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Diagram of a light bulb
The print, designed by Thomas Edison in 1880, is intended to depict the workings of a light bulb.

Science in Popular Culture and the Media

The Birth of Public Science

While scientific study began to emerge as a popular discourse following the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, science was not widely funded or exposed to the public until the nineteenth century. Most science prior to the nineteenth century was funded by individuals under private patronage and was studied in private, exclusive groups, like the Royal Society. Public science emerged due to a gradual social change, resulting from the rise of the middle class in the nineteenth century. As scientific inventions, like the conveyor belt and the steam locomotive entered and enhanced the lifestyle of Victorians, scientific inventions began to be widely funded by universities and other public institutions in an effort to increase scientific research. As scientific achievements were beneficial to society, and were therefore funded, the pursuit of scientific knowledge resulted in science as a profession. Scientific institutions, like the National Academy of Sciences or the British Association for the Advancement of Science are examples of leading platforms for the public discussion of science. David Brewster, founder of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, believed in regulated publications in order to effectively communicate their discoveries, "so that scientific students may know where to begin their labours." As the communication of science reached a wider audience, due to the professionalization of science and its the introduction to the public sphere, the interest in the subject increased.

Scientific Media in the 19th Century

There was a change in media production in the nineteenth century. The invention of the steam-powered printing press enabled more pages to be printed per hour, which resulted in cheaper texts. Book prices gradually dropped, which gave the working classes the ability to purchase them. No longer reserved for the elite, affordable and informative texts were made available to a mass audience. Historian Aileen Fyfe noted that, as the nineteenth century experienced a set of social reforms that sought to improve the lives of those in the working classes, the availability of public knowledge was valuable for intellectual growth. As a result, there were reform efforts to educate the less educated. The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, led by Henry Brougham, attempted to organize a system for widespread literacy for all classes. Additionally, weekly periodicals, like the Penny Magazine, were aimed to educate the general public on scientific achievements in a comprehensive manner.

As the audience for scientific texts expanded, the interest in public science did as well. 'Extension lectures' were installed in some universities, like Oxford and Cambridge, which encouraged members of the public to listen to lectures. In America, travelling lectures were a common occurrence in the nineteenth century and attracted hundreds of viewers. These public lectures were a part of the lyceum movement and demonstrated basic scientific experiments, which advanced scientific knowledge in both the educated and uneducated viewers.

Not only did the popularization of public science enlighten the general public through mass media, but it also enhanced communication within the scientific community. Although scientists had been communicating their discoveries and achievements through print for centuries, publications with a variety of subjects decreased in popularity. Alternatively, publications in discipline-specific journals were crucial for a successful career in the sciences in the nineteenth century. As a result, scientific journals such as Nature or National Geographic possessed a large readership and received substantial funding by the end of the nineteenth century as the popularization of science continued.