Van idee tot werkelijkheid: Een praktisch model en stappenplan voor onderzoek naar de relatie tussen wetenschap en cultuur

From idea to reality, A practical model and step-by-step plan for research into the relationship between science and culture
This article introduces a method for research into the dissemination of ideas in a society and the alterations that IDEAS undergo in that process. AS SUCH, IT AFFORDS INSIGHT INTO the relationship between science and culture. THE METHOD combines Foucault’s views on discourses as régimes de vérite and Kemperink/Vermeer’s views on interdiscourse, with the theoretical model of forums and the concept of the Discursive Opportunity Structure (DOS) - ‘the framework of ideas and meaning-making institutions in a particular society’ - that Ferree et al. developed for analysis of public discourse. By looking into ‘the institutional and cultural structures that channel and organize discourse’, the emergence of ideas and the dissemination of knowledge can be studied and described in a structured way. THE STEP-BY-STEP PLAN shows how by answering the research questions that belong to four consecutive steps, it is possible to visualize the changes in ideas and knowledge under the influence of the DOS when disseminated in different fields of society such as literature, politics and mass media. The four steps are: 1: Ideas emerge; 2: Ideas spread; 3 Ideas are accepted: knowledge is created; 4: Knowledge becomes an ‘obvious truth’ in society.