This dissertation project funded by the Science, Technology & Society Program examines nanoscale-images and image-work in public science education networks. It focuses on how multidisciplinary groups use images and other visualizations to represent nanotechnology for different publics. A key aspect of the research is a case study of a national network of researchers who address informal nanoscience education, the Nanotechnology Informal Science Education (NISE) network.
Visual images have played an integral part in public understanding of nanotechnology. Therefore, this project makes images its primary focus, reconstructing the pathways through which the images travel from laboratories and other research sites to public exhibitions and websites to try to understand what counts as public understanding in the NISE network. Of particular interest is the role of technological mediators -- scientists, former scientists, and non-scientists -- who prepare exhibitions and image galleries for educational or public engagement purposes. Through in-depth interviews, participant observation, and review of documents and drafts at the sites, this project compares practices of image mediation.
This research's intellectual merit lies in its contribution to STS scholarship on visualization in laboratory research, public engagement with science, and social and cultural aspects of nanotechnology. Specifically, it provides an account of cultural conceptions (mostly in the United States) of nano-images, drawing out analytical connections between images, mediating practices, and the social contexts of research and public education. Nanotechnology's broader societal implications are still being determined, but it is widely believed that if they can be addressed earlier, the economic and other benefits will be realized with fewer negative consequences. If images do play a significant role in efforts to cultivate public understanding of those implications, it will be important to study what image-mediators consider public engagement of nanotechnology, and how they achieve that engagement.
