This paper discusses issues raised by research into people's views of science and scientists, and the implications for interpretative forms in museums. The principles proposed here are based on a series of meetings that looked at the use of narratives in science and the responses of potential visitors from different cultural groups to ideas for narrative signage. Signage design can help people connect to science content by relating practical and theoretical knowledge, crafting explanations, understanding the nature of the medium, and conveying a message about science. The use of narrative form to design experiential guides opens up the possibility of changing a visitor's relationship to the traditional text encountered in museums.     

Transformative Radio and Stubborn Audiences: A Tale of Two Cities

A decade ago the regional programming of CBC Toronto successfully transformed itself with a new notion of community reflection that utilized a range of emerging digital platforms but put narrative radio storytelling at its centre. With the launch of CBC Hamilton in Spring 2012, as Canada's sole digital-only public broadcasting outlet (no over-the-air TV or radio), audio storytelling was conspicuously absent from the equation. Based on the only publicly available research conducted with CBC users and community leaders prior to and following both launches, the authors raise questions about audience conceptions and the enduring value of audio storytelling in an era of digital broadcasting and social media.     

Organizational storytelling as a method of tacit-knowledge transfer: Case study from a Sri Lankan university

Sri Lanka has a long history and culture of storytelling but the use of stories for transferring tacit knowledge is absent. This paper is the first to examine the application of orgnisational stories as a method of tacit-knowledge transfer management tool in the library domain.The study had two objectives; 1) To explore the potential of storytelling to transfer tacit knowledge from the Librarian to the junior executives. 2) To examine whether captured stories serve the pursuit of knowledge by the junior executives. Two research questions were formulated to achieve these objectives. The first research question (RQ1) How can the tacit knowledge of a retiring senior executive be captured through stories? was framed and addressed to achieve objective one and the second research question (RQ2) Can the captured “stories of work” benefit knowledge workers in their pursuit of tacit knowledge? was framed and addressed to achieve objective two. The study was based on primary data collected from the Librarian and executive staff of the Library by means of two Interview Schedules and the entire study was underpinned by an extensive review of research literature related to organizational storytelling. Qualitative as well as quantitative methods were used to analysis and interpretation data.The findings of the study proved in response to RQ1 that organizational stories can be captured using a six-step process and a story capturing model which could be used by the other researcher emerged from the research. Nevertheless, findings also established that the comprehensiveness of the tacit knowledge that could be captured through stories would depend on the degree of confidentiality of the contents of the stories. Therefore all stories could not be recorded as they are told. Responding to RQ2 the findings proved that, captured “stories of work” can be used for the benefit of knowledge workers in their pursuit of tacit knowledge.Based on these findings it was recommended that, the library should take initiatives to exploit the already prevailing habit of organizational storytelling in the library as a method of transferring tacit knowledge in a deliberated manner and for this several activities were recommended.The findings were based only on a single case, in a single organization carried out during a six-month period, within the boundaries of a specific organizational and social culture. Therefore additional case studies would be necessary to test the validity and reliability of the story capturing model.This research is the first of its kind carried out in the library domain of Sri Lanka. Therefore it provides significant insights on which future researchers can build their studies.     

All About Me,I Mean,You: The Trouble with Narrative Authority in Self-Help Literature

By considering a neglected realm of narrative discourse, this article contributes to the communication scholarship on narrative authority. Authors of self-help books face a challenge that demands different methods of cultivating authority. Rather than do so by articulating professional expertise, they construct their authority based on personal narratives of self-transformation. Throughout the self-help genre's history, a particular type of talking cure has been intimately woven with ideas of selfhood. Positive thinking holds that our thoughts produce reality. Narratives about the self then place a tremendous power in and responsibility on the self, just as they deny the influence of social structures. In this study I aim to expose the implicit values of selfhood and storytelling that are occluded by the explicit stories of a free and helping self espoused in self-help and to demonstrate that that occlusion is enacted through the cultivation of narrative authority.     

The Use of Fictional Stories in Science Exhibits: The Emperor Who Only Believed His Own Eyes

The authors explore how fictional narratives (stories) can be used as a learning tool in the context of informal science environments and specifically science centers. They base their argument on an analysis of the theoretical, structural and epistemological properties of stories and how those can serve to establish a story as a cognitive tool. They offer an example of an application of these properties to a story‐based learning design called “The Emperor who only Believed his own Eyes” in the context of a large, public science center, and specifically an exhibition about “senses”. This paper focuses on the idea of a “hack,” a museum sanctioned strategy for exploring the potential and implications of narrative‐based design as a way to reinterpret science exhibits in a way that can engage young users in content exploration and offer recommendations for future research.     

Presidential reflections

Family stories participate in the formation of culture as they imagine and reproduce ethnic identity. This essay examines grandmother (mémère,) stories in Franco American families as the cultural location of a global moment where family, white ethnic identity, and gender intersect. Within a transnational feminism and performative theory of family storytelling which historidze and situate cultural texts, grandmothers become linked with the motherland and mother tongue in the imagination of Franco American identity. The analysis of a corpus of mémère stories identifies both the performative agency and constraints on traditional ethnic women within structures of gender, culture, ana power. The performance of mémère stories enchants the grandmother as a cultural icon and reproduces the Franco American family. However, the formation of cultural identity through family storytelling in mémère stories is a problematic achievement because it is built upon myths of cultural purity and “goodness,“ although narrative strategies complicate these images.