1 Exploring the Cosmos: the Rhetoric of Successful

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EXPLORING THE COSMOS: THE RHETORIC OF SUCCESSFUL SCIENCE TELEVISION

ALEXANDREA MATTHEWS

A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN MASS COMMUNICATION

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

2015

To my mom, Dina Matthews, for the never-ending love, encouragement, and support

3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank my chair, Dr. Debbie Treise, who not only guided me through my thesis but my entire graduate school experience. She has been patient and always accommodating, answering my many questions by e-mail almost immediately, even on weekends, and always found time for me despite her busy schedule. Through the research, coding, and analysis, she has always offered me invaluable insight and editing. I could not be more grateful to have had such a caring, supportive, and experienced thesis chair, advisor, and professor. Thank you for always going above and beyond in these roles.

I also thank my other two committee members, Dr. Johanna Cleary and Dr.

Elizabeth Lada. They have been supportive and enthusiastic about my research from the beginning and have offered me guidance that really shaped my methodology and research. Dr. Cleary gave me insight from her expertise in telecommunications and offered many great suggestions. Dr. Lada helped me from her expertise in astronomy, as both a committee member and a professor, who gave me the knowledge to approach my thesis from a more informed perspective. I am so thankful to have had such an experienced, diverse committee which could offer me guidance from multiple areas.

I thank my family for their endless love and support, even just making me laugh when I’ve felt overwhelmed. I couldn’t have gotten through this without you. My aunt and uncle, John and Aldina Warters, helped me in countless ways to get through my thesis and graduate school and never stopped reminding me to ‘believe.’ My mother,

Dina Matthews, has been a big source of my inspiration and energy and has been there for me no matter what. Thank you, for everything.

4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... 4

LIST OF FIGURES ...... 8

ABSTRACT ...... 9

CHAPTER

1 INTRODUCTION ...... 11

2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE ...... 17

A Need for Science Television ...... 17 Television for Increasing Science Knowledge ...... 22 Television for Influencing Interest and Attitude ...... 25 Television’s Impact on Funding ...... 29 The Popularity of Cosmos ...... 32 From Public to Commercial Broadcasting ...... 36 Sorensen’s Framework for Science Television and the Use of Rhetoric...... 38 Kairos in Cosmos ...... 39 Ethos in Cosmos ...... 44 Aethos in Cosmos ...... 47 Mythos in Cosmos ...... 52 Interview with Steven Soter ...... 58 Research Questions ...... 60

3 METHODOLOGY ...... 61

Design ...... 61 Sampling ...... 63 Coding Categories ...... 63 Analysis ...... 67

4 RESULTS ...... 70

RQ1a: What Elements of Kairos Were Present in Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey? ...... 70 Creation ...... 71 Religion ...... 73 Environmental ...... 75 Challenging Authority ...... 77 Political ...... 79 Health ...... 80 RQ1b: How Did the Elements of Kairos Compare with Those of Cosmos? ...... 80 Creation ...... 81

5 Religion ...... 83 Political ...... 85 Challenging Authority ...... 86 Environmental ...... 88 Health ...... 88 RQ2a: What Elements of Ethos Were Present in Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey? ...... 89 RQ2b: How did the elements of ethos compare with those of Cosmos? ...... 90 RQ3a: What Elements of Aethos Were Present in Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey? ...... 92 Dominant Types of Imagery ...... 92 Description of Imagery...... 92 Use of Enthymeme ...... 93 RQ3b: How Did the Elements of Aethos Compare with Those of Cosmos? ...... 95 Dominant Types of Imagery ...... 95 Description of Imagery...... 95 Use of Enthymeme ...... 96 RQ4a: What Elements of Mythos Were Present in Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey? ...... 97 Journey/Adventure ...... 97 Ship of the Imagination/Cosmic Calendar ...... 98 Scientist Stories ...... 99 Science Metaphors/Personification ...... 100 Poetic Language ...... 102 RQ4b: How Did the Elements of Mythos Compare with Those of Cosmos? ...... 103 Journey/Adventure ...... 104 Ship of the Imagination/Cosmic Calendar ...... 104 Scientist Stories ...... 105 Science Metaphors/Personification ...... 107 Poetic Language ...... 109

5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ...... 114

Kairos ...... 114 Creation ...... 115 Religion ...... 118 Environmental ...... 121 Challenging Authority ...... 123 Political ...... 125 Health ...... 126 Ethos...... 127 Aethos ...... 130 Mythos ...... 137 Limitations ...... 145 Future Research ...... 146 Conclusion ...... 147

6 APPENDIX

A BEST PRACTICES FOR SCIENCE TELEVISION PRODUCERS ...... 151

B EPISODE LISTS ...... 156

C CODING SHEET ...... 158

D APPENDIX D CODING GUIDELINES ...... 159

LIST OF REFERENCES ...... 162

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 169

7 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure page

4-1 Variance in number of cultural references per episode: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey...... 111

4-2 Variance in number of cultural references per episode: Cosmos...... 111

4-3 Percentage of cultural references used by type: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey ...... 112

4-4 Percentage of cultural references used by type: Cosmos ...... 112

4-5 Number of cultural references used by type: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey vs. Cosmos...... 113

4-6 Type of imagery by series: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey vs. Cosmos...... 113

8 Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Mass Communication

EXPLORING THE COSMOS: THE RHETORIC OF SUCCESSFUL SCIENCE TELEVISION

Alexandrea Matthews

May 2015

Chair: Debbie Treise Major: Mass Communication

Carl Sagan’s Cosmos has been the most successful science television series to date and previous research has largely attributed this to its masterful use of rhetoric. In

2014, a remake aired called Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey which was also immensely popular for a science documentary series. Many studies have found that television can be highly persuasive and may have an impact on increasing knowledge, interest, and funding for science. This study investigated how various forms of rhetoric were used in both Cosmos and its remake to determine the similarities and differences between the two series. The rhetorical elements of kairos (cultural environment), ethos (persona of the host), aethos (imagery and enthymeme), and mythos (storytelling and dramatization) were examined through a mixed method coding analysis.

Results showed that these four rhetorical devices were used prevalently within both series and in many similar ways. Storytelling in particular appeared to be predominantly useful in both series’ success. There were also many updates to

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey’s rhetorical style which may have made the content more current and relatable to viewers. In examining Cosmos and its remake it appeared

9 that strong use of rhetoric may be the key to producing long lasting, popular, and influential science television. This research may be used to inspire future science television series or to benefit science communication professionals.

10 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

Science television has never been quite the same since Carl Sagan’s ground- breaking documentary series, Cosmos, aired in 1980. It has raised the bar for interesting and educating the public in science with millions of viewers worldwide, and has been translated into more than 40 languages. The Peabody and Emmy award winning show was, for a decade, the most widely viewed series in American public television; a feat considered highly impressive for any television show, but particularly one focused on science. Its accompanying book of the same title sold more than

400,000 copies within the first four months of the broadcast premier, eventually totaling millions in royalties (LaFollette, 2013). How Cosmos is able to capture the attention of such a large audience through its 13-part series, even 30 years later, and increase public interest in science, is worthy of in-depth analysis in order to understand how the same persuasive tactics may be applied elsewhere. Its remake, Cosmos: A Spacetime

Odyssey (from this point forward: Cosmos: ASO), which debuted in March of 2014, is also valuable for study and offers a unique opportunity to compare the modernization of the show with its seminal predecessor.

Karen Jane Sorensen (2013), of North Dakota State University, published a dissertation exploring the original Cosmos series which examined how it may have been able to generate science interest and sustain viewership by observing various persuasive aspects of the show. She developed a new framework for creating effective science television and examined the rhetoric of the series in order to focus on how popularizing scientific information for the public “can create a type of ‘science fiction’

11 rather than merely being a ‘transferal’ of information,” as is typical of many science documentaries (p. iii).

To accomplish this, Sorensen (2013) studied the three rhetorical elements of kairos (the environment during the time of the show such as politics, public perception of science, etc.), ethos (the credibility and persona of the host), and aethos (the “haunt” of the show, including its visual and audio effects), and how they work together to significantly impact a show’s mythos, or fictionalizing effect. This mythos is described by the author as an “expansive fictional narrative that depicts or explores archetypical storylines, characters or other elements, which would be familiar or recognizable, in some way, to the audience” (p. 82). She believed it was this effect that has been crucial for Cosmos to sustain its lasting popularity and make science particularly captivating for the masses. After Sorensen expertly applied these specific elements of rhetoric to the show, it has now opened up the opportunity to use those same concepts for analyzing its remake, Cosmos: ASO. This offers a chance to broaden a theory of rhetorical application, while gaining understanding of how use of these concepts may have been replicated or reformed in the new series.

Using science fiction as a tool to teach science fact and increase interest in science has been broadly studied (Pohl, 1994; Brake & Thornton, 2003; Kirby, 2003;

Weingart & Pensegrau, 2003; Rose, 2007), proving this to be an area of research deemed useful across various disciplines. Cosmos is a unique hybrid, however, which classifies as a documentary, yet tactfully applies dramatization in order to maintain its intrigue, but has rarely been studied in order to understand its success (see Sorensen,

2013; Lessl, 1985). It is uncommon in science television that a show achieves such

12 widespread, persisting popularity as Cosmos and it is surely beneficial to producers of future series to understand how this was accomplished and what the growing number of series in this genre can learn from it.

Sorensen (2013) found that using rhetorical concepts in television allows for a form of analysis which applies carefully crafted persuasive arguments to successfully achieve popularity and science interest-building in viewers. She believed that Cosmos achieved large audiences because it “addressed its rhetorical situation so well” (p. 9). In an earlier study, also examining Cosmos, Lessl (1985) found that rhetoric can be “an attempt to create consubstantiality, a sense of shared substance” between the scientist and his or her non-science publics (p. 176). Building this “shared substance” between scientists and the lay public has often proved extremely challenging in the field of science communication but this study intends to address this problem by examining how this can be accomplished within the medium of television broadcasting.

The remake, Cosmos: ASO, was expected to differ from the original on many levels. The new host of Cosmos: ASO was the renowned astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse

Tyson. Tyson is well liked, with more than 3 million followers on Twitter, so he was not a particularly surprising choice to fill the role of Sagan. Two months prior to the remake’s debut, Tyson, showing high ambition, told Parade magazine the show would help,

to understand your relationship to other humans, to the rest of the tree of life on Earth, to the rest of the planets in the universe, and to the rest of the universe itself. I want it to get inside your skin. I want you to be so affected that the world looks completely different (Parade, 2014).

Following Cosmos: ASO, The National Academy of Sciences acknowledged Tyson’s continued achievement in promoting science and selected him for its most prestigious award, the Public Welfare Medal for 2015. This is an annual award to “honor

13 extraordinary use of science for the public good,” which Sagan had also received in

1994, recognizing in part the immense contributions they made to improving interest and education in science by hosting the two series (NAS, 2015).

Brannon Braga, a writer and producer of Star Trek, served as executive producer and director of Cosmos: ASO, and Seth Macfarlane, creator of Family Guy, also served as producer, adding expertise in animation and science fiction CGI (computer generated imagery) to the series. It was co-written by two writers of the original series: Sagan’s widow, Ann Druyan, and astrophysicist, Steven Soter. Rather than airing on PBS

(Public Broadcasting Service), the new series appeared during primetime on the popular commercial broadcasting channels of the Fox Networks Group, including all 90 of the National Geographic Channels (Nat Geo) in 180 countries and many Fox branded channels in 125 countries (The Deadline Team, 2013). By the start of 2014, Nat Geo was viewed in more than 87 million U.S. homes, while Fox ranked number one across many sought after demographics, including adults aged 18-49 and teens (Seidman,

2013; Bibel, 2014b). This transition from PBS to Fox and Nat Geo has many significant political and funding implications which will be discussed further in the literature review.

Cosmos: ASO ran in 180 countries in 45 different languages; the largest premier of any television series (Overbye, 2014). Tyson told Parade magazine, “This would be a level of exposure for science that has never been reached before. And that, for me, is the most important fact about this rendering of Cosmos” (Parade, 2014). In addition to the show being broadcast on these channels it was available free of charge on

Hulu.com, making it even more accessible to those who prefer to watch television online. The use of social media to promote the show was also unique to the Cosmos

14 remake versus the original and may have played an important role in sustaining its audience.

This research aims to investigate persuasive arguments presented by the show and its remake and how they may have operated to increase interest and impact viewers’ change in perspective. This may also later prove valuable in attempting to achieve an increase in the funding of science. Some studies have suggested this to be the case, with the media and factors such as increased interest and attitude appearing to have a significant role in affecting the funding of science (Munoz, et al., 2012;

Ehrenfreund, et al., 2010; Rowe, et al., 2010; Smith, 2010). Sorensen (2013) said science popularizers like Sagan believed television could be used “to change the public mindset” provided that the “content [was] presented in an interesting way” (p. 12). While

Cosmos has been regarded as a great teaching tool in astronomy, its goal was not necessarily education, she explained, but “Sagan wanted to change the public perspective on science, to accept it and therefore to fund it” (p. 20). Yet with trillions of dollars being spent each year on science education, informal learning, such as television, has become especially relevant for increasing science literacy (Falk &

Needham, 2013). This researcher hopes that in examining the persuasive aspects of

Cosmos and its remake, the two series may also lead to further study on how popular science television may increase support and funding of science, and possibly affect public understanding of science, which will later be discussed.

Further study into kairos, ethos, aethos, and the resulting mythos may provide understanding of how popularity and increased science interest can be obtained by future science television series and builds on the rhetorical literature showing how

15 certain persuasive aspects may be applied to television broadcasting. Following

Sorensen’s (2013) study on the rhetoric of the original Cosmos series, examination of these aspects within the remake, Cosmos: ASO, offers a distinctive view of the similarities and differences between the rhetoric of the two series. This may strengthen the author’s arguments or add new understanding.

Therefore, a coded, mixed method content analysis of both series, including an examination of Sorensen’s findings, will be conducted to observe how kairos, ethos, aethos, and mythos are represented within the remake, how this relates to the original series, and what the results imply for the future of science television. Some of the questions this study aims to answer are: Did Cosmos: ASO follow the same rhetorical framework found within the original series? Were the persuasive methods manipulated or updated to better fit the needs of the remake? Or on the contrary, were the rhetorical concepts found in Cosmos abandoned from its remake altogether?

16 CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE

A Need for Science Television

There is a clear problem with the lack of understanding of science which is impacting the United States in a very serious way, and the general public is especially affected by this gap in knowledge. The result is a society that is scientifically illiterate and cannot make informed democratic decisions about important scientific matters, and misses out on an understanding of the scientific method and the beauty and complexity of the scientific fields. Miller (2012) defined civic scientific literacy as “the level and kinds of information that a citizen needs to know in order to follow current and emerging public policy issues” and stated that this currently exists at a very low level in the United States

(sufficient in only 20 percent of Americans) (p. 28). He also recognized that four out of five people cannot understand a New York Times science article. Similarly, the National

Science Board’s 2014 Science and Engineering Indicators reported Americans on average could only answer 5.8 of the 9 basic science knowledge questions correctly, and data from 2012 showed the majority did not believe in evolution (52%) and the Big

Bang Theory (61%) when they were presented as facts (NSB, 2014). These results had remained similar with the past studies conducted every two years.

A scientifically literate population would be better equipped to make informed democratic decisions about the future of science and technology, would gain an increased understanding of the world, and may be more influenced to pursue a career in a science or technology field. Miller (2012) asserted,

There has been less awareness or concern about the growing need for individuals to understand a variety of complex scientific, social, and economic constructs in order to perform their duties as parents, patients, and citizens… There can be little doubt that the number and complexity of

17 science-related issues that reach public policy agendas at all levels of government will continue to grow in the twenty-first century (p 28).

Some topics in science are particularly discouraging, such as climate change.

Only 67 percent of Americans believe it exists at all and 42 percent believe it is caused by human activity. Teaching creationism alongside evolution in public classrooms is also supported by the majority of Americans polled by the National Science Board, and in 2005, 44 percent supported teaching creationism in place of evolution. Particularly when it comes to topics such as these that are crucial to maintaining a stable environment or a society understanding of basic biology, it is highly important for the public to understand the issues completely in order to make decisions which directly impact them.

While students learn the majority of their science knowledge through formal education, sometimes the classroom is not a sufficient mechanism on its own. In fact, a

2007 survey of public biology high school teachers found that 13 percent tell their students creationism is a valid, scientific theory about the origin of the species (NSB,

2014). Offering other, informal means of learning about science allows for the public to form their knowledge and opinions based on a multitude of sources to get a complete picture or perhaps one that was never offered to them before. Today it is becoming more normalized that the public “experiences science through news and entertainment media and through interaction with science communicators” (Besley & Tanner, 2011, p.

239). This media revolution may be essential to the future of a scientifically literate population, to the funding of science, and to a society concerned with the world around it.

18 Communicating science through the media has been ongoing for decades but as it becomes more easily accessible to the public in various forms, it has become an essential tool for sharing scientific discovery with the world. Besley and Tanner (2011) explained, “As an increasing amount of science news and information becomes available to the public through the mass media and other less mediated sources, interaction among scientists, the media, and the public is becoming commonplace” (p.

240). In a paper by the European Network of Science Communication Teachers

(ENSCOT) (2003), which created a series of workshops aimed at increasing the communication of science, they also found that the relationship between the scientific community and the media require close attention since “media representations of science may be the only representations many people receive” (p. 172). Television, in particular, has been steadily evolving as a favorable platform for science education and entertainment since the early 1940s. Television programming has remained popular for reaching a wide range of audiences and offering many different options for both audio and visual communication aids.

Science television has greatly progressed since 1940 (around the same time research on science in the media started increasing steadily, as reported by Schafer,

2012) from something that began as a bland dissemination of information and became a form of entertainment. From the late 1940s to late 1980s major changes took place that are still consistent with shows televised today, besides the shift from black and white to color screens (LaFollette, 2013). LaFollette (2013) said over the course of those 40 years, “The focus of American television’s science shifted toward politics and morality, toward the illusory and visually dynamic, toward social context and scientific celebrities,”

19 and that television documentaries in particular played a large role in stimulating public opinion (p. 6). In the late 1960s the science documentary genre evolved, pioneered by

BBC’s “Horizon” which later inspired PBS’s science series, “Nova” (Palfreman, 2002).

Schafer (2012) conducted a meta-analysis of research on media coverage of science which he found has been growing over the past decades and will likely continue to increase. He found that science coverage in the mass media remains the major channel for bringing together science and the general public and that it strongly affects the public’s perception of science, and influences its legitimization, public support, and funding. Schafer found current science media research existed primarily in print (70.7 percent of the sample) and that this was unfortunate because people more commonly spend time using radio, television, and the Internet than they do reading newspapers.

He found television had stronger, different effects on viewers than newspapers and felt it was an important focus for future research. While only a handful of studies have been conducted on the effects of science television and news exposure on viewers, even less research has focused on specifically how to create an effective method for presenting science to the public.

