Science on Television: Despite tensions, the potential of visual narrative and scientific storytelling is enormous.

Is a television programme the format least suited to the communication of complex scientific ideas? Clara Florensa, Oliver Hochadel and Carlos Tabernero discuss a conference that brought TV producers and theorists together to engage constructively on the topic. Simplification, trivialization and even distortion are the accusations regularly levied against science on screen. But this view misinterprets communication as a top-down process, when in reality, audiences are interacting with the material in a number of different ways. Academics should consider the narrative strategies for their research and foster enriching dialogues with media professionals

Science on Television: Theory meets Practice. An Introduction

Studies about “Science on Television” have repeatedly dealt with the “eternal” tension between the meanings and purposes of education, information and entertainment. They have addressed the relationship between the processes of production and management of scientific knowledge and the general public, focusing on issues such as accessibility, literacy accuracy and general interest. With this dossier we hope to add a new approach to this scholarship, encapsulated in the motto of the School: “theory meets practice”. Our goal was to initiate a fruitful interaction between scholars studying processes of representation and articulation of scientific, medical and technological knowledge on television, and producers of science television programs.Peer Reviewe

Science on Television: Audiences, Markets and Authority. Some Conclusions

The authors are interested interested in television communication practices from production and generation processes of formats and content to everyday domestic consumption patterns. As a whole, these practices are part of the way people appropiate technology and services in they everyday life. And they are also part of the way people communicate, eat, work, study, collaborate and solve problems. From this point of view, media practices and communication practices associated with the use and consumption of television can be understood as non-formal, multidimensional learning spaces.Peer Reviewe

Visual adaptability in architecture : a physical and psychological approach

This paper deals with both physical and psychological dimensions of visual adaptability in architecture. The adaptive model of environmental comfort has been studied especially from the thermal point of view. Studies revealed that, when moving from one space to another, the sensation of thermal comfort at the arrival location is widely determined by prior exposure temperatures over the whole course. As all the senses work together in our perception of the environment, the movement between spaces with different environmental conditions has a considerable effect on our overall sense of comfort. Consequently, the main objective of this study is to investigate whether the adaptive model of thermal comfort can be extrapolated to a visual adaptive model. It may seem that when examining visual comfort conditions, users’ sensation of the same stimulus is more pleasant by contrast if they come from higher or lower energy levels than if they come from similar or gradually reached environmental conditions. But this extrapolation is not immediate. On the one hand, thermal and visual environmental changes take place neither at the same speed nor at the same energy level. On the other hand, users’ thermal and visual adaptation periods are not the same. The proposed methodology is based on an exhaustive observation of individual behavior performed with a sequenced exposure to different environmental conditions with controlled visual levels. The final outcome is the production of generic physical and psychological conclusions related to the experience of changing environmental conditions, since exposure time, expectation and predicted environmental conditions seem particularly important in the final sense of comfort. The results can be applied not only to general change in environmental conditions but also while walking through transitional spaces.Postprint (published version