Science as a cultural artifact: analysis of cinematic narrative in science fiction films

Contemporary perspectives on science education regard science as a social construction. In order to bring science into the classroom in this sense, science fiction films that allow for conceptual discussions can be used. The aim of this article is to reflect on how science popularization discourse is situated in science fiction films and how it contributes to science education. For this purpose, three films were analyzed: Her (2013), The Martian (2015), and Arrival (2016), which are related to the discourse of science popularization. The analysis is based on Bakhtin's ideas on the nature of science, through an adaptation of Aikenhead's Views on Science-Technology-Society questionnaire (VOSTS). The discourse of film leads to the construction of debates about a social science by linking the plot of the film to different ways of understanding the application of technological development in everyday life. Based on the discourse analysis of the films and on the VOSTS questionnaire, an intrinsic relationship between science and culture is established.