Shift in the relative distance between scientific and public cultures

It has been argued by researchers working in the area of science and society, that the science communication, like any other forms of communication is a socio-cultural process and should be considered as an interaction between scientific and public cultures. More so, there lies a distance between the two cultures for any phenomenon to travel from one culture to another (Raza et al., 2003). The degree of percolation of ideas originating in scientific culture to become part of public culture varies from phenomenon to phenomenon because of complex function of factors involved. Authors have suggested a model of mapping relative cultural distance of science and public taking empirical evidences in context of Indian population. Authors have also tried to observe the shift in the cultural distance over a period of time and noticed that the shift is not unidirectional for each phenomenon. This study paper explains the shift in ‘relative cultural distance’ based on the analysis of data collected during Kumbh Melas in 2001 and 2013 at Allahabad in state of Uttar Pradesh in India. The present analysis has been conducted on five issues related to astronomy and cosmology section of the larger survey study, containing questions on four areas of scientific knowledge. For the purpose of analysis socialisation through education has taken as the proxy-scale for mapping the relative cultural distance. It has been revealed that there is a noticeable shift in the cultural distance between science and the public but not always in one direction for all the phenomena. The cultural distance has decreased for some indicators whereas it has increased for a few others.