Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette

A scholarly history of the uneasy relationship between science and television, as science attempted to utilize the new medium for expanding public knowledge of science and how science is done. The work is well researched, but for some inexplicable reason stops dead at the end of the 20th century, although it was released in 2013, so presumably could have covered at least the first few years of the 21st century, which are very important to the relationship between entertainment and education, as channels she discusses briefly have turned more and more toward entertainment and high-ratings pseudoscience, in some cases dropping the pretense of science altogether. Another weakness of the book is the modern obsession with assigning blame equally to all parties, assuming that a middle level compromise is always accurate, in this case assuming that scientists were in the wrong by not being willing to sacrifice science for glitz in order to get science out there and heard by the American public. She maintains this stance throughout the book, though her own research demonstrates that, in fact, the scientists appeared to be right about what would happen if compromise occurred - the watering down of actual science in favor of flamboyance, spectacle, and profit. Overall, a good review, but could be better.… (more)