In a rare case, extensive research was conducted on the PBS children’s science series, 3-2-1 Contact, by its production company, Children’s Television

Workshop (CTW). The CTW conducted more than 100 studies on the series using more than 20 research techniques, which was at the time the most extensive research ever conducted for a single television series (Milton, 1984). Chen Milton, a director of research at Sesame Workshop (formerly CTW) who worked on 3-2-1 Contact, Sesame

Street, and The Electric Company, published a comprehensive review of the research

20 performed for the show. Milton explained at the beginning of the report two important considerations for the CTW studies which also can be applied to the research in this paper: that first, “Science awareness and learning is a long-term process” throughout one’s lifetime, and it is unrealistic to expect to see immediate dramatic effects following viewings of the show, especially without simultaneous support from other science learning environments like the classroom or at home (p. 5). This is similar to Cosmos and all other science television series, that any one of them cannot be expected to produce “magic bullet” or “hypodermic needle” results. There are, however, some studies (including those of 3-2-1 Contact) that show substantial impacts to education, interest, and attitude toward science, following the viewing of certain television series and other media. Some researchers also believe that science television programming should work in conjunction with formal learning to be most effective (e.g. Dhingra, 2003;

Kirikkaya, Iseri, & Vurkaya, 2009).

Second, Milton (1984) found there was a lack of research on exactly how television affects education and attitude, particularly when it comes to science; a problem still persisting today. Unfortunately, Shafer (2012) echoed this in his more recent study, as previously mentioned, that there are still very few studies regarding the effects of science television, especially compared with research conducted on science in other media. The research within this study intends to test a theory to further understand how effective science television is created, but not necessarily what its effects are on the viewer which would need to be examined through future studies.

An analysis of some of the most relevant research on the effects of science television will follow in this literature review to examine the importance of conducting the

21 research in this thesis. The examination performed in this thesis aims to help fill a lacuna in science television knowledge and build up the available literature in the field of science communication.

Television for Increasing Science Knowledge

Informal learning is the second most significant factor to increased civic scientific literacy (after formal education), which Miller (2004) said “indicates the efforts of members of the scientific community to enhance the scientific literacy of non-scientists is having a positive effect” (p. 290). Although many argue the most dramatic improvements in science literacy may need to come from advances in formal education, informal learning, such as science television programming, remains important in promoting scientific knowledge. For example, Storksdiek, & Dierking (2007) found that

43 percent of participants in their study (the majority) claimed they obtained most of their science knowledge from free-choice or informal learning.

Similarly, Falk (2013) found reading books or magazines about science and technology, using the Internet, and watching science related documentaries were together the strongest predictors of self-reported knowledge of science and technology.

In fact, only one to three percent of the average adult’s lifetime is spent in formal schooling and the understanding of science comes from a whole lifespan of knowledge building, so it is important to also develop effective methods of learning outside the classroom (Falk, Storksdiek, & Dierking, 2007). Advances in science and technology are increasing rapidly, and television may be a means to effectively disseminate scientific information and be used to separate fact from popular superstition. Miller

(2004) believed that even when the level of understanding of science is limited, “an individual may understand the purposes of a particular scientiﬁc research project and

22 have some understanding of the potential value of its results for his or her own life” (p.

281).

Even if a documentary series like Cosmos does not have the ability to radically improve the knowledge of science in its viewers, it would be helpful in building a society which understands and supports current public policy issues and future endeavors pertaining to science. It could introduce new topics which may spark interest in science or reinforce what viewers only had little previous knowledge of. This can be done by showing concepts multiple times throughout a series or by being presented on multiple television shows or with other media (Miller, et al., 2006). Even if viewers do not learn all of the educational details from watching a program, they may still grasp an understanding of the larger picture and make more informed decisions. LaFollette

(1982) believed that, for example, when the debate of recombinant DNA had first entered the news, many people were brought to consider not only the issue itself but how the research was being conducted and specifically the value issues surrounding the research.

Miller, et al. (2006), found that introduction to a new concept is not likely to generate long-term retention, but repeated exposure to the concept may provide the fodder for a new mental schema or changing a current one. He defined a schema as being a “collection of knowledge, previous experience, and attitudes toward a subject that an individual invokes when confronted with new information or a new event” (p.

219). Their findings suggest that it is easier to change mental schemas when the topic is familiar to the viewer, or to relate a new topic in an understandable way. Therefore, science documentaries can work best to influence how people view and understand

23 science by either presenting information that is already familiar, such evolution and global warming, or by taking new information and presenting it in a way that is relatable to the viewer. For example, in Cosmos, Sagan’s ship which he flies across the universe in is shaped liked a dandelion. Sorensen (2013) said, “The dandelion is common on earth and spreads its seed on the wind. By portraying a seed as a spaceship, Sagan is giving familiarity to the unfamiliar, comfort to the potentially uncomfortable” (p. 23).

The goals of the science series, 3-2-1 Contact, did not include educating its viewers, but through its extensive studies the researchers found that it was in fact influential in building children’s knowledge of the science it presented. Before watching the show less than a quarter of the participants could explain what makes a plane stay up in the air. After just two weeks of viewing the show, which aired daily in half hour segments, more than 60 percent were able to give an explanation showing understanding and mastery of vocabulary. Chen (1984) said the studies “indicate that children speak frequently and easily about concepts, facts, vocabulary, and relationships that they have learned for the first time” after viewing the show (p. 42). He also believed this was closely linked to other interest-building and attitude shaping effects of the series.

An interesting project for using cinema to teach science, called Physics in Films, was developed at the University of Central Florida in order to make physics more interesting. This was an area the professors felt students had difficulty learning and in staying interested. It involved showing various movies in courses with non-science major students and having them determine scenes that illustrated the principles of physical science. After the first couple courses, the majority of students said they found

24 the class more interesting than a standard physics class, felt they learned something from taking it, and would have recommended it to a friend. A professor teaching both the Physics in Films version and the traditional physics courses was even able to achieve higher average test scores to the film-based class while presenting the same material to both groups of students, showing the usefulness of cinema and television as an aid to classroom instruction.

However, survey results had also found that about the same number of students strongly agreed and disagreed with the statement: “I do not like science and I do not want to read anything about science once I have ﬁnished this course” (Efthimiou &

Llewellyn, 2004). This project may be successful in teaching the material in an interesting way and its technique could give insight for future use of television entertainment in building science knowledge, but it also shows that more research needs to be done to further understand how science education can be increased. As this study, and others previously mentioned, have demonstrated, making science more interesting to students and television viewers may be the key to increasing public understanding in science. This study will therefore look more in depth into how change in interest and attitude toward science may be obtained.

Television for Influencing Interest and Attitude

Studies have shown that television can have an impact on interest and attitude toward science and technology (e.g. Steinke, et al., 2012; Dudo, et al., 2011; Nisbet, et al., 2002). Treise and Weigold (2002) similarly found communicating science, “can provide the public with information essential to forming opinions about public policy and about the costs and benefits of governmental expenditures on science” (p. 311). Since some researchers have argued over how much of an effect on interest generation and

25 attitude formation science media can really have, Allum, et al. (2008) conducted a meta- analysis on the relationship between public attitudes and public knowledge about science across 40 countries. They found after controlling for a broad range of possible variables, there was, in fact, a positive correlation between knowledge and a more positive attitude toward science, suggesting that if the media can help build knowledge of science it can help form the attitude the general public has toward it. In the case of

Cosmos, Sorensen (2013) found,

The program seeks to change public opinion away from viewing science as the means of destruction and devastation and toward one in which innovation, adventure, and discovery is emphasized. In this way, Sagan isn’t merely “validating” information for the public in Cosmos—he is shaping attitudes toward it (p. 111).

She contended that Cosmos does more than teach science; it argues for a change in perspective and values ultimately leading to a change in action.

Southwell and Torres (2006) presented experimental data which showed television news exposure improved the perceived ability to understand science. This perceived understanding of science then led to more social conversations about those topics. This paved the way for a later study by Hwang and Southwell (2009) which also found exposure to science television news stories could affect viewers’ beliefs in a positive way. They established that those who were exposed to the science stories appeared more likely to view science research as relevant and understandable, therefore improving their attitudes toward science. What is especially promising in these two studies using different participants is that they work together to suggest attitude change toward science resulting from science communication.

By the 1980s researchers had already found television could influence children’s career choices; yet, unfortunately, there was not a lot of science programming available

26 during that time (Lafollette, 2013). A more recent study examining how children are affected by science broadcasting used manipulations of the children’s show Get Real! to find that televised scientific content can be successful whether it is measured by children’s enjoyment of the program, knowledge gained from the program, or positive attitudes toward science. They also found that repeated exposure strengthened viewers’ belief that science is interesting, worthwhile, and fun. (Mares, Cantor, & Steinbach,

1999). The authors showed groups of children different versions of the show, and found the ones which showed the most success were focused on science that takes place within everyday events and had repeated exposure. This was similar to the previously mentioned findings of 3-2-1 Contact.

Although Cosmos may have taught its viewers numbering in the millions facts about astronomy, “Sagan sought to reach rather than ‘teach’” (Lafollette, 2013, p. 155).

Generating interest, which he believed would lead to a change in attitude toward science, was more important to Sagan than creating an effective teaching tool and some researchers have since demonstrated this usefulness in their own studies.

Research has been conducted studying television’s effect on increasing interest with age groups ranging from elementary school to adults. Increasing interest in science has been found to be important in influencing students to choose majors in STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and math). Maltese and Tai (2011) found the majority of students that chose one of these areas to study in college had already made that decision in high school when it was interest in STEM, rather than achievement or class enrollment, that guided students to make their choice of study.

Likewise, eighth grade students who said they were interested in pursuing a career in

27 science and believed it to be useful were more likely get STEM degrees. Increasing adequately trained graduates in science and engineering is important because of the increased demand for positions to be filled in these areas; however, they suffer from a constant lack of workers with necessary degrees. (Maltese & Tai, 2011).

In the 3-2-1 Contact studies, participating teachers discovered their students who already had interest in science found new topics of curiosity after viewing episodes of the show, while students who had shown no previous interest in science were then more attentive to it in class. The students’ image of scientists had also improved after viewing 3-2-1 Contact, abandoning the previously held stereotype of the scientist as an older, white male wearing a lab coat. In addition, the participants thought in a more scientific manner, such as basing conclusions on evidence (Milton, 1984). Another study found that space related shows in particular affected the attitudes children had toward science. The researchers believed future shows involving astronomy could help shape the attitudes children have toward science at young age, which is promising for such shows as Cosmos in affecting a wide range of age groups, including younger children (Ormerod, Ruthorford, & Wood, 1989).

One study showed participants a multi-part documentary on addiction, and found that 74 percent believed they had learned a lot or some from the viewing, and supported certain notions suggested in the documentary such as increasing availability of treatment centers and treatment options for addicts, and even made viewers more likely to support higher public spending on treatment centers rather than incarceration

(Albertson & Lawrence, 2009). The participants’ interviews were also conducted a month after the viewings, and although by that time they had a hard time remembering

28 specific learned information about addiction, they had become “more sympathetic toward policies for treatment of addiction” and their attitudes “were markedly different from nonviewers’ attitudes” (p. 288). This lends evidence to the lasting effects that television, particularly documentaries, has on its viewers and how it may be used to alter perceptions and attitudes even to the point of influencing public spending. Since these effects have been demonstrated it is beneficial to understand how to create highly effective documentaries and why certain ones such as Cosmos were more successful than others.

Television’s Impact on Funding

Many scholars have argued whether attitude change and increased interest can actually have an effect on increasing funding. It appears from some literature that television and other media can in fact be a powerful tool for achieving this. In recent studies, researchers determined those who have positive views and interest in science tend to support funding it (Sanz-Menendez, et al., 2013; Munoz, et al., 2012). Those who are the most supportive are politically left-wing, less religious, and hold a university degree, although perceived education is found to be a large factor in support of government science funding; so even without formal higher education those who feel like they have a deeper understanding of science will also be in favor of supporting it.

Interestingly, Munoz et al. (2012) also discovered those who support funding are very trusting of the Internet and television in particular to receive scientific information. This is promising for the educational television documentary in helping viewers to gain understanding of scientific issues and therefore encouraging more positive attitudes toward government funding. Sorensen (2013) explained, “In creating and presenting

29 Cosmos, Carl Sagan hoped to persuade the public to value science in order to inspire deliberative action in regard to funding” (p. 108).

Smith (2010) researched peaks in media coverage of health related issues and their resulting peaks in government funding in the UK. She found that over a decade, increased interest by the media in influenza was followed by increases in funding by the

Medical Research Council (MRC), which is similar to our National Institutes of Health, governing where federal health research funding is allocated. While these increases could be due to flu outbreaks resulting in a need for more research dollars and the press simply covering what is relevant to the public, the author found another connection with no basis for a financial increase. Alzheimer’s disease received an increase in the MRC budget over a 10-year period, with 76.5% of all funding for the disease being distributed between 2002 and 2008. It was also during this time that many celebrities began talking about Alzheimer’s disease and the media made it a hot topic.

Smith (2010) also found during that 10-year timespan 65.5 percent of The

Guardian newspaper’s articles on the disease were also published. In 2010, the government then promised an increase of 150 million pounds, the “equivalent of over

30% of the total MRC R&D budget for the financial year 2008-09” (Smith, 2010). This appears to be a close link between what the media deems important and how the government allocates its funding.

When it comes to funding astronomy specifically, Finarelli and Pryke (2007) found endeavors like space exploration require strong public support in order to overcome major changes in society and politics that may lessen enthusiasm for

30 financial continuation. They found the majority of participants in a market research study believed NASA to be “relevant to their everyday lives, and the degree of perceived relevance correlated to a willingness to support increases in NASA funding (even though most had no idea about the actual size of NASA’s budget)” (p. 14). Another study showed the NASA “brand” was strong but only one-third of participants aged 18-

24 were interested in a mission to the Moon, and overall only 18 percent of those surveyed were in support of a manned mission to Mars. They were also not understanding of the benefits and weary of the risk to human life. The researchers strongly expressed it is “essential that this age group be targeted and cultivated to support space exploration over the mid- and long-term” (p. 15).

In a second study focusing solely on the 18-24 age group, 39 percent felt

“nothing useful has come out of NASA,” and 27 percent “expressed doubts that NASA ever went to the Moon” (Finarelli & Pryke, 2007, p. 15). This is problematic because, as the authors suggest, who will want to fund NASA that does not believe the organization is doing anything of importance? Perhaps that is the key to ensuring a bridge between interest in NASA and financial support for its endeavors. Finarelli and Pryke (2007) said,

Although support of the Apollo generation is clearly needed in the near- term, support from those who are young today is critically important over the mid and long-term. They are the taxpayers, voters and decision makers of tomorrow, and they thus hold the future of space exploration in their hands (p. 19).

Others have echoed the necessary targeting of the Millennial generation in order to ensure adequate funding for the future of astronomy research. Ehrenfreund, et al.

(2010) claimed “generation Y” (ages 19-39) is a distinct age group because it contains the decision makers of the next decade who have grown up in a digital world and are hence harder to reach with books and newspapers and so other means such as Internet

31 or television are necessary. They believed by encouraging the public to understand and be a participatory part of space exploration, it could also influence governments to provide long-term increase in the resources required by the space sector. If documentary series like Cosmos can be designed to appeal to a broad range of audiences, especially “generation Y” and younger age groups, they may prove to be highly influential in increasing knowledge, interest, and attitude change, and may possibly have an effect on funding.

The Popularity of Cosmos

There is no doubt that the original Cosmos series from 1980 has been one of the most appealing science television shows of all time and remains beloved by viewers numbering in the millions. It received multiple awards, including three Emmys and a

Peabody award. Its accompanying book of the same title is the bestselling science book ever published in the English language, and in 2012 was deemed one of the 88 books that shaped America by the Library of Congress (Overbye, 2014). It is no wonder that its remake, more than 30 years later, could also be successful. More recently, in 2014, the show aired on Fox and Nat Geo, rather than PBS, and had a heavily promoted marketing campaign, with advertisements during the Super Bowl and World Series, along with an introduction by President Barack Obama.

Popularity and success are hard to measure in television, but typically the

Nielsen rating system is employed to show numbers of viewers in various demographics. Though not perfect, Nielsen utilizes both electronic metering and paper diaries that viewers maintain in order to achieve more accurate ratings. Now monitoring of smart phones and DVRs up to seven days after a show has aired are also options.

The rating system does not take into account, however, episodes recorded for longer

32 periods of time and more importantly views on online streaming websites such Amazon

Prime and Hulu.com.

In an increasingly digital age it becomes problematic when trying to measure the popularity of a television show because more and more people are choosing to watch shows online, even completely forgoing cable (Cha & Chan-Olmsted, 2012). Today, streamed shows can also be viewed easily on a television set. The remake, Cosmos:

ASO, streamed on Hulu.com, free of charge, without need for a subscription and likely many of those who viewed the series waited to see it online. After the series ended it also began streaming on the website, Netflix.com, which has more than 20 million subscribers. The series had been competing during primetime against some of the highest rated shows, including The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and The

Bachelorette. Streaming offered those who did not want to miss an episode, a free, convenient option to see Cosmos: ASO at a later date. None of this is taken into consideration when relying solely on the basic Nielsen rating system alone. For example, the episode, “The Immortals,” which aired on May 18 had a total of 4.7 million live and same day views, but when including views over the following week and some recorded online views, it rose to 6.7 million, a 43 percent increase (Bibel, 2014a).

Yet looking only at regular Nielsen ratings, Cosmos: ASO still held its own against its primetime competitors. The premier on Fox and Nat Geo resulted in 8.5 million viewers which Fox projected would reach 40 million worldwide by the end of the week. It focused on climate change in its twelfth episode, “The World Set Free,” and tied with the The Bachelorette for top ratings among young adult viewers, the most sought after demographic (Mooney, 2014). If holding the interest of “generation Y” is what

33 researchers believe is an important way to achieve interest and funding of science, it appears that Cosmos: ASO has done a very good job. In fact, the series frequently topped the 18-49 age group ratings throughout its 13-part series. While some still argued the ratings were not very spectacular, host Neil deGrasse Tyson believed just having an educational science show in competition with top primetime programming was incredible. He said, “The ratings are exceeding our expectations… It tells you that science is trending in our culture, and if science is trending, that can only be good for the health, the wealth, and the security of our species, of our civilization” (Mooney,

2014, para. 2; 6).

Unlike the original series, Cosmos: ASO now has social media at its disposal for use of two-way communication with its audience. A month following the season finale it was nearing a million fans on Facebook and had about 115,000 followers on Twitter.

Even before the series aired it was posting and tweeting information to its fans and continued to do so as each episode was broadcast and even months afterward. Some of the posts directly related to the show while others involved more loosely related astronomy information. Frequently the posts asked trivia about specific episodes or more general questions about science and would respond to fans’ answers and other comments, staying involved with them and continuing to interact with them almost every day, even months after the final episode. Additionally, as each episode was being broadcast NASA and sometimes Neil deGrasse Tyson, Seth MacFarlane, Brannon

Bragga, and Ann Druyan, were simultaneously tweeting to followers about the show from their own Twitter accounts.

34 Other means of interaction and encouraging interest in science included a free smartphone application with information from the show and reminders of when to watch episodes. There was also a Star Science Teacher of the Week contest in which students could nominate a science teacher to be featured on television during an episode of the show and on the social media accounts. All of these outreach efforts seemed to be well received by fans resulting in posts with hundreds of comments interacting with the Facebook and Twitter accounts as well as each other, helping to keep the audience involved and a part of the show, rather than just passive viewers.

Cosmos: ASO was nominated for 12 Primetime Emmy awards, of which it received four: Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming, Outstanding Sound

Editing for Nonfiction Programming, Outstanding Music Composition for a Series

(Original Dramatic Score), and Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music. This was more than the original series which received three out of its five nominations. The remake also won a Critics Choice Award for Best Reality Series and Neil deGrasse

Tyson was awarded Best Reality Host. Other awards received included a PGA

Producer of the Year Award, a TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in News and

Information, an Annie Award for an animated special production, an award from the

Visual Effects Society, and various nominations.

