Comments: Irina Castro (CES) and Filipa Subtil (ESCS- Escola Superior de Comunicação Social, Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa e ICNOVA) 


About

Some experts in Science Communication (SC) have warned that the "capitalist pressures" to which the production of scientific knowledge is subjected transform the forms and contents of SC. However, the analyses and theoretical developments based on this pertinent observation suffer from a unilateral character: attention has been given only to those modalities of SC which are closer to marketing or Public Relations, as if the function of SC in the context of the commodification of science and academic research is only to "sell science".

The aim of this seminar is to promote and elaborate a new reading of Science Communication in its connection with the commodification of science, proposing to approach some instances of SC as a propaganda phenomenon. Such a propagandistic use would be motivated by the need to disseminate the 'ideology of academic entrepreneurship'. In order to make sense of this critical perspective, throughout the seminar we will examine the social conditions in which the commodification of science and the (re)integration of universities in the dynamics of capitalist accumulation take place; the particularities of propaganda as a social practice will be investigated, highlighting the immanent link with ideology and, also, the role played by the media in the production and dissemination of propaganda; the approach developed will be further illustrated through a brief analysis of some examples taken from the Spanish press, which attest that, in fact, there are uses of SC guided towards the dissemination of the 'ideology of academic entrepreneurship'. 

This seminar is organized within the scope of the Thematic Section of Science and Technology of the Portuguese Association of Political Economy. The section is coordinated by Irina Castro (CES) and José Luis Garcia (ICS).

Bio note

Luis Arboledas-Lérida | Researcher at the University of Seville (US). His research covers a wide range of topics and interests in relation to science and its communication, both in terms of peer communication ('science communication') and communication to and with non-specialist audiences ('science communication'), which he addresses from a critical approach. He has published several papers in internationally renowned journals such as Social Epistemology; and recently contributed to Palgrave's book, International Handbook of Marxism and Education, with a chapter dedicated to exposing the essential link between science communication and the formal subsumption of scientific labour to capitalism. Luis Arboledas-Lérida is also a professor of Science Journalism at US, having written several analyses on the reality of academic work in various online newspapers, such as Ctxt and El Salto.

Irina Castro | Irina Castro works at the Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra. In 2009, Castro graduated in Applied Ecology at the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro. In 2011 she got her MSc in Environmental Engineering, and the same year, she joined CES as a research fellow for the project "BIOSENSE | Science engaging society: Life Sciences Social Sciences and Publics", coordinated by João Arriscado Nunes. Since then, she has collaborated in developing, promoting, and evaluating science communication initiatives and promoting science-society relations, focusing on the relationship between society and biotechnology. In 2022 the completed her PhD in the programme Governance, Knowledge, and Innovation (sociology branch), in which she developed a thesis about the ontological construction of transgenic seeds through the practices of scientists and their scientific controversies. She works closely on this with João Arriscado Nunes (CES-FEUC), Rita Serra (CES), and Raúl García-Barrios, the latter researcher at the Multidisciplinary Research Centre of the Autonomous University of Mexico (CRIM / UNAM). Between 2014-2017, she worked as a project manager at the CES Project Management Office, returning to this role in 2020.

Filipa Subtil | PhD. in Social Sciences (specialisation in General Sociology) from the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon. She was a visiting scholar at the Department of Public Communication at the University of Navarra, Spain (2019), Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University, Warsaw, Poland (2017-2018), the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa, Iowa City (2010), and Muhlenberg Collegue, Allentown (2008), USA. She was a grantee of PROTEC, the Foundation for Science and Technology, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the International Council for Canadian Studies (ICCS) - Faculty Research Program of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Canada. Between 2014 and 2018, she was editorial coordinator of the journal Comunicação Pública. She was a member of the board of SOPCOM (Portuguese Association of Communication Sciences) (2015-2021). She was also vice-coordinator of the Communication and Politics WG of the same scientific association (2015-2017). Since 2020 she has been part of the group of experts of the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality. Currently, she is deputy director of the journal Media & Journalism. She has published articles and book chapters in the areas of sociology of communication, social theory of media and in themes that cross journalism and media studies with gender issues. Co-editor and author of Os Três D dos Media: desigualdade, desprofissionalização e desinformaçã(Outro Modo, 2021), Media and Portuguese Empire (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and A Crise do Jornalismo em Portugal (Le Monde Diplomatique/Deriva, 2017). In 2006, she published the book Compreender os Media. As Extensões de McLuhan (Coimbra: MinervaCoimbra).