Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
disciplines, or families - as having distinct phases. The first decades of
its existence represented a phase that stretched until World War II. After
that time, not just Science Service but also its contextual partners (the
scientific community and mass media) changed. Watson Davis continued
to deliver speeches declaring that accuracy and timeliness comprised the
'essence' of science news but his organization no longer needed to con-
vince publishers or the public of science's relevance to every aspect of
modern life, nor did it need to persuade scientists that public opinion
mattered to the health of science. Consolidation of newspapers, market
expansion, television, and internationalization - each altered the media
marketplace in which Science Service had been functioning. Davis be-
came preoccupied with promoting science education and the organization
became a marginal (although still respected) player in the hardnosed
world of news journalism.
During the 1920s and 1930s, though, Science Service had facilitated
communication between scientists and the public and been at the hub of a
network of people creating what we now call 'science journalism'. In
that initial phase, it negotiated standards for a new public-private space
in which complex and potentially empowering information could be ex-
plained precisely to people with little or no education in science. It also
cultivated relationships with corporate sources, especially in the chemi-
cal industry, and promoted popularization through dramatization, scien-
tists as celebrities, and, as in the department store project on chemistry,
the marketing of science through connection to consumer goods. Like
nations, families, and other organizations, the history of Science Service
is a complex mix of positive and negative outcomes.
Americans, Thone had argued, wanted information that was compre-
hensible and accessible, that could be rolled up, stuck in a pocket, and
consumed on demand.
68
Scientists may have found such informality un-
settling but Science Service's marketing success helped enable it. The
popularization of science was strutting resolutely toward today's familiar
landscape of multiple, diverse, and commercialized outlets. By the end of
68
Frank Thone, 'The Press as an Agency for the Diffusion of Science', text of a speech
to the American Association for Adult Education, May 21, 1936, p. 2; SIA RU7091,
Box 4, Folder 2.
