Category Archives: Sociology on TV

Sociology on TV – Listings…

Slow TV week this week – but here are the things I think are worth recording…

Tuesday 

01.55 BBC3 – Britain unzipped – bills itself as a ‘look what goes on behind closed doors in Britain’ – It may be interesting, then again it may just be voyeuristic.

BBC2 – 20.00 – The Town taking on China – Set in Kirby – a town trying to rest back cushion manufacturing from China. Relevant to globalisation, or resistance to it…

Wednesday 

23.45 – The Disabled Century – asks whether the welfare state made life better for the disabled community

Sociology on TV – Genius of Britain and the Story of Science

In Genius of Britain, famous media-scientists provide their insights into the lives of the people who made some of Britain’s most significant scientific discoveries. The first episode covers the work of Christopher Wren and Isaac Newton, which is useful context for the ‘Enlightenment’; the second and third episodes focus on the industrial revolution – useful to illustrate how ideas of progress manifested themselves in the heyday of modernity – and the final episode looks at more contemporary science.  All in all, used selectively, this series gives us a useful overview of ‘what science is’ – obviously of relevance to the ‘is sociology a science’ debates.  The whole thing is available on 4OD – aired orginally in spring 2010.

Episode three is especially worth watching in its entirety- as it demonstrates the cumulative nature of scientific discovery – and how theory builds on the previous empirical findings.  Starts with Brunel…

The downsides are that the programme  is somewhat drawn out and some of the presenters are irritating – including Richard Dawkins – the smugest man alive; Robert Winston, who despite being an expert only in the field of genetics, the BBC seems to think is an expert in everything; and Robert ‘stuff the workers in wales I’m moving my production to China’ Dyson.   

I wonder if science will ever be able to tell us why scientific media personalities are so irritating?

The Story of Science – aired on BBC2 around the same time as the above shows how scientific discoveries are influenced by power and chance – suggesting that the process of scientific discovery is not as rational, uniform and planned as the scientific method might have us believe.

The only downside is that the later isn’t freely available – obviously because its a BBC documentary that is public property – so I’m not allowed to watch it after the 30 day iplayer window – how does that work? Fortunately, for any of my students – it’s on estream.