Popular culture is not the endpoint for the communication of fully developed scientific discourses; rather it constitutes a set of narratives, values and practices with which scientists have to engage in the heterogeneous processes of scientific work. In this paper I explore how one group of actors, involved in the development of both post-war natural history television and the professionalisation of animal behaviour studies, manage this process. I draw inspiration from sociologists and historians of science, examining the boundary work involved in the definition and legitimation of scientific fields. Specifically, I chart the institution of animal ethology and natural history filmmaking in Britain through developing a relational account of the co-construction of this new science and its public form within the media. Substantively, the paper discusses the relationship between three genres of early natural history television, tracing their different associations with forms of public science, the spaces of the scientific field and the role of the camera as a tool of scientific observation.Through this analysis I account for the patterns of co-operation and divergence in the broadcasting and scientific visions of nature embedded in the first formations of the Natural History Unit of the British Broadcasting Corporation. 3In spring 1957 the previously informal collaborations between naturalists, broadcasters and scientists directed at taking and broadcasting film of animals for British television were recognised in the establishment of the Natural History Unit (NHU) of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Self sufficient with its own producers, library and film editing facilities, and eight permanent staff, and based in Bristol, the NHU was charged with supplying the majority of natural history output on the BBC 1 . In a paper to the BBC Board 'The spirit of scientific enquiry must have pride of place. In handling this subject we expose ourselves to the critical scrutiny of scientists, and their approval is an important endorsement. Moreover, it is their work that throws up the ideas and instances and controversies from which programmes are made.We look to them as contributors, as source material, as consultants, and as elite opinions on our efforts. In short we need their goodwill' 3 .The choice for head of Unit, the ornithologist Bruce Campbell, reinforced an ethos in which scientific skills were valued above broadcasting experience. As Chris Parsons writes in his history of the Unit: 'Although he had no experience as a producer, Bruce
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