“We Have to, Like, Make Science”: Cultural Producers and the Production of Scientific Knowledge in UK Mass Media

Abstract

Science saturates popular culture, but how might we understand the roles played by popular culture in producing scientific knowledge? Based on fieldwork and interviews with cultural producers in the United Kingdom, this article examines how cultural producers co-produce scientific knowledge and media products. This article engages with the slippery boundaries between media and scientific practices, examining the nuances, parameters and dynamics that shape the co-production of media products and scientific knowledge from the perspective of cultural producers working across television, radio, podcasts and newspaper journalism (print and online newspapers), popular science books and social media. I discuss how their media practices were deeply entangled with and productive of scientific knowledge. From carrying out their own research and collaborating with scientists, to commissioning small and large-scale scientific research, cultural producers supported, directly influenced and funded scientific research, most strikingly illustrated by data from the television industry. This study destabilizes assumptions about where, when and by whom scientific knowledge is produced, making the production of scientific knowledge for, with and through media practices more legible.