Wetenschaps- en techniekvoorlichting op zoek naar balans tussen Apollo en Dionysos

Abstract

Public communication on science and technology in search of a balance between Apollo and Dionysos At the end of the twentieth century Public Communication on Science and Technology (PCST) in The Netherlands is widely concentrating on student recruitment. A dionysian approach is used in which fun, excitement and sensation are used as tools. This development matches today's leisure activities and an emerging fun society. A number of concepts, such as public science and private science, and P-modes, such as PU (Public Understanding of science) and PM (Public Marketing of science), as (re)developing in the second half of the twentieth century, are discussed. A link between Science of Innovation and public communication on technology as well as between Constructive Technology Assessment and PCT should be established. It is also argued that a new balance between a polished apollonian approach (often as dull as a scientific article, for instance, only showing a context of justification and no context of discovery) and the dionysian approach could enhance the performance of PCST and of science and technology.