Science and Film-making

The essay reviews the literature, mostly historical, on the relationship between science and film-making, with a focus on the science documentary. It then discusses the circumstances of the emergence of the wildlife making-of documentary genre. The thesis examined here is that since the early days of cinema, film-making has evolved from being subordinate to science, to being an equal partner in the production of knowledge, controlled by non-scientists

From Oxford to Bristol and Back: The Invention of Scientific Wildlife Television

In the 1960s, two scientists from Oxford University, Niko Tinbergen and Gerald Thompson, began using film as part of their scientific practice. The BBC’s Natural History Unit (NHU) in Bristol quickly got wind of their work and started collaborating with them to develop a new approach to wildlife television making. Tinbergen, the founder of ethology, brought intellectual foundations to it, creating, with Christopher Parsons, stories of wildlife informed by the theory of evolution. Thompson provided a technological edge which enabled the Bristol NHU producers to bring a new perspective to the subject matter they were showing in their programmes. The two collaborations also led them to further define their identity as experts in wildlife television making

The Social and Political Dimensions of the Ebola Response: Global Inequality, Climate Change, and Infectious Disease

The 2014 Ebola crisis has highlighted public-health vulnerabilities in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea – countries ravaged by extreme poverty, deforestation and mining-related disruption of livelihoods and ecosystems, and bloody civil wars in the cases of Liberia and Sierra Leone. Ebola’s emergence and impact are grounded in the legacy of colonialism and its creation of enduring inequalities within African nations and globally, via neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus. Recent experiences with new and emerging diseases such as SARS and various strains of HN influenzas have demonstrated the effectiveness of a coordinated local and global public health and education-oriented response to contain epidemics. To what extent is international assistance to fight Ebola strengthening local public health and medical capacity in a sustainable way, so that other emerging disease threats, which are accelerating with climate change, may be met successfully? This chapter considers the wide-ranging socio-political, medical, legal and environmental factors that have contributed to the rapid spread of Ebola, with particular emphasis on the politics of the global and public health response and the role of gender, social inequality, colonialism and racism as they relate to the mobilization and establishment of the public health infrastructure required to combat Ebola and other emerging diseases in times of climate change

'Tipping the Balance': Karl Friedrich Meyer, Latent Infections, and the Birth of Modern Ideas of Disease Ecology

The Swiss-born medical researcher Karl Friedrich Meyer (1884–1974) is best known as a ‘microbe hunter’ who pioneered investigations into diseases at the intersection of animal and human health in California in the 1920s and 1930s. In particular, historians have singled out Meyer’s 1931 Ludwig Hektoen Lecture in which he described the animal kingdom as a ‘reservoir of disease’ as a forerunner of ‘one medicine’ approaches to emerging zoonoses. In so doing, however, historians risk overlooking Meyer’s other intellectual contributions. Developed in a series of papers from the mid-1930s onwards, these were ordered around the concept of latent infections and sought to link microbial behavior to broader bio-ecological, environmental, and social factors that impact hostpathogen interactions. In this respect Meyer—like the comparative pathologist Theobald Smith and the immunologist Frank Macfarlane Burnet—can be seen as a pioneer of modern ideas of disease ecology. However, while Burnet’s and Smith’s contributions to this scientific field have been widely acknowledged, Meyer’s have been largely ignored. Drawing on Meyer’s published writings and private correspondence, this paper aims to correct that lacuna while contributing to a reorientation of the historiography of bacteriological epidemiology. In particular I trace Meyer’s intellectual exchanges with Smith, Burnet and the animal ecologist Charles Elton, over brucellosis, psittacosis and plague—exchanges that not only showed how environmental and ecological conditions could ‘tip the balance’ in favor of parasites but which transformed Meyer thinking about resistance to infection and disease

Nature documentaries as catalysts for change: Mapping out the 'Blackfish Effect'

It is essential for us to understand what drives human behaviour if we want to tackle anthropogenic damage to the environment. Popular media can play an important role in shaping public attitudes, behaviours and norms towards wildlife, and documentaries in particular have become an increasingly prominent tool for social change. There is, however, a need for robust impact evaluation both in documentary-making and in conservation, to refine future interventions. The 2013 documentary Blackfish portrayed human–orca interactions at the US-based marine park, SeaWorld. Following its release, SeaWorld suffered financial difficulties and the company underwent structural changes, including a cessation of its orca breeding programme. These impacts have often been attributed to the Blackfish documentary, but little evidence has been provided to justify these claims. We combined an analysis of stock market data and semi-structured interviews with 26 key informants to build an in-depth contribution analysis. We used General Elimination Methodology, a qualitative impact evaluation methodology to build an understanding of the impact of Blackfish. We found a consensus among stakeholder groups that Blackfish induced negative publicity for SeaWorld and a change in people's perceptions of captivity. As a result, attendance at the park decreased and the market value of the company dropped. Blackfish catalysed a whole movement against marine mammal captivity. There were three key factors that led to its impact: the support from major distribution channels which allowed it to reach major audiences, emotional impact of the content and timing of its release. Blackfish benefitted from a perfect storm, building upon decades of activism to create an appropriate cultural climate for its release in 2013

Organisms in experimental research

Rachel A. Ankeny and Sabina Leonell