Abstract
Campbell critically analyses television programmes on subject areas on the margins of science but which nonetheless are highly prominent on factual television channels, dealing with pseudoscientific topics such as ufology, parapsychology and cryptozoology. Despite being ‘for entertainment purposes only’ the chapter shows how programmes on pseudoscience and popular beliefs regularly draw on the ‘trappings of science’ and the techniques of documentary and factual entertainment to try and construct persuasive claims to the real. Campbell argues that they draw less heavily on subjunctive documentary techniques like CGI, developing their own techniques for making claims to serious investigation of popular beliefs like the use of night-vision cameras. Campbell concludes that their strategies and prominence on factual television channels represent the real risks to television science.
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Campbell, V. (2016). Pseudoscience and Popular Beliefs. In: Science, Entertainment and Television Documentary. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-38538-3_7
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