Sales for the show on DVD and Blu-Ray began just days after the finale aired and remained the number one bestselling documentary on Amazon.com for months, and after a year it had only fallen to number two. Both the original Cosmos and its remake clearly proved to be successful in generating a large audience and keeping their viewers captivated by science. Examining Sorensen’s (2013) framework for creating

35 effective science television will determine if the same rhetorical concepts were used to make Cosmos: ASO successful, as she believed they did for the original.

From Public to Commercial Broadcasting

When Cosmos aired in 1980 it made its debut on the not-for-profit Public

Broadcasting Service, or PBS. Now, more than 30 years later, its reboot appeared on commercial television, resulting in differences in funding, episode structure, and political affiliation. Public broadcasting is backed financially by the government, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and underwriters who may play a part in influencing the content that is funded; however, in general shows are educational in nature and attempt to present the facts with bipartisan views.

Because of the absence of paid advertisements there are no commercials on

PBS. As Sorensen (2013) pointed out, “No matter how serious the subject matter or what emotion is being sought through the presentation of images and sounds, a commercial… could interrupt, breaking the spell. In some ways, these interruption[s] break the contract of consubstantiality as well” (p. 72). Therefore, she worried the remake of Cosmos, which would not enjoy seamless “shared substance” between the host and viewers for an hour during each episode, would not do as well at connecting with its audience. Cosmos: ASO, which aired on 220 Fox Network Channels worldwide, was broken up by commercial breaks which may or may not have taken away from the mysticism of the story, but its advertising supplied the funding for an experienced creative team of more than 1,200. On the other hand, the original series had a budget of eight million dollars which was the most expensive program in the history of science television, allowing Sagan similar freedom in production values for its own time (Lessl,

1985).

36 Some wondered about the effects the move to commercial television would have on the remake particularly because of the choice to broadcast on Fox, known for its especially conservative views expressed on its news channel. Fox, however, offered complete creative control to the Cosmos: ASO production team and did not influence the writers to change the script even when it may have caused political or religious controversy. Being featured on a major network during primetime may have offered a larger audience, but also resulted in a considerable amount of backlash from some viewers, particularly creationists and those who do not believe in the Big Bang Theory or anthropogenic effects on climate change. Some criticized the series for not giving equal airtime for creationist views, leading Tyson to counter, “You don't talk about the spherical earth with NASA and then say let's give equal time to the flat-earthers… The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it” (Mirkinson,

2014, para. 5; 6).

While public broadcasting typically offers freedom from pressure to receive ever higher ratings and enjoys commercial free programming, broadcasting commercially typically deals higher audience exposure and more media attention. A station such as

PBS is also less politically biased and more focused on educating the public, rather than making money and sometimes changing content to fit the interests of the advertisers.

Luckily for Cosmos: ASO, it did not have to compromise its own story and essence.

Historically, science has had a hard time finding its way to the coveted commercial stations, and when they have they have tended to be short lived (King, 2000). Perhaps this series will pave the way for future science television series to also find success on a

37 large network during primetime, proving science as a force to be reckoned with when it comes to stealing the attention of the masses.

Sorensen’s Framework for Science Television and the Use of Rhetoric

When Karen Jane Sorensen of North Dakota State University developed a framework for effective science television as her dissertation, Cosmos became the perfect case study. It embodied everything she believed science programming should have for building a large audience and generating interest in science. She examined the series to see how specific rhetorical concepts existed to persuade the audience and according to research these concepts remain successful today. Sorensen found the elements of kairos, ethos, and aethos permeated the show and together they worked to form seemingly the most important rhetorical concept resulting in Cosmos’ success: mythos. These concepts of persuasion will be examined further in the research of this thesis to gain a deeper understanding of how they may have influenced both Cosmos and its remake, Cosmos: ASO, and propelled them into stardom as effective science documentaries that may have an impact on education, more positive attitudes, and funding.

Rhetoric is an important tool that has been particularly useful in television. It can be viewed as “the use of organized arguments to promote the acceptance of a point of view that may lead to a course of action” (Back, 1989, p. 130). Back (1989) explained there are two functions of communications: transmission, or a transferal of information from one place to another, and influence, which may be used to persuade an audience.

He believed neither is likely to be found in its own pure state, causing conflict between the two apparently contradictory functions. Although science aims to seek truth and rhetoric seeks to persuade, the two may be able to work together to influence society

38 toward becoming more supportive of science and promoting a more scientifically literate population.

In Cosmos, for example, there is a combination of scientific fact and storytelling.

The two do not contradict, but complement each other in order to produce compelling, yet credible, arguments. Using this structure, “It sets the instructional elements of the series within a larger mythical framework reminiscent of numerous works of science fiction” (Lessl, 1985, p. 175). In the following sections each element of rhetoric which

Sorensen (2013) found to influence the success of Cosmos will be explored, including the findings within her own study, so they can later be examined within Cosmos: ASO through a mixed method analysis.

Kairos in Cosmos

Although kairos has been defined in many ways, it is always within a temporal context, usually referring to a particular place and time. Shew (2013) explained kairos within the framework of Sophocles’ Greek tragedy, Electra, to “designate an opportune moment or a moment for acting” (p. 47). While this term may be used to denote an exact moment, the author said it can also be an extraordinary occurrence which

“disrupts a typical experience or familiarity with the world, pointing us beyond where we normally find ourselves” (p. 48). Cosmos incorporates cultural issues that were relevant to the late 1970s, such as tension over government spending on science, social unrest, and environmental concern, turning simple education into a “cultural moment,” and showing viewers how science is relevant to themselves and the future of their planet

(Sorensen, 2013).

Shew (2013) determined dialogue is “kairological” in two ways: that it does not only occur in chronological time, but also “imposes its own time in order to see how life

39 is disclosed to us” and that it “denotes a moment in which we are pushed into the open,” demanding our “receptivity and response” (p. 55). Likewise, Cosmos places its own moment in time within the context of the show and forces its viewers to not only be mere observers of each episode, but transports them into the situation and makes them think about their own places within themes such as nuclear war and global warming. In a recent edition of the self-titled novel based on the show, Tyson wrote in the foreward that the series revealed “a hidden hunger in us all to learn about our place in the universe and embrace why that matters intellectually, culturally and emotionally” (cited in Overbye, 2014, para. 6).

The series uses metaphors that seem familiar to viewers to help them feel more comfortable with scientific concepts. For example, Sagan compares the ocean to the

“sea of space” which helps to convey space as conquerable and familiar (Lessl, 1985).

In the seventh episode of Cosmos, “The Backbone of Night,” he declares,

Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers and we are wanderers still. We have lingered along the shores of the cosmic ocean long enough. Finally it is time to set sail for the stars.

Sorensen (2013) found in her analysis the exterior of Sagan’s Ship of the

Imagination, which he used as though to travel through space and time in the show, resembled a dandelion, as mentioned earlier, which gives “familiarity to the unfamiliar” and “comfort to the potentially uncomfortable,” uniting the audience with their “familiar world” and the rest of the universe (p. 23). At the beginning of each episode the dandelion ship flies across the screen, similarly to the Imperial Cruiser in the first scene of Star Wars, and establishes a connection between the two, as both had cutting edge special effects for their time and represented a voyage into the cosmos and brought far- away galaxies close to home (Sorensen, 2013). At the beginning of each episode of

40 Cosmos, after the title appears, the words “A Personal Voyage” flash on the screen.

Sorensen believed this is meant so the viewers feel the content presented in the show impacts him or her specifically, that Sagan “wants this voyage to matter to each member of the audience individually as well as collectively” (p. 22).

During the 1970s, leading up to the release of the series in 1980, environmental concerns about pollution and pesticide use had spread throughout television and advertising. Television was also at a time when viewers were used to seeing controversial topics presented to them and did not shy away from it. These are examples of how the environment was set for entertainment, or the kairos during the time Cosmos was being produced and it set the stage for the show to present controversial issues such as climate change. In other words, Sorensen (2013) said,

“Sagan and Cosmos managed to ‘speak the language’ of current television, a language with which audiences were comfortable,” even if they did not consciously know that it felt familiar. Meanwhile, for programming executives relevance to political and social issues had become expected.

Harker (2007) proposed the idea of adding kairos to Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle, previously made up of logos, ethos, and pathos. In doing so, the triangle would become a pyramid which would contribute the “significance and influence of the passage of time and the importance of identifying the ethical ‘preferences’ that inevitably inform our arguments and actions in the world” (p. 93). The author said this would lead to asking the following useful questions for presenting the persuasive argument:

How can I identify and articulate the significance of moments in time that are crucial to my position? Can I do more to convey the urgency with which my audience should adopt or consider my position? How can I

41 engage my reader with my understanding of the impact of time on my position?” (Harker, 2007, p. 93).

These questions may be helpful in presenting arguments set forth by science television shows in order to form the rhetorical situation of their audiences. The kairos of

Cosmos would have been formed in the beginning of the show’s creation as Sorensen

(2013) explained,

The conscious production decisions made in response to the public opinions about science and scientists, the environment and preservation of the planet, and the prevailing forms of popular entertainment in the late 1970s determined [the] program’s popularity and impact. Its persuasive power was embedded within its rhetorical construction; that rhetorical construction was shaped by a deft ability to shape Cosmos’ presentation to the interests and concerns of its contemporary audience (p. 25-26)

Ehrenfreund, et al. (2010) developed a macro-environmental analysis for space exploration which investigated six current major environmental forces in the United

States including: economic, demographic, technological, legal, political, and socio- political. For each category they listed the trends and strategies which are also significant when investigating kairos within the remake, Cosmos: ASO. Understanding the cultural environment of science television is essential as Lessl (1985) proclaimed,

“Science cannot be thought of as an expression of individual cognition or personal expertise carried out in remote isolation from social or political isolations,” but that it “is best conceived in history as a social achievement built upon cooperative effort and sustained by the coordination of scientific and unscientific concerns” (p. 9).

Some of the important economic trends Ehrenfreund, et al. (2010) found included the recession, increasing governmental debt, and concern with health care. There are also a growing number of environmentally conscious citizens and while the Baby

Boomers are interested in space science, youth are mainly uninterested or indifferent to

42 it. The authors recognized that the public has become increasingly involved with the

Internet, perhaps the key to influencing this unobtained demographic. The government has also redirected NASA’s efforts to “develop innovative technologies, foster new industries, [and] strengthen Earth sciences and STEM education” (p. 506). Any of these

“forces” could likely be apparent in Cosmos: ASO as they reflect the current “kairotic” environment which may have shaped much of recent television production.

LaFollette (1982) had explained just a couple years after Cosmos aired that science television could be successful as long as it paid more attention to explaining the scientific process, describing the “values, goals, motives, and social system of science,” identifying how science contributes to attaining societal goals, and “placing scientific knowledge and research questions in social, cultural, philosophical, political, or historical context” (p. 187). This context is really what kairos seeks to utilize to make an audience feel comfortable with the arguments being presented. As expressed in a recent New York Times article, the remake of Cosmos came at “a critical moment for a society that is increasingly fragmented” and when deciding big issues such as

“exploring space or engaging in ambitious science research, we are going to have to start from some common experience” (Overbye, 2014, para. 13).

According to rhetorical theory, Cosmos: ASO will need to find this commonality to connect with the public and remain successful. The original series, however, explores the kairos of its own time in 1980, yet it is still widely admired today. In examination of both series the researcher will try to determine why this popularity remains withstanding.

Perhaps some of the important cultural issues of 1980 are still salient today or maybe

43 Sagan connected with viewers on a level that has transcended time. The following section on the ethos of the host may lead a little closer to finding an answer.

Ethos in Cosmos

For a speaker to have ethos it is required that he or she obtain credibility with the audience, yet in order to reach this, Braet (1992), said the speaker must also have personality and character. Rhetorical theory shows a positive, previously established reputation of the speaker can make it easier to convince an audience of a message

(Sorensen, 2013). Before Cosmos aired, Sagan had already published successful books and had been a regular on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson; he had already created his own likeable persona.

Likewise, Tyson had previously hosted the PBS show, NOVA scienceNow, currently hosts the StarTalk Radio show (which became the first late night science talk show following the success of Cosmos: ASO), and had appeared many times as a guest on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. A good example of his credibility came recently on February 15, 2013 when a large meteor hit Russia, injuring more than

1500 people, and left many confused and frightened across the globe. NBC News immediately called Tyson and asked him to clarify what had happened on their TODAY news segment, followed by various other news sources that called upon him for interviews or appearances to give the world a trustworthy, understandable explanation.

This proved the value of Tyson’s ability to convey science to the public, as well as his perceived credibility by society, which may have helped to persuade audiences of his message.

Aristotle, however, argued this credibility must be acquired not by the “audience’s preconceived ideas about the speaker” but from the delivery of the speech itself; “true

44 credibility results when the audience attributes three qualities to the speaker because of what is said,” which are: good sense, virtue, and goodwill (Braet, 1992, p. 311). Some of that recognition may have helped build initial interest in both series, but it was not until

Sagan built up his ethos on Cosmos, that he was able to maintain worldwide fame

(LaFollette, 2013).

Braet (1992) had his own interpretation of Aristotle’s ethos and he believed because the audience “enjoys listening to speeches which mirror its own nature, the speaker would do well to adapt himself and what he says to the ethe or characters of the audience” (p. 313). He explained, “an audience which sees itself reflected in the speaker will give ethos and thus trust” (p. 313). In other words, a television personality such as Sagan or Tyson must understand his audience well enough to connect with them on a level that goes beyond acting as the stereotypical elitist scientist, but on a more everyday level of the common lay person if he wants to establish a significant connection, and therefore strong ethos.

Similarly, Sorensen (2013) believed if Sagan presented himself with an air of superiority it would have led to the downfall and dismissal of the program, but he needed to present amiable characteristics in order for the show to thrive. The author said if the speaker is “trustworthy, knowledgeable, and interesting” then the audience will be more open to the persuasion of the speaker’s message (p. 29). She explained that although a televised scientist can benefit from the credibility of his or her profession, the speaker needs to also be personally appealing in order to create a

“character.” A projected persona breaks down “the audience’s natural barriers or tendency to be critical, just as ethos does” and therefore, the persona would allow the

45 speaker to “present the audience with information they may otherwise resist or reject because they are wrapped up in the ‘character’ who displays traits they find interesting and appealing” (p. 35). This aided Cosmos in presenting politically controversial topics just as experts on television have also appeared to have the power to influence political views (Page, et al., 1987).

Sagan appears to viewers as a calm, trustworthy, everyman without giving up his intellectual integrity. Sorensen (2013) described his narration as “dreamy,”

“nonthreatening in tone or content,” and even “reminiscent of a bedtime story,” using language to describe the universe in a way which seems almost more spiritual than scientific (p. 45). Cosmos takes its viewers beyond what is expected of a typical educational documentary; it entertains as it carries them along on a journey. In the first episode, “Shores of the Cosmic Ocean”, Sagan casually leans against a rock with ocean waves crashing behind him. He holds out a dandelion seed, allowing it to blow away in the wind, while beckoning to the audience: “Come with me.” Throughout the series Sagan maintains his casual demeanor and “real” identity, connecting with those at home. From observing this first hour that viewers are exposed to Cosmos, Sorensen found,

His [Sagan’s] lack of fussiness about his appearance, his willingness to squint his eyes rather than hiding them behind sunglasses is an exposure of his “true” self. A demonstration of his sincerity and trustworthiness, he does not appear to hide behind makeup or other falsifications of television (p. 50).

The formation of persona by the blending of credibility and “character” became a problem Sagan faced in his career from rejection by his colleagues for communicating science to the public. Sorensen (2013) said, “In popular science and in Cosmos in particular, creation of persona is essential to gaining ethos—but it also creates friction

46 with orthodox (or ‘traditional’) science” (p. 28). In order to effectively make science interesting to the public, sometimes it must be “mysticized” slightly and mythos must be created to keep it entertaining, and ethos aids its construction. Because of this, Sagan was denied entry into the National Academy of Sciences for popularizing science for a lay audience in this nonconventional way and therefore deviating too far from the scientific norm (Sorensen, 2013). Analysis of both series will determine if this same ethos has persisted in Cosmos: ASO, creating effective science television once again, and this success may offer some condolence to Sagan’s hardships in popularizing science.

Aethos in Cosmos

While there have been various interpretations of aethos, in Sorensen’s (2013) dissertation it is recognized as an increase in persuasion, “by using sensory elements to create a new framework through which an audience receives the information or arguments presented by a speaker” (p. 57). Aethos is typically thought of as a “space” that is created although it is not necessarily a physical location, but “a space that is used to habituate creatures to new routines” (p. 59). Only after ethos has been obtained by the speaker, aethos allows the use of audio and visual elements in order to create this space, also known as a “haunt.” This can be used to shape a frame for the speaker’s argument and emotionally or mentally manipulate the viewers to come to the speaker’s point of view. Sorensen claimed this “haunt” made Cosmos’ audience more open to persuasion because viewers’ own frames would not be applied to what they were seeing, but to the frames which were developed by the show. Sagan uses this rhetorical effect to direct the audience to form a single interpretation, leading to a similar unified reaction.

47 Sorensen (2013) found television could establish an effective arena by recreating a scene that is comfortable to most viewers or by constructing a totally unique environment, keeping the speaker in control if done successfully. By either method, she explained, “Through imagery and sound, music and pictures, speed and repetition, people can become quickly ‘habituated’ to the new environment created through entertainment” and be more susceptible to adopting a new point of view (p. 64). She examined some ways Cosmos effectively utilizes aethos to create successful science television. It maintained timelessness through DVD sales and has been featured on websites like Hulu.com for free viewer access so that it is easily accessible even though it had been broadcast years before.

The show creates a shared “space” with its viewers through repetition of aethos, displaying a certain kind of imagery, sound, and narration that remains consistent throughout the series. Although the content varied for each episode, the overall theme of the content stayed the same and acted as something fans can recognize and connect with even after 30 years. Sorensen (2013) explained, “While the ‘locations’ depicted may not have been the same every night, the approach to building them and introducing them/portraying them stayed consistent throughout the entire series run” (p. 72).

Cosmos: ASO had already been announced at the time of Sorensen’s research and she believed the specific aethos of the original series may create some backlash from fans if it is drastically changed in the remake, potentially breaking the consubstantiality.

However, she predicted the remake might reference the “haunt” of the original without attempting to completely replicate it. Further research will uncover if this is the case or if

Cosmos: ASO will completely forgo the shared “space” established by the original.

48 Cosmos’ “haunt” consists of familiar, contemporary images to generate aethos for its target audience that are peaceful, rather than the hostile environments that were normally used for space during the 1970s. It has special effects similar to, and even rivaling, Star Wars, luring in fans starved for another adventure through space

(LaFollette, 2013). Instead of showing an intimidating ship, like the Death Star, Sagan’s ship resembles a dandelion. Very serene images are used throughout each episode, and particularly during more controversial topics such as climate change and evolution to help ease tension. Sometimes nostalgic references are employed as well to keep the audience emotionally vulnerable, opening them up to persuasive arguments (Sorensen,

2013). The use of imagery to trigger memories in the expected audiences also helps to increase viewers’ comfort. Sorensen (2013) said by displaying scenes reminiscent of

Star Wars, it helped change the poor reputation space had as distant, unattractive, and uninteresting and recast its image.

