Crowther, Kuhn and systems of mediation

This paper focuses on Crowther's early journey into UK scientific journalism (1924-1940), a profession that he claimed to invent. By examining his newspaper articles and other correspondence from the Sussex archive, we discover how science journalism and science have changed, sui generis. Crowther did much more than invent science journalism; he forged the very idea of a new community of intermediaries distinct from the community of science, with the skills, contacts and authority to peer into the scientific unknown and make sense of it in public media channels. I argue that Crowther’s efforts should be seen, not simply as the invention of science journalism, nor as a series of novel science communications in advance of the birth of 'post-normal' science, but rather, as evidence that the concept of the Kuhnian paradigm applies not only to the laws, theories and instrumentation, but also the communications of normal science. In other words, Crowther's efforts were crucial to the development of the systems of mediation of our national systems of innovation.