by Marie Rathmann
I’ll be honest, the “Science in Society Laboratories“ course threw me into the deep end. In the course, we discussed three different controversies and worked on them in interdisciplinary research teams. I would not have thought that social scientists and natural scientists could harmonize so well. The topic of nuclear waste disposal wasn’t my first choice in the beginning, but over time I came to appreciate the contribution my team was making. I only found my way into this topic because I was confronted with it. Nuclear power has received a lot of media and societal attention in recent weeks, but the topic of nuclear waste is still hushed up. I want to change this with this humorous poster because humor can also be a serious language. At best, I’ll be confronting someone else with it.
Marie Rathmann is a master’s student at the University of Vienna’s Department of Communication. She also works as a student assistant on the research project “Journalism under Duress: Risk and Uncertainty in a Changing Mediascape” at the Hans-Bredow-Institut in Hamburg. Her research interests are situated at the intersection of gender and media research. In the 2021/22 winter term, she participated in the interdisciplinary “Science in Society Laboratories” course run by the STS Department.