At times viewers become so carried away with the host and environment of a show they form an emotional bond with the television host, sometimes called a parasocial relationship. Hartmann and Goldhoorn (2011) defined this as, the “illusionary experience of being engaged in real social interaction with a TV performer during exposure” (p. 1105). This can happen when one becomes so entranced with the viewing the line between reality and fantasy becomes blurred and the experience feels real. This is partially achieved by the image the host presents, such as with strong eye contact and hand gestures or verbally addressing the audience (Hartmann &

Goldhoorn, 2011). Sagan creates consubstantiality with his audience by combining carefully chosen imagery and masterful narration. He forms a bond with viewers by

49 speaking as though directly to them through their television screens, sharing the experience of discovering the universe together:

Now, imagine yourself a visitor from some other and quite alien planet. You approach the earth with no preconceptions. Is the place inhabited? At what point can you decide? When we look at the whole Earth, there are no signs of life. We must examine it more closely (cited in Sorensen, 2013, p. 74).

Sorensen (2013) wrote about yet another way Cosmos can affect viewers on a deep psychological level. The “mirroring effect” is a neurological connection between what is observed and what is experienced manifests in a physically measurable way in a spectator. She gave the example of watching someone on television biting into a sour pickle and then the salivary glands being activated in the viewer. This is how she explained the emotional transferal that takes places between the imagery, music, and narration of Cosmos which helps to persuade its viewers by influencing how they feel.

Therefore, when the audience is led through a single, unified “haunt” they should react in a similar (though not identical) way. Sorensen found that, as mentioned earlier, although there is no hypodermic needle approach to the rhetoric of science television, there is at least a likely response viewers will have to emotional stimulation. Some of the emotionally charged persuasive tools she found within the original series included its soothing and melodic music, comforting scenes of the ocean waves, connections to

Star Wars, and perhaps more powerfully, images of our fragile Earth and nuclear explosions.

Some of these examples are also cleverly utilized for forming enthymemes within the series as a rhetorical device. Sorensen (2013) emphasized, “In Cosmos, what is being argued is largely unsaid” (p. 76). Enthymemes are used to convey messages and,

“refer to an argument with premises (or a conclusion) that are not explicitly stated”

50 (Walton and Reed, 2005, p. 340). This can be done in text, but also with imagery.

Walton and Reed (2005) said when forming an argument that is structurally correct, the missing conclusion should be true and represent common knowledge, or at least be plausible and in context. An example found in Sorensen’s research involved Sagan focusing on an image of the Earth appearing beautiful, but small and fragile, then switching to a mushroom cloud while talking about nuclear weapons. He did not finish his unstated argument that nuclear weapons would destroy all that is beautiful and fragile on Earth, but the message was still clearly received that way by viewers.

Another enthymeme example from Sorensen’s (2013) research involved Sagan peering through the window of his Ship of the Imagination at an alien planet (similar to

Earth, such as in age) in the final episode. His view begins from far away and as the ship gets closer he keeps reminding the audience that no life is yet visible. It is only when he gets much closer that we know the planet is in fact inhabited, rather than outwardly expressing the difficulty in determining life on other worlds. She explained, suddenly the planet gets dark and Sagan lists potential reasons: “ravaged land,”

“poisoned air,” “climate change,” “plague,” and “nuclear war” (p. 79). He then finds it is nuclear war that destroyed the planet and uses strong emotional language such as,

“never again a love, or a child…no more songs from the earth” (cited p. 79). After this the view changes to the Earth and ends in an image of a mushroom cloud and other explosions follow (Sorensen, 2013). It is a clear connection between the fate of an alien planet and that of our own planet, using emotionally triggering language and imagery to unsettle viewers of the consequences of nuclear weapons and our possible destruction without explicitly saying it.

51 Since it is a strong form of persuasion, Cosmos: ASO will also be examined for its use of enthymemes in building up its own aethos. There is also the chance the remake will completely skip use of this rhetorical technique, however, Tyson had clearly demonstrated its use on his own, over a year before the series had been broadcast. On

February 15, 2013, after he had spoken to various news sources about the large meteor which hit Russia, as was mentioned earlier, his many social media followers looked to

Twitter to see what else he had to say. Because of the fact that the meteorite had not been detected and many were injured, Tyson could have complained about the lack of funding for NASA in order to boost awareness or try to motivate fans to support an increase in the budget for astronomy funding, as he frequently does with the press.

Instead, he simply posted, “One twentieth of one percent: The fraction of NASA's budget allocated to locating Killer Asteroids” (Tyson, N. d., 2013a). This was followed by other tweets including, “The 15 Feb 2013 Russian meteor, carried 25X the energy of the

Hiroshima bomb. Exploding 30km up, it ‘only’ shattered windows” and “Had the 15

February 2013 Russian meteor exploded 0.6 km high, as in Hiroshima, no person in

Chelyabinsk would have survived” (Tyson, N. d., 2013b; Tyson, N. d., 2013c). Without being obvious, Tyson allowed fans to draw the conclusion he wanted them to, therefore constructing a much more persuasive argument by letting them feel as though they were coming to certain conclusions on their own. Perhaps Tyson and the writers of

Cosmos: ASO will carry over similar tactics for the remake.

Mythos in Cosmos

Once the kairos, ethos, and aethos have been established, they can be incorporated together to form the mythos, or fictional elements, which may be the key to maintaining audience interest in science television. Following Sorensen’s (2013)

52 definition of mythos, it can be described as “archetypical storylines, characters or other elements, which would be familiar or recognizable, in some way, to the audience” (p.

82). Science fiction, dramatization, and storytelling are becoming increasingly recognized as methods for popularizing science, particularly in television. Using narrative components to tell stories about science has been found successful at improving comprehension, generating more interest and engagement, increasing self- efficacy through modeling, influencing beliefs, and persuading an otherwise resistant audience (Dahlstrom & Ho, 2012).

Mixing fact with fantasy has been a tactic used in science television from early on. By the late 1950s research was already being done to examine the effects this fusion had on television viewers and it had become so popular, “even the best science communicators admitted that they were now engaged in show business, competing for audience attention in an image- and information-rich world” (LaFollette, 2002, p. 67).

Recent studies have focused on the effects of entertainment science television such as increasing knowledge, influencing attitudes, and causing viewers to take action in their own lives by incorporating storytelling into educational programming (Dhingra, 2006).

For example, Barnett, et al. (2006) found building familiarity within a production with fictional elements leads viewers to believe images that are unreal are actually realistic even after just one viewing of a science fiction film. This can “often lead to a changed perception or understanding of science or a scientific phenomenon [sic] despite the fact that audience members are watching entertainment” (p. 180). While some productions in the science fiction genre get a bad reputation for misguiding

53 viewers when it comes to portraying science, Cosmos is careful to maintain veracity while helping its viewers understand the universe in an engaging, familiar way.

While typically associated with films meant for entertainment purposes only, the dramatization of science and creation of mythos prove to be an excellent teaching tool.

This rhetorical instrument adds a “mythopoetic element of fantasy, which creates hybrid of science education and science fiction” (Sorensen, 2013, p. 83). Today there is even a degree program in the UK which allows university students to study the art of blending science with fiction, taught by professors who believe it is “a cultural phenomenon that encourages an imaginative way of observing and interpreting the world” (Brake &

Thornton, 2003, p. 31). While many have criticized the use of fiction when teaching science because it may misconstrue the facts, the program offers courses that not only teach topics in science but the history, politics, culture, and controversy surrounding them.

Students are taught to examine how society is impacted and therefore what will be interesting and entertaining to them when forming a story behind scientific concepts and endeavors. The faculty in charge of the program said, “Science fiction can be used to help demystify science, highlight its social and cultural context, and act as a bridge to public consciousness, providing an opportunity to tackle pseudo-science head-on” (p.

34). Mythos does not necessarily mean total science fiction, but it is a tool that incorporates it into science television, intertwining itself with all of the educational facets of a show to make a series that keeps the public informed as well as entertained. As

Sorensen (2013) explained in her dissertation, “Mythos provided an element of ‘magic’

54 in the science to capture the audience’s imagination” and resulted in long lasting popularity (p. 103).

By incorporating kairos, ethos, and aethos, Sorenson (2013) claimed fictionalization, or production of mythos, is inevitable in science television. She explained, “Popular science walks a line between orthodox science and science fiction: it is a representation of truth but in a way that fictionalizes it” (p. 85-86). Through creation of this fictional representation, audience interest is captured and viewer retention is obtained. Using the concept of mythos, Sagan takes his audience on an emotional and dramatic journey through each of the 13 episodes of Cosmos. He brings viewers on a journey through space and time, bringing historical figures to life as characters in a drama, and flying around the cosmos in a “spaceship” to see the Earth in a new light. Sorensen added, “Some of these explanatory depictions in Cosmos are pictures, but most are computer renderings. Because they are representations rather than reflections of places or things, an element of fictionalization is interwoven with the science” (p. 97). She found dramatizing content to be not only helpful but necessary for science television to achieve success and believed the visuals are not reflections of the data, but fictionalized translations.

Sagan presents a “dramatic structure” that is recognizable to the audience, making the content seem more familiar (Sorensen, 2013). For example, Sorensen

(2013) said, “This idea of mythos as an element that connects the audience with the story is critical to understanding the way the narrative of evolution is constructed in

Cosmos” (p. 89). She also mentioned memorable visual depictions in Cosmos such as the birth of galaxies, the DNA replication process, and the magnificent Library of

55 Alexandria. Similarly, in his analysis of the series, Lessl (1985) found, “From the naturalistic vision Cosmos brings to the viewer a sense of the relatedness between the human species and the universe, a relatedness that manifests itself in ecological values of self-preservation and respect for nature” (p. 10). He wrote about the mysticism of

Cosmos which draws a parallel in the show between space exploration and historic seafaring, depicting space travel as “a continuation of the oceanic exploration of past centuries, which he [Sagan] regards as a scientific enterprise,” taking viewers on a

“sacred voyage, a pilgrimage to the place of our origins and beyond,” rather than simply maintaining an audience that feels like passive receivers of knowledge (p. 181).

The creation of successful mythos can be complicated, incorporating various mechanisms such as including specific symbols, connecting with the audience on an emotional level rather than just an intellectual one, and building an experience throughout a television series instead of various episodes strung together. Rather than forming blatant political or social stances on important issues, the “myth” can be employed to lend a “slant of fictionalization” without alienating the audience before the

“point” is made (Sorensen, 2013, p. 84-85). For Cosmos, Sorensen (2013) said the aim is to convince viewers to fund the space program and to understand the applicability of science to their own lives. This may be very useful in covering topics politically and religiously charged which appear in the show such as evolution and climate change.

While mythos may create a slant for persuading viewers, Sagan also offers the audience the power to decide what they will do with the new information (Sorensen,

2013). He leaves it up to the viewers to come to their own conclusions while merely

56 presenting the facts, yet provides the right rhetorical situation to guide them in a certain direction.

While some of the effects of science television have been previously studied and are important to understand, it is critical to examine the process of producing those results such as how the narrative is carefully crafted and what skills a host needs to masterfully present them. After conducting a meta-analysis of literature on science television, Dhingra (2006) believed before research should be done on the effects of science television on viewers, we need to “first explore the construction of science stories on screen and all that this process entails” as well as “understand how and why science stories are shaped the way they are” though few studies had yet to examine this (p. 118).

Therefore, this thesis will explore the rhetorical style of both series of Cosmos to understand how each of the episodes were constructed to be effective at engaging its audiences in science, particularly using mythos (storytelling) to achieve success.

Sorensen (2013) predicts that while the inclusion of mythos in the remake of Cosmos will differ from the original, it must still keep the same essence or fear rejection by fans of the 1980 version. This research seeks to perform a more in-depth analysis of the rhetorical elements of kairos, ethos, aethos, and how they are used to form mythos which exist within Cosmos, as well as within its remake, Cosmos: A Spacetime

Odyssey, in order to determine similarities and differences between the two productions. The results of this analysis will aid in the understanding of how future science television programs can also be successful in achieving a large viewership and increased interest in science.

57 Interview with Steven Soter

Steven Soter is one of the co-writers of both Cosmos and Cosmos: A Spacetime

Odyssey. He worked alongside Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan to create some of the most popular and influential science television ever produced and has received an Emmy award for Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming. I had the privilege of discussing with him his work and science television in general and with his permission I have included the following interview:

A.M.: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey did well in the highly sought after 18-49 age group. In this demographic many are choosing or pursuing their career paths as well as voting. Do you think television is the best medium for encouraging interest in science and science policy issues or should the scientific community be focusing its efforts elsewhere?

S.S.: Television is probably the most effective medium for introducing science to a wide popular audience. But popular science books, articles in websites and magazines, and first rate exhibitions in science museums are also important.

A.M.: How do you think the switch from public to commercial television impacted the show? Do you think it was particularly beneficial for a conservative news channel like Fox to broadcast Cosmos?

S.S.: In 1980 there were relatively few television channels, while today there are hundreds, so we can't really compare the impact. I would guess that many more people watched the new Cosmos series on the Fox Network than if had it been on public television. Fox heavily promoted it, and offered a production budget that public television would not have been able to match. Also, Fox allowed Cosmos Studios to have broad editorial control, which public television was evidently not prepared to do. At the same time, the Fox partnership with National Geographic brought in much of the public television audience to Cosmos. Unfortunately, there was also a downside of going with Fox -- an excessive number of jarring commercial interruptions marred the intellectual and artistic continuity of every episode. Many people complained to me about this. Regarding your second question, note that Fox News is only a part of the parent Fox Network and had nothing to do with Cosmos. But the association of Cosmos with the Fox Network must have been a “head-snapper” for many people, and no doubt increased the audience, if only out of curiosity.

58 A.M.: Do you believe there has been more outrage now or when the original series aired, from creationists and those who don’t believe in the anthropogenic effects of climate change? Do you think this difference has anything to with the switch to commercial broadcasting on a major network?

S.S.: The new Cosmos was greeted with more noise from creationists than the old one, because creationists are now more numerous and organized, and the Internet pays attention to their antics. This has little to do with the television venue. Also, there were no climate change deniers when the original Cosmos appeared in 1980.

A.M.: Have you noticed any other specific cultural or educational differences relating to science during the time that the original series aired versus the remake?

S.S.: The present extent of anti-science sentiment in this country would have shocked us in 1980. The campaign to discredit climate science in particular is very disturbing, and the slanted coverage of that subject by Fox News has only increased the level of disinformation.

A.M.: In a StarTalk radio interview you said Ann Druyan brought “the heart” to Cosmos or why it should touch the audience and you brought the critical scientific view. Do you think in future science television this kind of collaboration or blending of facts and feelings is necessary for success?

S.S.: Not necessarily for success, but it certainly enhances the impact and memorability of the content.

A.M.: Unlike the original series, the remake of Cosmos contains a lot of animation. What was it like to incorporate this new element while writing the script and can you explain what kind of impact this might have had on the show?

S.S.: We wrote the scripts without animation in mind. The production team decided to use animation only after the first draft scripts of all the episodes were completed.

A.M.: Do you believe that storytelling and dramatization contributed to the success of both series of Cosmos? If so, do you think this may be central to creating effective science television in the future?

S.S.: Absolutely. The history of science is rich in great human drama and is a fascinating subject in its own right.

59 Research Questions

A coded content analysis of each episode of both Cosmos and Cosmos: A

Spacetime Odyssey are required to achieve a more complete understanding of how specific elements of rhetoric found by Sorensen (2013) are communicated within the original series and how this compares to its remake. This will offer a deeper understanding of the structure of science television and how persuasion may be used to craft successful science programming in the future. This examination is guided by the following questions:

RQ1a. What elements of kairos were present in Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey?

RQ1b. How did the elements of kairos compare with those of Cosmos?

RQ2a. What elements of ethos were present in Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey?

RQ2b. How did the elements of ethos compare with those of Cosmos?

RQ3a. What elements of aethos were present in Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey?

RQ3b. How did the elements of aethos compare with those of Cosmos?

RQ4a. What elements of mythos were present in Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey?

RQ4b. How did the elements of mythos compare with those of Cosmos?

60 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

Design

This study used a mixed method content analysis through an open and directed method of coding. This format follows the work of Anselm Strauss and Juliet Corbin in which they developed guidelines for analyzing data from the grounded theory method, broken up into three categories: open, axial, and selective coding (Benaquisto, 2008a).

The method of analysis used for this research is open coding, which is the first phase for examining raw data and grouping it into categories. Later, axial coding may be used to compare specific categories, followed by selective coding which can be employed as a potentially quantifiable coding method in which the groupings have already been determined and new classifications are much less likely to be found. Axial and selective coding methods, which may be useful in refining the results of initially coded data, have sometimes been considered controversial because they may exclude new potential classifications, while open coding allows for a broader range of data classification

(Seidel & Urquhart, 2013).

Though Benaquisto (2008b) explained coding is not a linear process, and that it can be difficult at times to classify exactly which type of coding method a study should fall into, an open-type coding method works particularly well for this research.

Sorensen’s (2013) data has not yet been coded and therefore it is likely to find new, emerging categories throughout the analysis. This method is also superior to others because, “This mode of observation is especially, though not exclusively, appropriate to research topics and social studies that appear to defy simple quantification” such as the

61 preliminary research within this study which is not yet easily categorized (Babbie, 2010, p. 324).

The coding guidelines in this research, while new, are not entirely unstructured as is the case with some open coding methods, but was organized following Sorensen’s

(2013) dissertation. Her previous research on the Cosmos series from 1980, and creation of a framework to understand why the show may have been so popular and effective at generating interest in science, paved the way for further analysis based on her findings. This led to a directed method of coding constructed for an initial coding scheme, based on Sorensen’s and others’ previous theory and research, supporting and extending the earlier studies on which it was based (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005).

Due to the structured, sometimes quantifiable, nature of the coding materials this study falls under the category of a mixed method. This enjoys the benefits of both open- ended qualitative research in which new, unforeseen categories can emerge, but also the systematic form of quantitative study is also employed and allows findings to be examined in a more organized, reproducible way. A mixed method enables this research to provide a fuller picture and deeper understanding of its findings, rather than relying on a quantitative or qualitative method alone, and therefore “offers a powerful third paradigm choice that often will provide the most informative, complete, balanced, and useful research results” (Johnson, et al., 2007, p. 129).

A coding analysis designed to gain a more in-depth view of Sorensen’s (2013) qualitative research demonstrates not only that the specific elements she found within her research may be reproducible and refined in another form of analysis, such as this mixed methods coding approach, but may also uncover other examples and trends she

62 may not have found. This research additionally studies the remake, Cosmos: ASO, to see if it too demonstrates similar elements and how they compare with those in the original. Detailed coding worksheets were designed to serve as a reference for the researcher to code each episode of both series, though data was entered into Microsoft

Word rather than individual printed sheets. Trained co-coders also randomly analyzed

15% of the sample and their results were very similar to those of the researcher. Coding guidelines were constructed to ensure accurate analysis and were referred to by both the researcher and co-coders throughout the research process.

Sampling

Using DVD versions of both Cosmos and Cosmos: ASO, each episode of both

13-part series was coded and analyzed for this study. This resulted in a 26 episode sample. The DVD versions were chosen because when the remake aired, Cosmos was taken off of Hulu.com and replaced with the new series. Since Cosmos: ASO was also only available on Netflix.com, DVD versions of both series were chosen for use with this study for consistency, ease, and so that co-coders may be able to view episodes without the need for his or her own Netflix subscription.

Coding Categories

The categories included in the coding sheets were based on the prior research of

Sorensen (2013) and other theories of rhetoric. Sorensen had previously analyzed

Cosmos, building a framework which suggests effective science television can be achieved by including certain rhetorical elements: kairos, ethos, aethos, and mythos.

