Scientific spreading and the popular press: São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in years 50

• Grant number: 11/13246-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: December 01, 2011
• End date: February 29, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of Brazil
• Principal Investigator: Mariza Romero
• Grantee: Mariza Romero
• Host Investigator: Christian Delporte
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Sociais. Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ), France

Abstract

This project intends to investigate the spreading of science in São Paulo e Rio de Janeiro, for the popular press, during the decade of 1950. It is treated to analyze the social meanings of the intense diffusion of the progress of science followed by the belief, gift since the end of century XIX, of that these advances would only remove Brazil of the delay and the ignorance, leading it in the track of the economic, social and cultural modernization. By means of this inquiry, it is intended to analyze the dynamics of social science as practical, historically constructed, with diverse interests, tensions, conflicts, negotiations and, over all, compromised with the imaginary one of a time. As diverse studies already had affirmed and in accordance with what it will be searched here, between science, imaginary and culture the relations and the commitments are intense and close. This press, expressing the transformations in course in the decade of 1950, of which São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are examples, connects scientific speech with the resources of the sensational journalism. It includes, science in the daily language of the Brazilians, contributing to establish the nexuses between the representations of science for it produced and the establishment of a scientific culture for the popular classes. (AU)