“NoCamels.” NoCamels, 1 May 2016, nocamels.com/2016/05/israeli-black-hole-stephen-hawking-nobel-prize/.
The framing of a topic (Gardener et al.) is the process of simplifying complicated issues in order to help the average reader understand the author’s message (Nisbet, Scheufele). Framing can be done using diction, syntax, complexity of visual aids, and omission of information. Scientists often use framing to help their reader understand hard concepts without explaining the intense theories behind their results. Dr. Priyamvada Natarajan uses framing in her article for Scientific American.
Dr. Priyamvada Natarajan is a professor of Astronomy and Physics at Yale. She specializes in research about black holes and dark matter. In 2007, Dr. Natarajan and her colleague, Dr. Giuseppe Lodato, wrote a scholarly article together entitled Supermassive black hole formation during the assembly of pre-galactic discs. In this article, they discuss the situations in which black holes form and relay their research and data. In February of 2018, Dr. Natarajan wrote an article in Scientific American, a popular science magazine. The article was called The First Monster Black Holes and discusses what black holes are and how they’re created. Even though Dr. Natarajan wrote both articles and they both are about the same subject matter, she used framing to create strong differences between the two.
What is a black hole? Or a Quasar? Or orbital haloes? The following articles and analysis uses terms that may be unfamiliar. A black hole is a concentration of matter who’s mass is compacted into a tight space and creates a gravitational force so strong that light and radio waves are absorbed by it. (NASA) A quasar is tail of extremely strong light that is created by certain gases being sucked into a black hole at extremely high velocity.(Britannica) A galactic halo is “….[a] nearly spherical volume of thinly scattered stars, globular clusters of stars, and tenuous gas observed surrounding spiral galaxies,..”(Britannica) These halos created low light in between clusters and solar systems around the galaxy. These terms should help with understanding the analysis below.
Some methods of framing is the omission of information and diction. The Scientific American article included colloquial language and also defined any words that the audience may not know or understand in the given context. For example, in the beginning of the Scientific American article a small account of the events of the Big Bang theory was given to introduce how galaxies, the cosmos, and black holes were first formed. The common readers of Scientific American will surely have heard of the Big Bang Theory but some may not know what happened and how that affected black holes. Any scientist who would be well versed wouldn’t need to be informed of these events, only with what the state of the universe was at where the discussion begins. For example in the scholarly article, the introduction starts by explain how black holes form from the centers of gravity and outlines the specific creation of a black hole from seeds. The introduction also poses the question about how the firs black holes were formed, since the seeds fell from burned out suns and that there are black holes older than any sun in the known universe. Another issue posed that was posed is the fact that some black holes are larger than they should be and that makes them appear to be older than the universe itself. Which is the main question that Dr. Natarajan and Dr. Lodato are trying to answer. These issues would grab the attention of a scholar while it would bore or confuse a casual science reader. The framing of the information helps causal readers to enjoy what they’re reading and get a quick summary of some of the events taking place in the scientific community. It helps the scholars by giving them a quick summary and sparking further research into the topic, with the original article being a logical starting point.
Another method of framing is syntax, or sentence structure. Dr. Natarajan uses different levels of articulation between her two articles. Her article for Scientific America uses language that an average high schooler would be able to read and comprehend while her scholarly article contains language that a graduate student would have to annotate and read multiple times before understanding the main topic. For example, here is a passage from the scholarly article, “We derive three interesting regimes that are determined by the ratio of Tvir/Tgas: (i) if this ratio is greater than 2.9, haloes will form discs that will fragment and form stars and not directly form black holes;(ii)if this ratio lies between 1.8 and 2.9, haloes with low spin will lead to central mass concentrations; however, the lowest-spin cases might be affected by fragmentation; and (iii) if this ratio is lower than 1.8, the haloes will not produce fragmenting discs but will successfully accrete gas in their centres. Calculating the accretion rates for the fate of the accumulated gas, we find super-Eddington rates leading to eventual black holes of masses up to 105 M .” Now that paragraph is summed up in the magazine by sampling saying that the size of the galactic cloud might have an effect on whether or not a black hole is formed. A full paragraph full of the reasoning, and followed by calculations was simplified to less than two sentences in the magazine article. The magazine article language can not be complicated or else they won’t get readers. So in her article, she had to simplify it down and the best route was to have that whole process skipped over and the effects simplified to the point of being given as fact instead of proving it. This means that a causal reader can be up-to-date with current scientific advancements without being utterly lost and confused by the onslaught of information. Another tool given to the reader is visual aids.
The use of visual aids and graphs between the two articles helps for the audience of both to be able to see some of the information in a way that will benefit them accordingly; however, the process of framing requires the simplification of some visual aids. The magazine article has images of black holes and how they rest in space. They also include quasars and galactic haloes in order to show how each step contributes in creating a black hole. These images draw in readers and gives them an image to help them understand how these foreign phenomena work. The scholarly articles has graphs explaining the data as well as the derivation of the formulas used. These graphs model the equations used and help scholars compare the data to that of their own and each other. The derivation of equations helps any scientist or graduate student replicate their process and even account for any inconsistencies they found. The raw data in the scholarly graphs and data tables, while understandable by other scientists, will be an enigma for any casual reader to understand. The oversimplification of data through graphs and visual aids helps alleviate the knowledge gap between the two audiences. While the gap will still strongly highlight the differences in audience, framing helps draw the two groups to a mutual understanding.
The magazine article makes a quick mention of Einstein’s theory of special relativity, saying that his theory mathematically proved the existence of black holes even though they can’t be see or couldn’t be observed at the time. This was done in order to relate a difficult topic to an average reader, the main goal of framing. The scholarly, however, makes no reference to Einstein’s theory of relativity. Instead this article fully articulates what his theory means. They use his equations and mathematically prove that the black holes are in fact there and then begin to derive for how the black holes form in relation to the size of the galactic haloes in the galaxy. The equations used in the scholarly article help to increase the credibility of the authors by giving a concrete, easy to follow path through the paper. This credibility allows for members of the audience, such as other professors, to do further research into one of the topics and feel secure in the research that he/she is starting from.
In conclusion, even though both articles had the same author, they were each tailored to a different audience. The Scientific American magazine article used simple diction with references that the common reader could understand in order to entertain them and implant a small bit of new information in their mind. The scholarly article uses complex diction with proofs through graphs and derivation in order to allow other researchers to get a baseline for their own research. The framing of the scholarly article helps the casual reader better understand what events are happing in the scientific community and helps bridge the gap between scientists and the average person.
Works Cited:
Lodato, Giuseppe and Priyamvada Natarajan. “Supermassive Black Hole Formation during the Assembly of Pre-Galactic Discs.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 371, no. 4, 10/1/2006, pp. 1813-1823. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2006.10801.x.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Galactic Halo.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 31 Mar. 2018, www.britannica.com/science/galactic-halo.
Peterson, Bradley. “Quasar.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 22 May 2018, www.britannica.com/science/quasar.
Dunbar, Brian. “What Is a Black Hole?” NASA, NASA, 21 May 2015, www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/what-is-a-black-hole-k4.html.
Gardner et al. “Popular Media in the Biology Classroom: Viewing Popular Science Skeptically.” BioOne, Aug. 2009, www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.1662/005.071.0604