After thoroughly exploring the results of her work, her findings were narrowed down into the categories that were examined by this research. These particular categories were designed to offer the strongest examples of each of the rhetorical elements and to

63 further explore Sorensen’s findings. They were also structured to be clearly analyzed through a coding process and to be replicable by future studies to compare other science series to the results found in this research.

The coding sheets began with identifying information about each episode, such as the episode number, title, and air date, as well as whether the episode appeared in

Cosmos or Cosmos: ASO. Then categories were arranged to examine one or more questions about the four aspects of rhetoric examined by Sorensen (2013). Beginning with kairos, the environment during which the series aired, space was allotted for the researcher to note any clear example of a cultural reference and include a brief description of the narrative or any type of image or visual which portrayed it. Then there were five different choices to select into which type of reference the example fell. Based on Sorensen’s initial findings on Cosmos, these included: political, health, environmental, creation, and other. Each of these options were clearly defined in the coding guidelines for both clarity and consistency for the coder and co-coders. The

“other” option had a space to write-in a cultural reference salient to the time of the series that was not represented by one of the options and had not yet been uncovered be previous research.

In examining ethos, the credibility and persona of the host, the researcher indicated the host’s overall tone or tones throughout the episode. The options for this item included: calm/soothing, excited, ominous, angry, sad/disappointed, and other.

Again, for the “other” option the researcher could have written in other clearly dominant tones of the host. These options were chosen to coincide with Sorensen’s (2013)

64 evaluation of Carl Sagan’s narrative tones in her study of Cosmos and then others were added to aid in examination of the remake.

Next, there was a space for brief description of any clear example of how the host directly (verbally or bodily) addressed the audience or used language which included or invited them as participants in the episode. Patterns of this had been found in both Sorensen and Lessl’s (1985) research on Cosmos, but its importance is also appreciated through literature on parasocial interaction, a theory on the perceived relationship viewers have with a television host or performer. Some studies in this field suggest that a host’s techniques, such as verbally and bodily addressing his or her audience, can help strengthen a parasocial relationship and may even generate increased empathy in viewers, increasing effects of persuasion (e.g. Hartmann &

Goldhoorn, 2001; Cummins & Cui, 2014; Giles, 2002).

The categories for aethos examined the use of imagery throughout the two series. This included space for a description of the overall major form or forms of imagery used. While it may have been difficult to document the many changes in imagery throughout each episode, this included notes such as, “use of CGI throughout entire episode to visit various planets in the Milky Way” or “mainly animated to tell story of a historical figure” to get a general sense of the kind of images presented. Then the type of overall imagery in the episode was indicated from the choices: live action, CGI

(computer generated imagery), or animation. If two of these choices equally dominated an episode they may have both been chosen, but not all three. This was used to help gain a better sense of the type of imagery used for specific topics presented in the episodes and also to give an overall picture of the aesthetics of each series.

65 The next item offered space for any example of an enthymeme used in the episode. An enthymeme is a persuasive tactic in which the speaker presents part of an argument (through narration or imagery) but lets the audience come to the predetermined conclusion on their own (Walton and Reed, 2005). Sorensen (2013) found examples of this in Cosmos, such as Sagan portraying an alien world that resembled the Earth and speaking of its destruction by climate change or nuclear war with strong, emotionally charged language, followed by an image that looked like our planet which then switched to a mushroom cloud and explosions. This was meant to mirror our own issue with nuclear weapons and portrayed it negatively but without explicitly having to say it. Investigating examples like this throughout the two series may have helped to gain a better understanding of how the use of enthymemes have been used in persuasive science television.

The final category inspected mythos, the fictionalization, storytelling, or dramatization of science that was apparent in the sample. This offered space for any example of what Sorensen (2013) explained to be “archetypical storylines, characters or other elements, which would be familiar or recognizable, in some way, to the audience”

(p. 82). Following Sorensen’s findings, this may have included a story and model of the

Library of Alexandria or a depiction of the DNA replication process or birth of galaxies.

This may have also included an image or dialogue that helped the viewer become more connected or familiar with the scientific topics presented. Lessl (1985) found Cosmos used shots of an ocean and taking a voyage as metaphors for space exploration. This represented something physically close and understandable to the audience to explain something far away (physically, but also difficult to imagine) such as travel through

66 space so that the viewers may have felt more comfortable with it and found it easier to comprehend. Sorensen believed through her research that developing strong mythos was essential to creating successful science television; however, it had not yet been profoundly studied. The inclusion of this category in this research aimed to build on her hypothesis by offering clear examples throughout both series.

Analysis

All analysis was performed using coding sheets typed on Microsoft Word. This was chosen rather than the pen and paper method because the primary coding required by this study involved many written quotes, descriptions, and examples from each episode which used a lot of unnecessary material and may be complicated to analyze later. Therefore, for the sake of clarity, resource conservation, and ease of transferring data to graphs and charts, this method had been employed.

In addition to the work conducted by the researcher, two co-coders were also employed to analyze 15% of the sample, which is the standard in the field of communications. This increased the validity of the study while ensuring that others would be able to understand and reproduce the research and come to similar results.

Both of the co-coders held college degrees and demonstrated their capability of conducting the research. Both had previously seen a few episodes of Cosmos but had never watched an episode of Cosmos: ASO. They were trained in the co-coding process by the researcher, and carefully went over the coding guidelines designed for the study before participating in the research. The results of the researcher and two co- coders came out very similar. The only differences were that there were so many examples of each rhetorical device that the specific examples (such as different quotes

67 representing storytelling) sometimes varied, although they still showed that each device was present in abundance.

Early in the research process a pre-test was conducted with one of the co- coders. After receiving his feedback about the coding process, the researcher added the words “or using personification” to the last paragraph in the guidelines for explaining mythos so that it would read, “There is also an emphasis on imagery and dialogue that help the viewer familiarize herself with scientific topics, such as taking viewers on a voyage, using the ocean as a metaphor for space exploration, or using personification.”

Both the researcher and co-coder identified various examples of personification through the pre-test so this addition to the definition was added so that it would help future co- coders to recognize these types of examples in the sample.

The only major difference between the results of the researcher and co-coders was that in finding the cultural references used in the episode (under the Examining

Kairos category), the co-coders at times did not recognize all of the references. In the first episode, the researcher found a clear environmental reference because of an image of thick clouds on Venus while Tyson said, “Venus, where runaway greenhouse effect has turned it into a kind of hell.” Afterward, the co-coder said he didn't pick up on the “runaway greenhouse effect” as a reference to global warming. In later episodes this example was further used to explain climate change on Earth so it was apparent that it qualified as an environmental reference.

Co-coder knowledge of astronomy and other areas of science may not be as comprehensive as that of the researcher. Those with varying knowledge of science will code slightly differently because they may confuse actual astronomy terms as being

68 metaphors (such as in this first episode when Tyson referred to “rogue planets” also as

“orphan planets” which may be confused as personification, but in astronomy both of these terms are used) or may not pick up on certain references. As with any coding of this type, prior knowledge of the coders may have an effect on the coding results, but should not lead to drastically different results overall.

69 CHAPTER 4 RESULTS

The final sample consisted of 26 episodes. It included two full television series,

Cosmos and Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, each consisting of 13 episodes. The episodes all filled one hour time slots when they aired on television but since Cosmos was broadcast without commercial breaks they were, on average, about 10 minutes longer than episodes of Cosmos: ASO. The shortest episode of Cosmos: ASO had a running time of 40 minutes. Both series aired weekly on Sunday nights with Cosmos running from September 28th to December 21st, 1980 and Cosmos: ASO from March 9th to June 8th, 2014. Cosmos aired on public broadcasting on PBS while Cosmos: ASO aired on commercial broadcasting on 220 Fox and National Geographic channels around the world. The sample was coded using DVD versions of both series without any commercial breaks or advertisements.

RQ1a: What Elements of Kairos Were Present in Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey?

To understand the kairos of Cosmos: ASO, the researcher used coding sheets to examine each of the episodes (n=13) for contemporary cultural references that were of interest in 2014. This was followed by a description with quotes and examples to prove that the references were clearly present within the episode. Figure 4-1 shows the variance of how many different cultural references were found within each episode across the series. The average number of different types of references per episode was about three. The only episode of Cosmos: ASO which did not contain any of the cultural references was episode 10, “The Electric Boy.” When cultural references were used, they most commonly fell under the “Creation” category (28%), followed by “Religion”

(21%) which was one of the newly uncovered reference categories from the research,

70 “Environmental” (18%), “Challenging Authority” (15%) which was another new category,

“Political” (13%), and then Health (5%), as shown in Figure 4-3.

Creation

This was by far the most common type of cultural reference found in the series. It was found in every episode except for 10 and 12. Some examples of creation references found in the series included the Big Bang Theory, formation of the Earth, planets, and other astronomical objects, the life cycle of stars, and the evolution of life on Earth. In various episodes Tyson specifically described the Big Bang, beginning with episode one in which he used the Cosmic Calendar to show the timeline from the beginning of the universe to the creation of stars, galaxies, the Milky Way, and the solar system. Tyson explained the life cycle of stars, that we came to be made from them (we are “star stuff”), and how life formed on Earth (although, “We still don’t know how life got started”), emphasizing “the chance nature of existence” and evolution (episode 1).

Tyson stated in episode four that “according to some beliefs” the universe is only

6,500 years old. He then went on to explain that it must be much older because of the time it takes light to reach the Earth from objects much farther away than 6,500 light years. The episode also explained the formation of astronomical objects. Tyson said,

“A few hundred million years after the Big Bang, vast clouds of hydrogen and helium condensed into the first stars and galaxies” and that, “Space and time were created, too, and all the forces that bind matter together, including gravity.” Then at the end of the series he reminded viewers that, “We learned that the expansion began some 14 billion years ago with the explosive birth of the universe- the Big Bang” (episode 13).

Evolution was undoubtedly a strong recurring theme throughout the series.

Eleven of the 13 episodes of Cosmos: ASO discussed it. Tyson made very clear: “Some

71 claim that evolution is just a theory, as if it were merely an opinion. The theory of evolution, like the theory of gravity, is a scientific fact. Evolution really happened”

(episode 2). In episode four he said 30 million years ago, “Our ancestors were living in trees when that light started out. They weighed about five kilos and had long tails” and

320 million years ago, “Our distant ancestors were just leaving the water for the land.” In another episode that told the story of Joseph Fraunhofer’s discovery of spectroscopy, evolution was once again brought to attention when Tyson explained, “His spectral lines revealed that the visible cosmos is all made of the same elements. The planets, the stars, the galaxies, we, ourselves, and all of life. The same star stuff” (episode 5).

Episode 6 told one of Darwin’s correct predictions and of the evolution of scent.

Tyson also told viewers, “It makes good sense to revere the Sun and stars, because we are their children. The silicon in the rocks, the oxygen in the air, the carbon in our DNA, the iron in our skyscrapers, the silver in our jewelry were all made in stars billions of years ago. Our planet, our society, and we ourselves are stardust” (episode 8) and,

“There's an unbroken thread that stretches across more than three billion years that connects us to the first life that ever touched this world” (episode 9). In episode 11

Tyson explained evolution through genetic code and at the end of the series proclaimed, “We, who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and feelings of the cosmos, we've begun to learn the story of our origins, star stuff contemplating the evolution of matter, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness. We and the other living things on this planet carry a legacy of cosmic evolution spanning billions of years” (episode 13).

72 Religion

This category had emerged during the coding process and resulted in being the second most common cultural reference in the series. Episodes 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 11, and

13 all contained references to religion. Beginning with the first episode, animation was used to tell the story of Giordano Bruno, a rebellious monk spreading his ideas of astronomy, who read “books banned by the Church” in a time when “there was no freedom of thought in Italy,” and, “He was excommunicated by the Roman Catholic

Church in his homeland, expelled by the Calvinists in Switzerland, and by the Lutherans in Germany.” Tyson said this was during a time of no “separation of church and state” and referred to the Roman Catholic Church’s Inquisition as the “thought police” (episode

1). He later showed the Cosmic Calendar to explain the timespan of the universe and said, “Moses was born seven seconds ago. Buddha, six seconds ago. Jesus, five seconds ago. Mohammed, three seconds ago.”

Episode 3, titled “When Knowledge Conquered Fear,” had multiple references to religion and how early civilizations attributed natural occurrences like comets to angry

Gods, and that scientific understanding eventually replaced it. Tyson explained, “We hunger for significance, for signs that our personal existence is of special meaning to the universe. To that end, we're all too eager to deceive ourselves and others, to discern a sacred image in a grilled cheese sandwich or find a divine warning in a comet”

(episode 3). Tyson showed an animation of Isaac Newton and described him being

“obsessed with finding hidden messages in the words of the Bible. He combed through translations in several different languages, hoping to decipher coded instructions from

God” (episode 3).

73 Tyson also said of those who lived in the early 1600s around the time of

Newton’s birth that, “Everyone looked at the perfection of the clockwork motions of the planets in the sky and could only understand it as the work of a master clock maker…

There was only one way such a thing could come about in their imagination, only one answer for them: God. For reasons beyond our understanding, God just created the solar system that way. But this explanation is the closing of a door” (episode 3). He told that Newton’s laws “swept away the need for a master clock maker to explain the precision and beauty of the solar system. Gravity is the clock maker. Matter obeyed commandments we could discover, laws the Bible hadn't mentioned” (episode 3). Then in episode six, Tyson spoke similarly of the Ionians and their idea “that natural events were neither punishment nor reward from capricious gods. The workings of nature could be explained without invoking the supernatural” and that the Greek philosopher, Thales,

“kindled a flame that still burns to this day: The very idea of cosmos out of chaos, a universe governed by the order of natural laws that we can actually figure out” (episode

6).

Another episode described different major religions cooperating together in the name of science: “Christian and Jewish scholars were honored guests at the research institutes of Baghdad, Cairo, and other Islamic capitols” and that, “The reawakening to science that took place in Europe, hundreds of years later, was kindled by a flame that had been long tended by Islamic scholars and scientists” (episode 5). Then in episode seven, Tyson told why people inaccurately believed the Earth was created only a few thousand years ago based on the Bible. He also described the ancient holiday of

Saturnalia, “making it the latest in a long line of winter solstice holidays to be re-

74 purposed,” saying, “A couple of hundred years from now, when the early church fathers look for a way to attract more pagans, they'll decide to turn Saturnalia into Christmas”

(episode 7).

In episode 11 Tyson talked about Gilgamesh, a king of Mesopotamia who collected stories, and met a wise man named Utnapishtim “who told him the story of a flood that destroyed the world, and how one of the gods instructed Utnapishtim to build an ark to rescue his family and the animals. The earliest surviving account of the flood legend was written down in Mesopotamia, a thousand years before it was retold as the story of Noah in the Old Testament.” Tyson later remarked on Earth rocks that were launched out into space and likens those that reenter the atmosphere as meteorites to delivering “their precious cargo of life to re-seed the planet like Noah's ark” (episode

11).

Environmental

There were seven episodes which showed environmental references in Cosmos:

ASO. They were found in episodes 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 11, and 12. These references primarily focused on climate change, corporate profit at the expense of the environment, the changing environment of the Earth, and our reliance on non-renewable resources.

Some of these episodes spoke directly about how climate change is affecting our environment and ecosystem, such as in episode 2: “If the Arctic ice continues to dwindle due to global warming, the polar bears may go extinct.” In episode 11, Tyson blamed us for the growing problem of global warming: “We're pumping greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere at a rate not seen on Earth for a million years. And the scientific consensus that we're destabilizing our climate. Yet our civilization seems to be in the grip of denial; a kind of paralysis.”

75 The runaway greenhouse effect was introduced in the first episode by Tyson:

“Venus, where runaway greenhouse effect has turned it into a kind of hell,” while showing images of thick clouds on the planet Venus. This was later used to explain the greenhouse effect on Earth in episode 12. He explained, “Venus and Earth started out with about the same amount of carbon, but the two worlds were propelled along radically different paths, and carbon was the decisive element in both stories” (episode

12). Episode 12 had the most references to climate change, showing the negative effects that carbon dioxide has on our planet. Tyson says, “Funny thing, the measured increase in CO2 in the atmosphere tallies with the known amount we're dumping there by burning coal, oil and gas” (episode 12).

The series also made a point of our dangerous dependence on non-renewable recourses. In episode 6, Tyson said, “If we could figure out the trade secrets of photosynthesis, every other source of energy we depend on today- coal, oil, natural gas, would become obsolete… Artificial photosynthesis on a big enough scale could reduce the greenhouse effect that's driving climate change in a dangerous direction.”

Then in episode 9 he stated, “We just can't seem to break our addiction to the kinds of fuel that'll bring back a climate last seen by the dinosaurs; a climate that will drown our coastal cities and wreak havoc on the environment and our ability to feed ourselves.”

This episode also discussed different periods the Earth had gone through and how the different continents broke apart from Pangea: “Huge quantities of carbon dioxide came pouring out of the volcanic fissures. This greenhouse gas warmed the climate” (episode 9). It discussed how carbon dioxide and methane caused global warming followed by an ice age. “This witch's brew polluted the atmosphere and

76 radically destabilized Earth's climate. A sulfuric acid haze blocked incoming sunlight and darkened the planet. Global temperatures plummeted to subfreezing” (episode 9).

Episode seven, “The Clean Room,” used animation to tell the story of Clair

Patterson and his research on the harmful effects of using lead commercially. It also portrayed Robert Kehoe, a doctor hired by GM to raise scientific doubts about the dangers of lead. Tyson explained, “This was one of the first times that the authority of science was used to cloak a threat to public health and the environment.” Animated

Clair Patterson lost his research funding from the oil industry after telling representatives, “Wait, you're just gonna keep on putting millions of tons of poison into the air we breathe? If my research doesn't put you out of business, some future scientist will” (episode 7). The episode showed Patterson and Kehoe arguing together in court:

“It's irresponsible to mine millions of tons of toxic material and disperse it into the environment!” “If there was proof of harm, we would have found it.” “Not if your purpose is to sell lead” (episode 7). The episode showed many similarities to the problem with carbon dioxide emissions and might have been used to raise viewers’ concerns over corporate profit at the environment’s expense.

Challenging Authority

This category had also emerged during the coding process and resulted in being the fourth most common cultural reference in the series. References of this category appeared in episodes 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, and 13. Cosmos: ASO began with the story of

Giordano Bruno, a “natural-born rebel” (episode 1). He was “excommunicated by the

Roman Catholic Church in his homeland, expelled by the Calvinists in Switzerland, and by the Lutherans in Germany” but continued to share his ideas about the universe.

Although Bruno was put in confinement by the Inquisition for eight years, “he stubbornly

77 refused to renounce his views” (episode 1). Then in episode 3, Tyson explained, “At the time, the World Society of London was the world's clearinghouse of scientific discovery.

Its motto, ‘Nullius in verba,’ sums up the heart of the scientific method. It's Latin for ‘see for yourself.’ In other words, question authority.”

The series told the stories of different historical figures, highlighting the moments that they challenged authority. In episode 5, Mozi dreams “of government for the people and to argue against blind obedience to ritual and authority.” It showed Emperor Qin and his philosophy called legalism, “which is just what it sounded like, do as the law says or else. It's a philosophy that's not highly conducive to questioning authority”

(episode 5). Tyson explained, “Hundreds of scholars bravely resisted by trying to preserve the forbidden books. They were buried alive in the capitol. Science needs the light of free expression to flourish. It depends on the fearless questioning of authority, the open exchange of ideas” (episode 5). It also showed an animated Ibn al-Hazen telling others to questions everything and everyone.

