Scientific Imagery and Popularized Imagery: Differences and Similarities in the Photographic Portraits of Scientists

Abstract

Previous works on popularization of science in magazines were strongly influenced by traditional methods used with scientific discourse, and pictures were only analyzed in terms of efficiency. This paper will focus on the role of imagery portraying science and scientists in Science et Vie and La Recherche, two French magazines. La Recherche uses more complex photographs, requiring more scientific knowledge from the reader, while Science et Vie uses more high-tech pictures. Both styles of picture originate from genuine scientific endeavours and have didactic aims. Science is then integrated into a system of familiar representations shown through stereotyped pictures (test tubes, etc.) revealing the process of science: the labs and their techniques rather than the results. However, La Recherche focuses more on portraying scientists as a group, especially recipients of honorary distinctions. The frequent use of `chalk and blackboard' is one way of dogmatizing scientific knowledge while pictures of scientists in their private lives is a way of popularizing and humanizing science. The scientist remains an archetype of knowledge — yet still as mortal as the layman. But science stays isolated from its economic or political context. In contrast to popular magazines, primary scientific journals never portray scientists, science being enunciated without reference to the enunciator, striving for absolute intellectualization.

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