Consumers, punters, customers, victims?
Those "scare quotes" are there for a purpose.
Of course, there are always people who will, by accident or design,
misunderstand or misinterpret anything.
Let's hear a simple alternative to describe the recipients of PESTilence,
something that might engage folks without descending into academic jargon.
PUS gave over to PEST at least five years ago, probably longer. Does anyone
ever use the term now outside of academic journals? Outside the academic
literature, which is always slow to respond, I haven't seen PUS for a long
long time.
Even in the early days, back in the 1980s, when COPUS was a shiny new
committee in the wake of the Bodmer report, there were always concerns about
the PUS term, partly because it missed out the T bit. I failed to get much
interest in PUSET.
I think the first person to use the PEST term privately was Laurence Smaje
of the Wellcome Trust. I then started using it widely in places like this
because the acronym appealed to me and because it had the essential T bit.
The idea behind the change was that "understanding" carries a very different
message from "engagement".
"If only they understood us..." People who write papers on this stuff in
journals like Public Understanding of Science call it, as you say, the
"deficit model".
You may consider it a cynical rebranding. I see it otherwise. Words matter.
Engagement smacks more of a two-way process. You have to do more than
explain science to engage people.
Engagement can also happily encompass understanding. After all, if people
don't understand what you are saying they aren't likely to become engaged.
But understanding on its own does not engage.
MK
-----Original Message-----
From: psci-com: on public engagement with science
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Chris Stokes
Sent: 19 February 2010 15:24
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [PSCI-COM] Does PEST supplant or subsume PUS?
I've been impressed by the gradual move from PUS to PEST over the last few
years. But a bit wary at the same time. For me, the name change implies a
change in the perspective of SET communication. It nicely fits with what a
recent (not yet published - OnlineFirst) paper for the Public Understanding
of Science journal refers to as the 'dialogic turn'. For the incorrigible
cynic, though, it's just an empty rebranding - an effort to wash off the
stink of the deficit model with which the critics lambasted PUS back in the
80s without taking any of the criticism on board.
I don't mean to pick on Mike, but his referring to 'consumers' - even with
the scare quotes - sounds a bit off-message in the brave new world of PEST.
Or have I been misreading the name change? Is PEST, perhaps, just a bigger
tent within which there's room for good old-fashioned PUS, or some of it at
least - alongside other new dialogic things? I imagine, for example, that
there may be plenty of SET communicators who happily do PUS for school
children just as it was being done 20-plus years ago, because school
children are, by definition, learning, are _understanding_ and are _not_
voting.
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: psci-com: on public engagement with science
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Michael Kenward
Sent: 19 February 2010 12:58
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] Joined-up working and information sharing
Absolutely, especially this bit:
"The first step is surely to have information sharing and joined-up working
between activities of a common type or purpose, and a number of our actions
and recommendations are aimed at that (e.g. in the training and development
arena)."
One of my beefs has been the duplication that goes on. In the past too many
engineering bodies, for example, have run similar schemes aimed at schools.
Fortunately, I sense that there is progress on that front.
On gaps, one point worth pondering is the needs of the "consumers".
If PESTs here don't know about everything that goes on in their area -
which, as Roland's report points out, is not easy - what hope is there for
the over worked school teacher? Where do they begin?
MK
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