Then in episode seven, the animated Clair Patterson determined to expose the negative effects of lead on human health and the environment. He stood up to the

American Petroleum Institute even after they tried to persuade him to stop studying lead, cut his funding, and tried to get him fired. He continued to conduct his research anyway and testified in court against a doctor, Robert Kehoe, an advocate for leaded gasoline, who proclaimed he has “more experience in this field than anyone else alive”

(episode 7).

Cecelia Payne was portrayed with animation in episode eight and learned a lesson: “Her carefully gathered evidence flew in the face of conventional scientific

78 wisdom. ‘How could I be right,’ she asked, ‘if that must mean that such a distinguished scientist was wrong?’” (episode 8). Payne said, “I was to blame for not having pressed my point. I had given in to authority when I believed I was right. If you are sure of your facts, you should defend your position” (episode 8). Tyson followed with, “The words of the powerful may prevail in other spheres of human experience, but in science, the only thing that counts is the evidence and the logic of the argument itself” (episode 8). Then in the final episode Tyson very directly said, “Question authority. No idea is true just because someone says so, including me. Think for yourself. Question yourself. Don't believe anything just because you want to. Believing something doesn't make it so”

(episode 13).

Political

Out of the full series, five of the episodes contained political references. They were found in episodes 5, 6, 11, 12, and 13. These references included stories of political leaders, praising the creation of democracy, the consequences of war, and the devastation of nuclear weapons. Some of the examples cited from these episodes included telling the story of Mozi, a Chinese philosopher and “military genius,” who dreamed of equality, ending poverty, and of a “government for the people and to argue against blind obedience to ritual and authority” (episode 5). It then portrayed Qin Shi

Huang becoming emperor and controlling “what you were allowed to write and think” although “science needs the light of free expression to flourish” (episode 5).

In episode 11, Tyson talked about the downfall of Mesopotamia and began discussing the possible destructions of a civilization: “One problem was the almost ceaseless warfare between the cities of Mesopotamia, which continually destroyed their achievements. They glorified military conquest and ultimately became its victims.” He

79 echoed this view of the destruction of war again in the following episode by describing the mass amounts of nuclear weapons created during the Cold War and discussed the

Space Race. Tyson said,

Whatever the reason we first mustered the enormous resources required for the Apollo program, however mired it was in Cold War nationalism and the instruments of death, the inescapable recognition of the unity and fragility of the Earth is its clear and luminous dividend, the unexpected gift of Apollo (episode 12).

Health

Only two episodes in the series had clear references to human health. These were found in episodes seven and 11. In episode seven Tyson talked about the widespread use of lead in ancient Rome and how it was used despite the fact it

“inevitably poisoned people, rendered them sterile and drove them mad” and why it was so harmful to the human body. Then later an animated researcher, Clair Patterson, said,

“Where do you suppose all that lead goes after it leaves the tailpipe? Think about what it might be doing to us and our kids” as he fought the oil industry to ban lead from being used in gasoline (episode 7). In episode 11, Tyson explained disease as one of the possible deaths of a civilization with the example of European invaders of the Americas:

“The real conquistadors were the armies of the pathogens that raced on ahead to infect and kill nine out of ten of all the Indians of North, Central, and South America. The great civilizations of the New World crumbled under the onslaught of invading microbes.”

RQ1b: How Did the Elements of Kairos Compare with Those of Cosmos?

Cosmos, which aired in 1980, originally used many cultural references similar to those later found in Cosmos: ASO. Although there were many strong examples of the use of these references within Cosmos (n=26), it was clear from the results that there were fewer of these references used in this series than in the remake (n=39). While this

80 study did not count how many individual references of each type were made in each episode, but how many episodes contained one or more of the references in the coded categories, there was still a significant difference in how many episodes used the references at all. Figure 4-2 showed the variance in the number of different types of cultural references for each episode across the series, which can be compared with figure 4-1. The only episode of Cosmos that did not contain any of the cultural references was episode 12, “Encyclopedia Galactica.” The average number of different types of references used per episode was about two.

Figure 4-5 depicts how many episodes contained at least one example of each type of reference throughout both series for comparison, showing Cosmos: ASO used more references across each category than Cosmos. The original series was similar to the remake in that the largest number of cultural references was in the “Creation” category (35%), followed by “Religion” (27%), but slightly different in that it was then followed by “Political” (15%), “Challenging Authority” (11%), “Environmental” (8%), and then “Health” (4%), as shown in figure 4-4. In particular, the largest difference was in the

“Environmental” category which was only clearly referenced in two episodes of Cosmos versus in seven episodes of Cosmos: ASO. The “Challenging Authority” category was also referenced in only three episodes of Cosmos, but in six episodes of Cosmos: ASO.

Creation

Similar to Cosmos: ASO, creation was the most commonly used reference in

Cosmos. Episodes 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 13 all contained this reference, resulting in more than one third of the cultural references found in this series to fall into this category. Some of the examples found within Cosmos contained references to the Big

Bang Theory, formation of the solar system, the life cycle of the stars, and evolution on

81 Earth. Many of the episodes discussed the age of the universe from the beginning of the series: “Science has revealed a universe some 15 billion years old. The time since the explosive birth of the cosmos, the Big Bang” (episode 1) to the end, when Sagan again explained the early universe in the final episode.

In episode two, the Cosmic Calendar was used to compress “all of time into a single cosmic year with the Big Bang on January first” (episode 2). Then, in episode nine, Sagan explained nuclear fusion inside of stars and how they formed the elements, as well as their life cycles: “Born in a gas cloud, maturing as a yellow sun, decaying as a red giant, and dying as a white dwarf enveloped in its shroud of gas.” Following that episode Sagan described the Big Bang and creation of the universe: “About 15 billion years ago all the matter and energy that make up the observable universe were concentrated into a space smaller than the head of a pin” (episode 10), as well as the overall structure of the universe.

Cosmos also put heavy emphasis on evolution and that the elements came from the stars. Episode 1 began with lines such as, “The cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself” and, “We are the legacy of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution.” Following this, in the next episode Sagan proclaimed, “Evolution is a fact, not a theory. It really happened” and then stated that there were “almost no important differences between apes and humans” (episode 2).

Similar to the remake, Sagan said, “The silicon in the rocks, the oxygen in the air, the carbon in our DNA the gold in our banks, the uranium in our arsenals were all made thousands of light-years away and billions of years ago. Our planet, our society and we ourselves are built of star stuff” and then later added, “The evolution of life on Earth is

82 driven in part through mutations by the deaths of distant stars. We are, in a very deep sense tied to the cosmos” (episode 9).

The evolution of whales and of the human brain were also described, leading to the end of the series when Sagan once again reminded us that, “Deep in the stellar furnaces nuclear fusion was creating the heavier atoms: carbon and oxygen, silicon and iron. These elements, the ash left by hydrogen were the raw materials from which planets and life would later arise” (episode 13). There were many similarities in how evolution, both cosmic and on Earth, were portrayed by both the original series and its remake, and both repeatedly expressed that evolution was not simply a theory but a fact, and that we exist today because of the stars. These topics were given high importance by both Cosmos and Cosmos: ASO and portrayed in different ways frequently throughout both series.

Religion

Similar to Cosmos: ASO, religion was the second most commonly found reference in Cosmos. Episodes 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, and 13 all contained references in the religion category. Many of these included a suppression of knowledge and ideas due to religious belief and conflict between science and religion. In episode 3, Sagan spoke of the Catholic Church’s hindrance of astronomy: “Supported by the church through the

Dark Ages, Ptolemy's model effectively prevented the advance of astronomy for 1,500 years” and, “The Catholic Church later put Copernicus' work on its list of forbidden books.” The episode portrayed Johannes Kepler and his reluctance to accept non- circular planetary motion: “It shook his faith in God as the Maker of a perfect celestial geometry” which later led to his excommunication from the Lutheran church “for his uncompromising independence on questions of belief” (episode 3).

83 Later, Sagan said that the Spanish Inquisition, “In the name of piety, in a mockery of their religion, the Spaniards utterly destroyed a society with an art, astronomy, and architecture the equal of anything in Europe” (episode 13). This final episode showed the Library of Alexandria and told the story of brave Hypatia as she

“stood at the focus at the epicenter of mighty social forces. Cyril, the Bishop of

Alexandria, despised her in part because of her close friendship with a Roman governor but also because she was a symbol of learning and science which were largely identified by the early Church with paganism” (episode 13). Sagan observed a crescent

Earth through the Ship of the Imagination and said, “Fanatic, ethnic, or religious, or national identifications are difficult to support when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars” (episode 13).

In “Heaven and Hell” the planet Venus was shown to explain the runaway greenhouse effect and was compared to Hell while the Earth in contrast was compared to Heaven. Sagan said, “This is the age of planetary exploration when our ships have begun to sail the heavens. In those heavens, there are some worlds much like Hell. Our planet is, in comparison, much like a Heaven. But the gates of Heaven and Hell are adjacent and unmarked” (episode 4). Also in this episode, Sagan remarked, “The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge. And there's no place for it in the endeavor of science” (episode

4).

Sagan discussed the tension between science and religion in the seventh episode when discussing 6th century islands of Greece: “This ordered and admirable

84 character of the universe was called cosmos. And it was set in stark contradiction to the idea of chaos. This was the first conflict of which we know between science and mysticism, between nature and the gods” (episode 7). He said, “It was here that the great idea arose: The realization that there might be a way to know the world without the god hypothesis. That there be principles, forces, laws of nature through which the world might be understood without attributing the fall of every sparrow to the direct intervention of Zeus” (episode 7).

Other references to religion included: “In many cultures, the customary answer is that a god or gods created the universe out of nothing. But if we wish to pursue this question courageously we must, of course, ask the next question: Where did God come from?” and “It is said that men may not be the dreams of the gods but rather that the gods are the dreams of men” from episode 10. Also, in episode 2, Sagan said, “The idea of a designer is an appealing and altogether human explanation of the biological world. But as Darwin and Wallace showed there's another way equally human and far more compelling.”

Political

In this series four episodes contained at least one political reference, including episodes 4, 6, 7, and 13. These references focused on political censorship, democracy, the high costs of war, and particularly the consequences of nuclear warfare. These arguments were similarly made in Cosmos: ASO, although they were presented in different ways. The addition of animation and the increased use of storytelling in the remake were used to make some of the same points but more commonly portrayed the lives of political leaders and scientists. In the original series, the narrative relied more heavily on Sagan’s own talent for telling stories, rather than showing them.

85 Some examples of the references in Cosmos included Sagan stating that, “The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge. And there's no place for it in the endeavor of science” (episode

4). Later in episode 6 he again brought up political censorship: “Because Holland was tolerant of unorthodox opinions it was a refuge for intellectuals fleeing the thought control and censorship of other parts of Europe much as the United States benefited enormously in the 1930s from the exodus of intellectuals from Nazi-dominated Europe.”

Then in episode seven, he said Democritus believed, “that poverty in a democracy was far better than wealth in a tyranny.”

In the final episode of the series there were many clear political references on costs of war and how this had impacted science: “The world impoverishes itself by spending a trillion dollars a year on preparations for war. And by employing perhaps half the scientists and high technologists on the planet in military endeavors.” It was also in this episode that he talked about a dream he had of the Earth’s destruction by nuclear weapons and commented, “Every thinking person fears nuclear war and every technological nation plans for it. Everyone knows its madness and every country has an excuse” (episode 13). Both series discussed nuclear weapons, although Cosmos puts more emphasis on the devastation of nuclear war while Cosmos: ASO spoke more of the destruction of war in general and how it had impacted science, particularly with a suppression of ideas.

Challenging Authority

This reference was much less represented in Cosmos than it was in Cosmos:

ASO. Only three episodes included this reference in the series, including episodes 6, 7, and 13, and tended to be less direct than in the remake. In episode six Sagan told the

86 story of Galileo being forced by the Catholic Church “under threat of torture, to recant the heretical position that the Earth went around the sun and not vice versa.” Galileo was then offered a professorship at the Dutch University of Leyden at a time when,

“Holland prospered in its freedom of thought” (episode 6). Sagan explained, “In Italy,

Galileo had announced other worlds. Giordano Bruno had speculated on intelligent life elsewhere. For this they were made to suffer brutally. But in Holland, the astronomer

Christiaan Huygens who strongly supported both ideas, was showered with honors”

(episode 6). The episode also spoke of Christiaan Huygens: “He was delighted that the

Copernican system was widely accepted in everyday life in Holland and acknowledged by astronomers, except those, he wrote who ‘were a bit slow-witted or under the superstitions imposed by merely human authority. Across the sea of space the stars are other suns’” (episode 6).

In the following episode, Sagan said on the islands of Greece: “No single concentration of power could enforce conformity. Free inquiry became possible. They were beyond the frontiers of the empires” and, “Once you are open to questioning rituals and time-honored practices you find that one question leads to another” (episode

7). Then in the final episode of Cosmos, Sagan warned: “In our tenure on this planet we've accumulated dangerous evolutionary baggage: Propensities for aggression and ritual submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders. All of which puts our survival in some doubt” and, “All assumptions must be critically examined. Arguments from authority are worthless” (episode 13). He reminded viewers that, “We have learned to value careful observations to respect the facts, even when they are disquieting, when they seem to contradict conventional wisdom” (episode 13).

87 Environmental

Unlike Cosmos: ASO, Cosmos only had two episodes with clear environmental references. They could be found in episodes 4 and 13. While this was a recurring theme in the remake, it was expressed much less often in the original series. Only eight percent of the cultural references found in Cosmos were environmental, although episode 4, “Heaven and Hell” was primarily focused on the greenhouse effect. Sagan said, “The reason Venus is like hell seems to be what's called the greenhouse effect…

The greenhouse effect can make an Earth-like world into a planetary inferno” (episode

4). Like the remake, the original series told of the damages climate change would have on our environment and ecosystem. Sagan said, “The indiscriminate destruction of vegetation may alter the global climate in ways that no scientist can yet predict” and,

“There are no useless threads in the fabric of the ecosystem. If you cut any one of them, you will unravel many others” (episode 4). He also insisted that we were to blame for our rapidly warming climate: “We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide increasing the greenhouse effect” (episode 4).

In the final episode, Sagan was looking at the Earth through the Ship of the

Imagination. He wondered aloud, “Had we destroyed our home? What had we done to the Earth? There had been many ways for life to perish at our hands. We had poisoned the air and water. We had ravaged the land. Perhaps we had changed the climate”

(episode 13). He ended the episode reminding viewers of the possibility of nuclear winter and to take the runaway greenhouse effect on Venus very seriously.

Health

There was only one health reference in this series, found in episode 13. Sagan described the effects of worldwide nuclear war:

88 Hiroshima bombs would be dropped all over the world. In such an exchange not everyone would be killed by the blast and firestorm and the immediate radiation. There would be other agonies: Loss of loved ones the legions of the burned and blinded and mutilated the absence of medical care, disease, plague, long-lived radiation poisoning of the soil and the water. The threat of tumors and stillbirths and malformed children (episode 13).

The topics of this reference and the two in Cosmos: ASO were not related.

RQ2a: What Elements of Ethos Were Present in Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey?

While it had been hypothesized that there would be various tones of the host in

Cosmos: ASO, each episode in the sample found Tyson to speak with an overall calm and soothing tone. No other strong cases could be found for the other tones included in the coding sheets. Also examining the ethos of the series was how the host acknowledged and included viewers. It was found through the coding process that each of the 13 episodes of the series included many examples of this acknowledgement and inclusion. Throughout Cosmos: ASO Tyson used hand gesturing and pointing toward viewers and spoke directly into the camera, seeming to look directly at viewers at eye level.

Some of the specific phrases used throughout the series addressed the audience and used language to include them in the show, such as “us,” “we,” and “our.” Tyson frequently said, “Come with me” to include viewers on a journey. Some of these examples included in episode six: “I'm a collection of three billion, billion, billion intricately arranged atoms called Neil Degrasse Tyson. You are a similar collection with a different name” and, “Breathe with me. We all just inhaled about 100 million molecules that once passed through the lungs of everyone who ever lived before us.”

Other examples included: “We awakened on this tiny world beneath a blanket of stars, like an abandoned baby left on a doorstep without a note to explain where we

89 came from, who we are, how our universe came to be” (episode 3). Showing a black hole: “From our point of view, the substance in the disk slows down as it approaches the event horizon, never quite reaching it” (episode 4). “Science has enabled us to predict events in the distant future and to communicate with each other at the speed of light, as

I am with you, right at this moment” and Tyson interacted with viewers as though the animated story of Fraunhofer was happening in real-time: “Oh, yeah. Fraunhofer. Just in time. We didn't miss it” (episode 5).

Another example from episode six encouraged viewers: “Who among you will pick up that torch and take us down that next stretch of road?” In episode seven, Tyson made a connection between a scientist and viewers: “Patterson couldn't possibly know how this assignment would alter the course of his life. And ours.” In episode 11, Tyson said, “Here's a thought Enheduanna sent across more than 4,000 years to you” to show the timelessness of storytelling. In the following episode he put blame on both viewers and himself in regard to global warming: “All right but how do we know that we're the problem?” and, “Our fingerprints are all over this one” (episode 12). Then in the final episode Tyson included viewers by saying, “I think we're ready to perform an experiment” and then encouraged them to keep learning: “The more science belongs to all of us, the less likely it is to be misused” (episode 13).

RQ2b: How did the elements of ethos compare with those of Cosmos?

It was found in Cosmos that the tone used throughout the series was calm and soothing, as in Cosmos: ASO. This remained the tone of the host throughout each episode. In every episode Sagan used hand gesturing toward viewers and was typically filmed at eye level as though he was speaking directly to the audience, as was also done in the remake. Similarly, audience inclusion was used such as language like, “us,”

90 “we,” and “our.” Sagan invited the audience with him as he said, “Come with me. Before us is the cosmos on the grandest scale we know,” (episode 1) to include viewers on a journey, the same words Tyson spoke as well. In the first episode Sagan told viewers,

“For the first time, we have the power to decide the fate of our planet and ourselves” and, “It's a story about us: How we achieved our present understanding of the cosmos, how the cosmos has shaped our evolution and our culture, and what our fate may be.”

Other examples of ethos included taking viewers to the molecular level and back to see the universe on a larger scale: “We're about to enter the living cell- a realm, in its own way, as complex and beautiful as the realm of galaxies and stars” (episode 2) and later, “Imagine that we are travelers from the stars bound for the sun” (episode 6). Again in episode seven the audience was included to be a part of the show: “This is the place where science was born. That's why we're here.” Sagan also told viewers, “The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves we will one day venture to the stars” (episode

7). In episode four, viewers were included as an entire generation: “Long before 1066, humans marveled at comets. Our generation is beginning to understand them.” Then just as echoed in Cosmos: ASO, Sagan said, “I’m a collection of organic molecules called Carl Sagan. You’re a collection of almost identical molecules with a different collective label” (episode 5). Viewers were directly questioned: “Have you ever stood between two parallel mirrors in a barbershop, say and seen a very large number of you?” (episode 9). In episode nine Sagan once again made a connection to the audience: “We are listening to cosmic rays. Every second they are penetrating my body and yours.”

