COMMUNICATING ASTRONOMY – SUCCESSES AND LIMITS

Abstract

Astronomers and media professionals have formed very successful partnerships to communicate astronomy to the public, through communications media of all sorts. But these e.orts communicate what science is like, subject to the constraints of the communications medium. They do not communicate what science is. The missing and essential ingredient is public participation in an investigation, starting from uncertainty and proceeding to lesser uncertainty by means of organised enquiry. Science is a medium in itself and the medium is the message. We have started to communicate what science is, but the systems for doing so are sophisticated and we are only just beginning to implement them.