• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.145-180
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• 2013

STS studies into science documentaries for television are rare, and they do not even reflect the constructivist fruits of STS. STS have been calling for the need of analyzing 'science-in-the-making' in order to understand science more deeply. Similarly, our starting point is the assumption that science documentary can be better understood when we look into its making process. Under this assumption, we adopted the method of participant observation in analyzing 'documentary practice', trying to open the 'black box' called 'science documentary'. We have here focused on the documentary named "Light" made by a scientific documentary team of EBS, who made "Culture and Mathematics" and "Life". Each of us worked as a main consultant and an assistant staff in making "Light". We will address two main points in this study. First, based on our participant observation and interviews, we will show that the members of documentary making team are thinking about 'science' in distinctive ways. The team tended to emphasize visualization, knowledge linked to people's everyday life, and the distinctive characters of scientists who appear in the documentary. Second, by looking closely into the interaction between the team members and the consultant in the process of completing the script of the documentary, it was possible to understand how the contents of the documentary was constructed more accurately. In the making process, consultant's idea was not simply accepted by the making team, but there were conflicts and compromises. By showing this, we will be able to bring up a reflexive question about the role of consultant in the process of making a science documentary.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.60
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• pp.125-149
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• 2012

This study explores the formational process of KBS PD's professional identity in the 1970's, focusing on everyday work and workplace for program production. In terms of salary and social-cultural status, a television PD was not a desirable occupation in the 70's. Since the beginning of radio broadcasting, production of culture and education programs had been sub-categorized under Programming Division. Also, it has been claimed in several researches that in the 70's, the production of education and cultural programs had visibly grown owing to the political necessity of policy PR and campaigns, and the introduction of new broadcasting equipment and technologies for producing the mentioned political campaign programs. However, this study argues that the main force that led to such developments was the cultural practices and the production spirits of the KBS PD's. These PD's trained themselves in production workplace from the bottom by assisting film directors and learning from cameramen about the film making and post-production process. Moreover, in the transitional phase from film to magnetic tape recorder, they established themselves as main subjectivities of production by developing Division of Culture and Education as a specialized and independent sector. The "program production spirit and DNA" that evolved from the experiences of working in poor production environment served as a force for developing professional and self identity. However, the culture and education PD's of the 70's were still tied down to the limited roles of simply providing technological and productional 'professionalism' within the hegemonic structure of the strong state. As with the members of any other social domain at the time, PD's had restricted roles to play and putting in effort and competing to create better programs was the only 'freedom' that was allowed. This study argues that under such condition, KBS PD's implemented two strategies to construct their own professional identities: one was to distinguish themselves from official broadcasters, and the other was to distinguish themselves from commercial broadcasters. Unfortunately, ethical practice as a professional became nothing more than an issue of personal morality and broadcasting's public responsibility was lost under the shadows of commercial broadcasting.