91 RQ3a: What Elements of Aethos Were Present in Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey?

Dominant Types of Imagery

Aethos was measured in a few different ways, beginning with an examination of the type of imagery used most predominantly throughout each series. It can easily be seen in figure 4-6 that CGI, or computer generated imagery, was used most often in

Cosmos: ASO. It was the primary form of imagery in every episode of the series (n=13), although some episodes were split very closely to be equally represented by another type of imagery as well. Any scene that was filmed in live action but enhanced by CGI was coded as CGI as pre-determined by the coding guidelines. In this series four episodes were found to also largely use animation (episodes 3, 5, 7, and 10) and in only one episode live action (episode 4) was very closely tied with CGI. In each episode these three methods had been used but the indicated dominant forms of imagery were by far (50 percent or more of the episode) most prominently used.

Description of Imagery

One episode, which filmed mostly in live action, showed images of Tyson shot in locations such as New York City and in Italy where Einstein had lived, as well as to depict certain scientists. The episodes which used the most animation used this effect to tell the stories of William Herschel examining spectra and the use of a control,

Joseph Fraunhofer and his discovery of spectroscopy, Clair Patterson and his discovery of the age of the Earth and his research on the dangers of lead poisoning, and to portray the lives and scientific contributions of other scientists and philosophers like

Isaac Newton, Mo Tze, and Ibn al-Hazen. Animation was also used in these episodes to show how Michael Faraday discovered a relationship between electricity and

92 magnetism and how it had an effect on light, how his theorized electromagnetic fields were mathematically proven by James Clerk Maxwell, as well as to show the first camera obscura.

CGI was used throughout every episode to depict various scenes and enhance live-action filming. Some of this imagery included the Cosmic Calendar to show a timeline of the universe, the Ship of the Imagination to maneuver through space and time, the Library of Alexandria, the Tree of Life, the structure of atoms, the Earth as a

“pale blue dot,” the “rising of the Milky Way” from the view of a nearby globular star cluster, the creation, life cycles, and possible deaths of stars, and the “Halls of

Extinction.” Other interesting uses of CGI throughout the episodes included the evolution of eyesight with a “creature’s eye view” to show what eyesight looked like as it evolved, to go inside a bear’s reproductive system to explain natural selection and DNA, the Milky Way-Andromeda merger, sound waves in visible form, versions of New York

City viewed through different wavelengths of light, to explain the runaway greenhouse effect, and to portray future spacecraft.

Use of Enthymeme

Episodes 2, 7, and 11 all showed examples of enthymemes in the series. In episode two, Tyson showed viewers the “Halls of Extinction,” with halls labeled for each of Earth’s five mass extinctions. At the end he stood in front of a sixth, unlabeled hall and said, “That nameless corridor? That's for another day,” leading viewers to think about the next mass extinction on Earth of its current life forms. Later, in episode nine, in case viewers had not come to the conclusion on their own or to reinforce their understanding, Tyson said, “There's a corridor in the Halls of Extinction that is, right

93 now, empty and unmarked. The autobiography of the Earth is still being written. There's a chance that the end of our story lies in there.”

Then in episode 7, an enthymeme was used to portray the issues surrounding the commercial use of lead and its harmful effects on human health and the environment, which were similar to the issues surrounding commercial use of fossil fuels. This story had many connections to climate change and at the end of the episode

Tyson said, “Today, scientists sound the alarm on other environmental dangers. Vested interests still hire their own scientists to confuse the issue. But in the end, nature will not be fooled.” Using these many similarities, the episode presented an argument without explicitly stating the conclusion, but allowed viewers to make connections to climate change on their own.

In episode 11, Tyson showed images such as land and air pollution, oil spills, and dead animals covered in oil, and said, “But what about civilizations that self- destruct? Our economic systems were formed when the planet and its air, rivers, oceans, lands, all seemed infinite. They evolved long before we first saw the Earth as the tiny organism that it actually is.” It then showed an image of a tiny Earth from far away, slowly zooming in. “They're all alike in one respect they're profit-driven, and therefore, focused on short-term gain. The prevailing economic systems, no matter what their ideologies, have no built-in mechanisms for protecting our descendants of even

100 years from now, let alone, 100,000” (episode 11). Tyson walked through the dessert and told viewers, “In one respect, we're ahead of the people of Ancient

Mesopotamia. Unlike them, we understand what's happening to our world. For example, we're pumping greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere at a rate not seen on Earth for

94 a million years. And the scientific consensus that we're destabilizing our climate. Yet our civilization seems to be in the grip of denial; a kind of paralysis” (episode 11).

RQ3b: How Did the Elements of Aethos Compare with Those of Cosmos?

Dominant Types of Imagery

As shown in figure 4-6, the most dominant type of imagery in Cosmos was live action. Each episode in the series (n=13) used live-action filming to present the majority of the material. There was very little animation in the series, but when it was present it was used to effectively show evolution and the Tree of Life. Many of the episodes also included some CGI effects to enhance the scenes, although every episode was primarily filmed in live action. This was in high contrast to Cosmos: ASO which relied on

CGI throughout each episode and only used a substantial amount of non-CGI enhanced live-action filming in one episode.

Description of Imagery

Each episode in the series was filmed largely in live action and there were many concepts that were once again portrayed in the remake but typically with CGI. The original series used both the Cosmic Calendar as well as the Ship of the Imagination

(two concepts that were prevalent in the remake as well) and both included some CGI effects and so were separate from the description of strictly live-action filming but were worth noting. Some of the imagery in Cosmos included Sagan filming in locations such as chemistry labs, an office, classrooms interacting with children, and the control room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Throughout the series there was a lot of footage of Sagan in nature scenes like fields of flowers, walking along a shoreline, or on cliffs in front of crashing ocean waves. This series relied much more on the use of models such as to show the solar system or different spacecraft. A physical construction of Mars as

95 well as a model of the Library of Alexandria were also used rather than CGI, as they had been in Cosmos: ASO. There was footage of Sagan shot on location all over the world such as in Egypt, India, Russia, London, Italy, Holland, Greece, and New York

City.

While the remake typically used animation to tell stories about scientists, Cosmos used various actors to portray their lives, such as Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe,

Robert Goddard, Wolf Vishniac, Joseph Fourier, Jean-Francois Champollion, Anton

Leeuwenhoek, and Constantin and Christiaan Huygens. The series also showed many images of various locations around the globe, highlighted observatories like the Lowell

Observatory, the Very Large Array, and the Arecibo Observatory, and showed images from space including those taken by the Voyager spacecraft. Sagan used sailing ship explorers of the 17th century Netherlands to compare to the Voyager spacecraft adventuring out into space. Other specific uses of live-action filming included Sagan in a cave demonstrating a Geiger counter, a portrayal of a Japanese battle in order to explain artificial selection with crabs, actors portraying the famous Hill case of the “UFO abduction,” and the impact site of the Tunguska Event, as well as footage of natural disasters, man-made water and air pollution, and bombing of the land.

Use of Enthymeme

In Cosmos only one episode showed a very clear use of an enthymeme and that was the final episode, “Who Speaks for the Earth?” In the Ship of the Imagination

Sagan found a planet similar to Earth in age and appearance and said, “Immersed in these thoughts I found myself approaching a world that was clearly inhabited, a world I had visited before. I saw a planet encompassed by light and recognized the signature of intelligence. But suddenly darkness, total and absolute” (episode 13). He wasn’t sure

96 what destroyed the Earth-like planet so he found the actual Earth. He then speculated on a few ways the Earth could have also been destroyed. His computer showed that it was nuclear war. He used languages such as: “There would be no more big questions.

No more answers. Never again a love or a child. No descendants to remember us and be proud. No more voyages to the stars. No more songs from the Earth” (episode 13).

Then the episode showed images of mushroom clouds and explosions, to help further the persuasive argument that nuclear weapons were bad and dangerous without explicitly saying it.

RQ4a: What Elements of Mythos Were Present in Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey?

The coding process showed numerous examples of mythos in Cosmos: ASO

(n=99) throughout each episode in the series. They were found in the forms of dialogue and imagery that made science more familiar to viewers, created emotional appeal, and made viewers feel as though they were taking a journey with Tyson. There were also many portrayals of scientists, philosophers, and rulers (many of which were named in the previous section on aethos) through use of animation. The examples of mythos found in Cosmos: ASO were grouped into five common themes in order to more acutely analyze the findings: Journey/Adventure, Ship of the Imagination/Cosmic Calendar,

Scientist Stories, Science Metaphors/Personification, and Poetic Language.

Journey/Adventure

Cosmos: ASO used a lot of language that invited viewers on a journey and attempted to make them feel as though they were on an adventure throughout the series. The first episode opened with a scene from Cosmos and a voiceover of Carl

Sagan saying, “Come with me.” This was a phrase Tyson used multiple times

97 throughout the remake as well. Tyson said Sagan “launched hundreds of millions of us on a great adventure. The universe revealed by science. It’s time to get going again”

(episode 1). He used language in the opening scene such as, “We’re about to begin a journey,” “We’ll explore galaxies and suns and worlds,” “The cosmos is also a story about us,” and referred to the series as “a saga,” “one adventure with many heroes,” and repeated, “Now, come with me” (episode 1).

In episode 3, Tyson said, “There's a distant world I want to take you to, a world far different from our own, but one that may harbor life. If it does, it promises to be unlike anything we've ever seen before,” to continue to invite viewers with him. Then in the final episode, Tyson said, “Tonight, our ships sail into even more exotic waters.

Come with me.” He reminded viewers again of the journey they had taken with him throughout the series: “We've come a long way together, traveling from deep inside the heart of an atom clear out to the cosmic horizon, and from the beginning of time to the distant future” (episode 13).

Ship of the Imagination/Cosmic Calendar

Another theme found in the mythos of Cosmos: ASO was the frequent use of the

Ship of the Imagination and the Cosmic Calendar, both portrayed with CGI. The Ship of the Imagination was used to explore not only the furthest reaches of the universe but also any period in time. Tyson explained, “Our Ship of the Imagination, fueled by equal parts of science and wonder, can take us anywhere in space and time. It can travel faster than light and render visible those things that cannot be seen” (episode 3). The

Ship of the Imagination was used to explore everything from the very large, like galaxies and black holes, to the microscopic, and from various planets in the solar system to travel through time and show the evolution of the Earth. In one episode it was used to

98 shrink down to the atomic size to view why elements leave spectral “fingerprints”: “To get there, we'll need to become ten billion times smaller than we are” (episode 5) and in another he said, “What alien world has the Ship of the Imagination carried us to this time? It's the cosmos contained within a dewdrop” (episode 6). In episode four, Tyson used the Ship of the Imagination to fly into a black hole and speculate on what might lie inside.

The Cosmic Calendar appeared as a large calendar enhanced by CGI and was used to demonstrate a timeline of the universe. It was shown in various episodes throughout the series. Tyson explained, “Midnight on December 31st is this very moment right now. And January 1st is the beginning of time” (episode 4). In episode nine, Tyson stood on the calendar and told viewers, “I'm standing on the great expanse of time that has elapsed since the Big Bang. In order to think about it, we've compressed it all into a single year.” In another episode he showed the Cosmic Calendar and portrayed (and speculated on) what a Cosmic Calendar of the next 14 billion years might have looked like (episode 11).

Scientist Stories

Cosmos: ASO told the stories of different historical scientists (or philosophers and leaders that have had an impact on science) through use of animation and Tyson’s narration. Some of these figures have been mentioned previously in the aethos section to describe the animated imagery. The stories not only told the history of scientific discoveries but the processes by which they were made, and about the personal lives of the scientists, bringing them to life and familiarizing them with viewers. Some of the stories built off of those from previous episodes (just as history builds off of itself in reality) to further the notion that the series was taking viewers on a 13-part journey.

99 Tyson said in episode five that, “The government kept Fraunhofer's technology for making perfect optical glass a State secret for another hundred years. This would prove to be a major obstacle for someone we'll meet later in our journey.” He spoke further of this link in the same episode: “The story of this awakening has many beginnings and no ending. Its heroes come from many times and places: an Ancient Chinese philosopher, a wizard who amazed the caliphs of 11th-century Iraq, a poor German orphan enslaved to a harsh master. Each one brought us a little closer to unlocking the secrets hidden in light” (episode 5).

The scientists’ stories were used to convey different messages in Cosmos: ASO such as promoting the contributions of women in science in episode 8, portraying the animated versions of Annie Jump Cannon, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, and Cecelia Payne, and their major contributions to astronomy. Tyson told the story of Clair Patterson in episode seven to show the struggle science has had with the oil industry and the fight against corporations to save the environment. He said, “Once there was a man who went searching for the true age of the earth. In his struggles to discover it, he stumbled on a grave threat,” and explained that a doctor was hired to confuse the evidence: “This was one of the first times that the authority of science was used to cloak a threat to public health and the environment. (episode 7). Then episode 10 reminded viewers of the applications of science that began with basic research: “Try to imagine all the businesses, industries, technologies, transformations of the way we live that have their beginnings in that ecstatic moment in Michael Faraday's laboratory.”

Science Metaphors/Personification

Throughout the series science was often personified or metaphors were used to make the content seem more familiar to viewers. For example, Cosmos: ASO described

100 the “life cycles” of stars. In the first episode Tyson explained that stars “die” and are

“born” in a “stellar nursery.” Again in episode eight, Tyson said, “The stars in the nebula below Orion’s Belt are newborns, around five million years old, and still swaddled in the gas and dust that gave birth to them.” The ocean was also used as a metaphor for space exploration. In episode four, Tyson said, “Herschel was the first person ever to see into the deeper waters of the cosmic ocean.” Then in the final episode he made references such as to NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft, saying, “Only two of our ships have ventured into the great dark ocean of interstellar space” and that, “You can only sail the cosmic seas if you speak mathematics and physics” (episode 13).

The series opened with the image of Sagan’s hand holding a dandelion which blew away in the wind to Tyson standing on a cliff in front of the ocean, almost as if passing the seed onto him. In episode 11, Tyson explained the flower’s connection to space exploration: “The dandelion. Around 30 million years ago, it evolved another way to send its own message of life through space and time. Each seedling is a little paratrooper, floating on the wind, risking everything for a safe place to land.” Tyson also compared Saturn’s rings to “freeways of countless orbiting and slowly tumbling snowballs” (episode 1), described the Atlantic Mid-Ocean Ridge wrapping around the

Earth “like the seam on a baseball” (episode 9), and said Galileo’s first telescope “pulled aside the heavy curtain of night and began to discover the cosmos” (episode 5). In yet another example, he said, “We were beginning to discover the threads of the cosmic tapestry, but we were not yet able to discern the rich pattern that time, light, space and gravity weave” (episode 4).

101 Poetic Language

Cosmos: ASO used a lot of dreamy, poetic language throughout the series like,

“We are, each of us, a little universe” (episode 2) to describe the atoms in our DNA and,

“All the stars are in motion, streaming past each other, rising and falling like merry-go- round horses in their Newtonian dance around the center of our galaxy” (episode 3).

The show described science in an interesting and emotional way that might make difficult concepts more understandable or controversial topics more acceptable to viewers. In episode four, Tyson was explaining the Big Bang Theory and said, “The oldest light is very faint, a pale ghost in the night.” Later in the episode, an animated

William Hershel said, “By the time the light from some stars gets here, they are already dead. For those stars, we see only their ghosts. We see their light, but their bodies perished long, long ago” to help explain the speed of light (episode 4).

In episode eight, Tyson said of the Sun: “How lucky we are to have this vast source of clean energy falling like manna from heaven on all of us.” He also used legends of the stars to explain their movement through the galaxy: “Some 10 or 20 million years from now, it'll seem for a cosmic moment as if Orion is finally about to catch the seven sisters… Orion's pursuit of the Pleiades will finally end, and the seven sisters will glide serenely into the waiting arms of the Milky Way” (episode 8). Then

Tyson described a view that encouraged the prospect of human space exploration, beautifully complemented by CGI: “From a planet orbiting a star in a distant globular cluster, a still more glorious dawn awaits. Not a sunrise but a galaxy rise. A morning filled with 200 billion suns. The rising of the Milky Way” (episode 8).

In episode 11 the language made the simplicity of reading a book seem endearing and powerful. Tyson explained in Uruk (ancient Iraq), “It was here that we

102 learned how to write. Death could no longer silence us. And writing gave us the power to reach across the millennia and speak inside the heads of the living” (episode 11). He then used the example of the tales of Gilgemesh to further show the importance and timelessness of stories: “We still read the Epic of Gilgamesh, and with every reader, he lives again. And all those heroes and superheroes who have come since follow in the footsteps of the first hero’s journey, another kind of immortality; a story sent from one civilization to another across thousands of years. But life itself sends its own stories across billions of years. It's a message that every one of us carries inside, inscribed in all the cells of our bodies, in a language that all life on Earth can read” (episode 11).

This again showed how this type of language could be used to discuss a controversial topic like the evolution of DNA, but in a way that remained light and entertaining to viewers.

RQ4b: How Did the Elements of Mythos Compare with Those of Cosmos?

There were multiple examples of mythos throughout Cosmos as well (n=127).

Sorensen (2013) wrote about some of them in her dissertation and many new examples were found during the coding process. While the mythos of the series was similar to that which is in Cosmos: ASO, one main difference was in the way that historical scientists were portrayed. Cosmos relied on Sagan’s storytelling skills and actors posing as the scientists, while the remake used animation to portray them. There were also 28 more references found in the original series than the remake. While these were only some of the clearest examples and were not a complete representation of the mythos in both series, it appeared that Cosmos used more lines containing poetic language overall than the remake did. Much of the mythos found through the coding process also seemed to fit into the same categories as Cosmos: ASO.

103 Journey/Adventure

Cosmos also used the theme of a journey throughout the show such as portraying the series itself as an adventure that viewers were invited to partake in, but also attempted to spark excitement in the audience to explore the universe. Sagan enticed viewers to take a journey through the cosmos: “The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore, we have learned most of what we know.

Recently, we've waded a little way out, maybe ankle-deep, and the water seems inviting” (episode 1) and told them, “The passion to explore is at the heart of being human. This impulse to go, to see, to know has found expression in every culture”

(episode 6).

Near the beginning of the series Sagan invited viewers with him: “Let's take a trip to examine this common basis of life. A voyage to investigate the molecular machinery at the heart of life on Earth. A journey to the nucleus of the cell” (episode 2) and then in the final episode he said, “We have walked far. These are some of the things that hydrogen atoms do given 15 billion years of cosmic evolution” (episode 13). Sagan also encouraged excitement for space exploration in real life and told us that, “Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars” (episode 7).

Ship of the Imagination/Cosmic Calendar

The Ship of the Imagination and the Cosmic Calendar were both used throughout the original series, just as in the remake. Cosmos used the CGI of its time, so although it had been said to be the best of 1980 (rivaling the special effects of Star Wars), it could not stand up to the CGI of 2014 which was used to portray these aspects of the show in

104 the remake. Nevertheless, to audiences watching during the time it aired, the Ship of the Imagination appeared impressive and helped add to the adventurous feel of the show examined in the previous section. The Cosmic Calendar also could not compare to its rebooted version but in 1980 was effectively enhanced with CGI.

In the first episode Sagan explained, “We're going to explore the cosmos in a

Ship of the Imagination, unfettered by ordinary limits on speed and size, drawn by the music of cosmic harmonies, it can take us anywhere in space and time.” Beginning the journey, he told viewers, “In our Ship of the Imagination we are halfway to the edge of the known universe. In this, the first of our cosmic voyages, we begin to explore the universe revealed by science” (episode 1). Later, Sagan used the ship to explore different galaxies and said, “Our Ship of the Imagination carries us to that ultimate frontier. We view the cosmos on the grandest of scales. The majesty of the galaxies is revealed by science” (episode 10).

