Description

This qualitative study draws on and extends two
important concepts of the public understanding of
science literature: scientists understandings of the public , and the currently popular notion of
science-public dialogue. Using data from interviews
with scientists and engineers, the 'understanding of
the public by scientists is examined. Constructions
of publics are also an emphasis in a detailed case
study of informal science-public dialogue at the Dana
Centre, London. Here structures of power and
authority are more traditional than the dialogue
movement s rhetoric would suggest, but there is also
continual resistance to and contestation of these
structures. To conclude, the threads of analysis are
drawn together to provide a theoretical reasoning of,
and model for, informal dialogue processes which are
able to utilise the sociological complexity of
scientists talk.