In the first episode Sagan introduced the Cosmic Calendar to show the timeline of the universe: “The big bang is at upper left in the first second of January 1st. Fifteen billion years later is our present time, the last second of December 31st… Each second stands for some 500 years of our history. The blinking of an eye in the drama of cosmic time.” Again in the following episode, he reminded us, “Our understanding of the history of life is very recent occupying only the last few seconds of December 31, that small white spot at bottom right in the Cosmic Calendar” (episode 2).

Scientist Stories

Cosmos told the stories of various scientists and other historical figures, as did its remake. The original series did not utilize animation, however, and so the stories were presented with live-action reenactments and relied on Sagan’s skilled narration. There

105 were many fewer of these stories in Cosmos and they tended to be much shorter scenes than the animated stories in Cosmos: ASO that sometimes took up a good portion of the episodes. While the episodes in the series did not need to be viewed consecutively and the stories tended not to be deeply related, Sagan maintained a sense that knowledge builds off of itself and that successions of scholars lead to new scientific discovery. In episode five, Sagan even celebrated the contributions of science fiction, saying the Viking spacecraft “is a legacy of H. G. Wells, Percival Lowell, Robert

Goddard. Science is a collaborative enterprise spanning the generations and when it permits us to see the far side of some new horizon, we remember those who prepared the way, seeing for them also.”

One of the stories in Cosmos included showing the life of Johannes Kepler.

Sagan said that, “As a boy Kepler had been captured by a vision of cosmic splendor, a harmony of the worlds which he sought so tirelessly all his life,” and that later as an adult, “When he found that his long-cherished beliefs did not agree with the most precise observations, he accepted the uncomfortable facts. He preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions. That is the heart of science” (episode 3). Like some of the scientists in Cosmos: ASO, in this episode Kepler was shown to defy the accepted beliefs of his day and pursue scientific inquiry, even when his own religious beliefs were conflicted and resulted in his excommunication from the Lutheran church.

In episode seven, Sagan discussed the ancient Ionians of Greece and praised their approach to science (similar to the remake). He said of the philosopher,

Democritus: “Of all the ancient scientists, it is he who speaks most clearly to us across the centuries” (episode 7) and went on to tell of some of his beliefs. Followers of Plato

106 “succeeded in extinguishing the light of science and experiment that had been kindled by Democritus and the other Ionians” but then “after a long, mystical sleep in which the tools of scientific inquiry lay moldering, the Ionian approach was rediscovered” (episode

7). While Sagan spoke he sat at a table at a Greek café with music and locals dancing nearby. The camera was positioned from the opposite side of the table so that viewers saw him as though they were taking a seat across from him while he told stories of the

Ionians.

Episode 12 told the story of Jean-Francois Champollion, beginning with a child actor portraying him as a little boy visiting the home of Joseph Fourier. Then the episode tracked his journey as an adult into Egypt to examine the Rosetta Stone using live-action filming and Sagan read off Champollion’s journal entries in first person. The actors did not actually speak but were used as a visual aid to Sagan’s narration. Using this story to inspire viewers, he said,

Today, we are searching for a message from the stars. We have not found it so far. We have, as yet, no Champollion. But we are just beginning. Perhaps those who will decipher the first interstellar communications are alive at this moment, somewhere on the planet Earth (episode 12).

Science Metaphors/Personification

Cosmos contained metaphors and personifications of science that were similarly used in the remake. Sagan described the “life cycles” of stars and referred to a nebula as a “stellar nursery” but called the Crab Nebula a “stellar graveyard” which contained a

“dying pulsar” (episode 3). He showed an image of the Orion constellation and told viewers, “If we run Orion forward in time we see the births and explosive deaths of dozens of stars flashing on and winking off like fireflies in the night” (episode 8) and later proclaimed that stars were “phoenixes rising from their own ashes” (episode 9).

107 Sagan also referred to stars as siblings of the Sun, planets orbiting the Sun as campers huddling around a fire, a globular star cluster as a swarm of bees, and a pulsar as a natural lighthouse. Tyson spoke of a “cosmic tapestry” in the remake, but years before

Sagan said, “Our own planet is only a tiny part of the vast cosmic tapestry, a starry fabric of worlds yet untold” (episode 8).

In the first episode of the series, Sagan was introducing the Ship of the

Imagination and described it as, “Perfect as a snowflake, organic as a dandelion seed, it will carry us to worlds of dreams and worlds of facts.” The ship in fact did look like a dandelion seed which was shown floating through space with CGI. This had a connection in Cosmos: ASO, as explained previously in its own section, in which the remake used the flower’s seed as a metaphor for space exploration. This connection was not explicitly explained in Cosmos but was brought to light in Cosmos: ASO.

Cosmos first related the ocean to space exploration before the remake followed suit. Not only did Sagan use this type of language but many times he was filmed on cliffs with ocean waves crashing beneath him, walking along a shoreline, or sailing on a boat to further this metaphor in a visual way. He said, “We on Earth have just awakened to the great oceans of space and time from which we have emerged” (episode 1) and,

“The number of stars in the universe is larger than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth” (episode 8). While exploring space with the Ship of the

Imagination he said, “We are far from the shores of Earth in the uncharted reaches of the cosmic ocean. Strewn like sea froth on the waves of space are innumerable faint tendrils of light” (episode 1). He also related the Voyager spacecraft to early ships exploring the New World. Sagan told viewers, “The Dutch called their ships ‘flying boats’

108 and the Voyager spacecraft are their descendants, true flying boats bound for the stars”

(episode 6). He later called the Voyager golden record a “message in a bottle cast into the cosmic ocean” (episode 11).

Poetic Language

While there were many examples of poetic language in the remake, Cosmos even more frequently used this dreamy type of narrative throughout the series. Some of the lines written for the original also appeared in very similar ways in Cosmos: ASO, such as, “We are, each of us, a multitude. Within us is a little universe” (episode 2) and,

“From a planet orbiting a star in a distant globular cluster, a still more glorious dawn awaits. Not a sunrise but a galaxy rise. A morning filled with 400 billion suns. The rising of the Milky Way” (episode 9). This idea of a galaxy rise was so riveting that the line was repeated almost word for word in Cosmos: ASO, except the change from “400 billion suns” to “200 billion” which was a better approximation.

Sagan also referred to himself as “a collection of organic molecules called Carl

Sagan” (episode 5) similar to when Tyson called himself a collection of intricately arranged atoms. This was a well-explored concept in Cosmos as Sagan used a laboratory to show that simply mixing together all of the ingredients needed for life would not work. He asserted, “The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it but the way those atoms are put together” (episode 5). Yet another concept from

Cosmos that carried over into the remake was the concept that books “permit us to voyage through time to tap the wisdom of our ancestors” (episode 11). As was told in the remake, written language and storytelling were portrayed as being eternal and a form a time travel. Near the end of the series Sagan said, “Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions. Binding together people who never knew each other,

109 citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic” (episode 11).

In another example, Sagan described Mars as a “mythic arena onto which we’ve projected our earthly hopes and fears” and that by landing rovers there we had “fulfilled a century of dreams” (episode 5). He said this exploration of a new land evoked “the kind of rapture Columbus or Marco Polo must have felt” and then vividly described the emotional experience: “Back on Earth we waited breathlessly for the first images. Viking painted its picture in vertical strokes, line by line, until with enormous relief we saw the footpad securely planted in the Martian soil” (episode 5).

The series also conveyed a sense of unity with the cosmos and Sagan reminded us in a variety of beautiful ways (as Tyson later did as well) that we are all made of “star stuff.” He told viewers, “The lives and deaths of the stars seem impossibly remote from human experience and yet we're related in the most intimate way to their life cycles”

(episode 9). In the final episode he said “star stuff” was “the ash of stellar alchemy” which had “emerged into consciousness” and that, “We are a way for the cosmos to know itself. We are creatures of the cosmos and have always hungered to know our origins to understand our connection with the universe” (episode 13). Sagan then spoke of science as an alternative to religious experience when he told viewers, “We humans long to be connected with our origins so we create rituals. Science is another way to express this longing. It also connects us with our origins. And it, too, has its rituals and its commandments. Its only sacred truth is that there are no sacred truths” (episode 13).

Cosmos: ASO carried over this tradition and similarly spoke of these connections viewers have with each other, the planet, the stars, and the universe.

110 Variance in Number of Cultural References per Episode: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey 6

4 References

of 3

Types 1 of 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Number Episode Number

Figure 4-1. Variance in Number of Cultural References per Episode: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey.

Variance in Number of Cultural References per Episode: Cosmos 7

References of 4

Types 3 of 2

Number 1

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Episode Number

Figure 4-2. Variance in Number of Cultural References per Episode: Cosmos.

111 Percentage of Cultural References Used by Type: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

Challenging Authority Political 15% 13% Health 5%

Religion 21% Environmental 18%

Creation 28%

Political Health Environmental Creation Religion Challenging Authority

Figure 4-3. Percentage of Cultural References Used by Type: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

Percentage of Cultural References Used by Type: Cosmos

Challenging Authority Political 11% 15%

Health 4% Environmental 8%

Religion 27%

Creation 35%

Political Health Environmental Creation Religion Challenging Authority

Figure 4-4. Percentage of Cultural References Used by Type: Cosmos

112 Number of Episodes with Cultural References by Type Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey vs. Cosmos

0 Political Health Environmental Creation Religion Challenging Authority Cosmos: ASO Cosmos

Figure 4-5. Number of Episodes with Cultural References by Type: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey vs. Cosmos.

Type of Imagery by Series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey vs. Cosmos 14

0 Cosmos: ASO Cosmos Live Action CGI Animation

Figure 4-6. Type of Imagery by Series: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey vs. Cosmos

113 CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The primary goal of this research was to examine how specific rhetorical devices were used in the television series Cosmos and its remake, Cosmos: A Spacetime

Odyssey. This followed the previous work of researchers in a variety of fields, particularly the dissertation of Karen Jane Sorensen who studied the persuasive aspects of the original Cosmos series. Sorensen’s (2013) work was adapted to build the structure of this research and was used to further examine Cosmos, as well as to compare these findings with the 2014 remake. Each of the four research questions in this thesis examined similar elements of rhetoric in both Cosmos and Cosmos: ASO to identify the similarities and differences between the two series. The findings in this study were meant to further understanding of how rhetoric may be included and structured to create successful science television in the future.

Kairos

The first research question examined the kairos, or the cultural environment, in which the two series took place. Even though the original series aired in 1980 and its remake in 2014, it appeared that many of the same types of cultural references persisted even after the 34-year timespan and remained relevant and of interest to viewers, based on the series’ popularity. While there were many examples of kairos in the sample (both series only had one episode each that did not contain any of the anticipated references), Cosmos: ASO consistently had many more of these examples than the original across each of the coded categories. This showed that while both series included content that reflected the current culture during the times in which they were broadcast, Cosmos: ASO may have more heavily relied on these topics to keep

114 the scientific content relevant and familiar. The two series seemed to have focused on culture that was of importance to viewers and to the writers who felt these topics needed to be discussed in the context of science, but studying how the kairos had evolved or remained the same was also a reflection of who we are. In examining the kairos of Cosmos, it was just as much an understanding of us as it was a study of television.

Creation

For both of the series, creation was by far the most frequently referenced category, showing that it contained topics the writers felt were highly important to convey to viewers. It was so central to both series that this type of reference was found in all but four episodes of Cosmos and all but two episodes of Cosmos: ASO. The Big

Bang Theory and the age of the universe were common themes that were used to challenge ideas of a 6,500 year old Earth. The Cosmic Calendar was also used as a visual representation to show that if the timeline of the universe was compressed into the size of an annual calendar, humanity would only exist in the last 14 seconds of the year. Cosmos: ASO made a point to explain the early universe and particularly why it must have been more than just a few thousand years old. These assertions may have been following research that had shown only two years earlier as high as 61 percent of

Americans did not believe in the Big Bang Theory (NSB, 2014).

Both series also discussed the formation of the solar system and other astronomical objects such as the stars. The fact that the hosts described the life cycles of stars using terms like “birth,” “death,” and “stellar nursery” to personify them and make the stars seem endearing, was a way to help the audiences feel more connected to the cosmos. Tyson said, “It makes good sense to revere the Sun and stars, because

115 we are their children” (episode 8) and, of course, Sagan famously told viewers that we are “star stuff,” and are “a way for the cosmos to know itself” (episode 1). The fact that both series stressed the “atoms in our bodies came from the stars” through multiple episodes, proved it was a significant concept the creators wanted to get across, persisting in importance even after more than 30 years.

Viewers were encouraged to experience a connection with the universe, even possibly leading them to a sense of spirituality for the cosmos, which may have invited self-reflection and increased interest in astronomy. A few years following the show,

Sagan showed a lasting desire to express the prominence of this idea in his bestselling fictional novel, Contact, along with co-writer of Cosmos, Druyan, who had made significant contributions to it. A chapter titled, “The Numinous,” involved a scene about a couple discussing whether a sense of awe for something sacred or holy could be evoked from astronomy, leading them to joke about lying around “arguing about whether the Andromeda Galaxy is more ‘numinous’ than the Resurrection” (p. 154,

Sagan, 1985), proving it to be something they felt very strongly about sharing with fans.

Previous research had noted this type of connection within the series as well. Lessl

(1985) found, “After a lapse of about eighty years or more in which popular justifications of science were political and practical rather than religious, Cosmos represents a return to a religious rhetoric of science” (p. 184).

This spirituality and religious rhetoric meant in the sense of generating a feeling of being part of something larger or revering science with a sense of awe. The cosmic connection also made its way into the remake, with Druyan once again a co-writer, and

Tyson described how our matter came to be forged from “the great and ancient cosmos,

116 of which we are a part” (episode 8) after describing how our planet and ourselves were made from stardust. Before the series aired Tyson explained in an interview why sharing science in this way may be particularly effective: “We have the chance of affecting you intellectually and emotionally, and as well as even spiritually, because the wonder and awe of the universe are especially potent when presented in this way”

(Hobson, 2014). This spiritual way of presenting science may have furthered an emotional connection with viewers, making them more open to influence.

Cosmos and its remake told audiences that this relation with the stars continued through a long lineage of life on Earth, carrying on a legacy of billions of years of cosmic evolution. Both of the series largely focused on evolution, firmly proclaiming that it is not a theory but a fact. This assertion seemed bold for Sagan’s culture in 1980 but just two years before the remake aired, research showed 52 percent of Americans did not believe in evolution, and some were ready to defend their opinions (NSB, 2014). The series angered many who did not believe in evolution and publicly attacked Tyson and the Cosmos: ASO series, such as creationist organizations like Answers in Genesis and the Discovery Institute. A representative of Answers in Genesis even went on The Janet

Mefferd Show, a Christian radio talk show, to complain that the series was not giving equal air time to explaining creationist views of science as well.

This backlash followed the second episode of Cosmos: ASO which aimed to refute one of the frequent arguments against evolution, that complex organs could not have been produced naturally, by using state-of-the-art CGI to show the evolution of eyes through random mutation and natural selection. It included a “creature’s eye view” to let viewers see what eyesight might have looked like as it evolved over time. Other

117 methods to visualize evolution were also recycled from the original series like the Tree of Life, which showed the interconnection of various species branching off from common ancestors, but was redone in Cosmos: ASO to appear actually lifelike. The animation of “evolution in 40 seconds” portrayed the evolution from a single-celled organism to a human which was included in the remake and left unchanged from the way it first appeared in Cosmos. All of these methods were used to portray evolution in a visually entertaining way to ease on the controversy surrounding it and further influence viewers to accept it.

Perhaps the fact that Cosmos: ASO received so much backlash was an indicator that the series did its job. When the majority of the public disagrees with 97 percent of scientists (Pew Research Center, 2009), it may well be a topic worth rendering across an entire series a second time around. The approaches the two series took to portray topics such as these included entertaining viewers with storytelling and live demonstrations (as in Cosmos) or with stunning visual effects and animated stories (in

Cosmos: ASO) which may have functioned to lessen the tension caused by these controversial and difficult topics.

Religion

In both Cosmos and Cosmos: ASO religion was the second most commonly found reference. This had not been an expected category, but one that had emerged very clearly early on. Many of the examples showed a strong conflict between science and religion as well as a suppression of ideas and knowledge. Many of the stories told about scientists involved their books being banned or being excommunicated because their ideas conflicted with the beliefs of the church. Cosmos even traced “the first conflict of which we know between science and mysticism, between nature and the

118 gods” to the islands of Greece in the 6th century, where the idea arose that, “There might be a way to know the world without the god hypothesis” (episode 7). The original series blatantly discussed a clash between science and religion, while the remake was more subtle, though still clearly expressing the same concepts.

In the first episode Cosmos: ASO used a fairly lengthy animated segment about

Giordano Bruno, a monk who was jailed for years and eventually burned at the stake by the Inquisition, for having ideas that the universe was infinite. Later when telling the story of Isaac Newton, again with animation, Tyson said those who lived around the time of Newton’s birth believed in a “master clock maker” to explain the motions of the planets. He said Newton’s Laws “swept away the need for a master clock maker,” because gravity was the master clock maker, and that matter “obeyed commandments we could discover, laws the Bible hadn't mentioned” (episode 3). Once again it seemed that special effects, like animation, were used to discuss controversial topics with viewers to entertain them and lighten the tone while discussing topics that may have offended them.

Both series used the Cosmic Calendar to show the age of the universe, which conflicts with the age written in the Bible, but Tyson used it in the remake to show when religious leaders were born as well: “Moses was born seven seconds ago. Buddha, six seconds ago. Jesus, five seconds ago. Mohammed, three seconds ago” (episode 1).

Not only did this convey to viewers the extremely short existence of humankind in the span of the universe (the last 14 seconds on the calendar), but he showed specifically how fleeting the lives of these major religious leaders were since the Big Bang. This

119 may have made their lives seem less significant, or at least in the context of the lengthy timespan of the cosmos.

Interestingly, Cosmos: ASO also highlighted the fact that major religions used to cooperate together to combine their scientific efforts. Tyson said that Christian and

Jewish scholars were honored guests at Islamic capitols and gave credit to “the reawakening to science that took place in Europe, hundreds of years later” which was

“kindled by a flame that had been long tended by Islamic scholars and scientists”

(episode 5). In this way the remake also highlighted how religions and nations that normally would not get along could also be brought together by science, as many scientific collaborations have done in the past. This echoed the theme of unity expressed through science, not only in life (through evolution), but also within the various cultures on Earth.

Through all of the stories Sagan and Tyson told they inspired viewers not to blindly follow a majority but to be creative and test hypotheses for themselves. The two series brought to viewers’ attention that there had been a great deal of conflict between science and religion and tried to convey that dogma holds back scientific progress.

While careful not to attack religion, they also showed that what was supported by the church was not always correct. There was much more criticism in 2014 than in 1980 from creationists who wanted equal airtime on the series for their own views and regularly spoke out against Cosmos: ASO. This may have been fueled by an increase in collectiveness brought on by the Internet, which was not yet publically available when

Cosmos had aired, allowing creationists to more easily come together using a medium that allowed anyone to easily express opinions to many people at once. There may

120 have also been a shift in religious culture as well that shows stronger beliefs, or at least more vocalization, about ideas that conflicted with those of science.

Environmental

There was a vast difference between the numbers of environmental references in the two series. Cosmos only had two episodes that contained clear references to the environment while the remake had seven. This was the second most referenced category in Cosmos: ASO. Both series explained how climate change will have damaging effects on our environment and ecosystem, while the remake also focused specifically on corporate profit at the expense of the environment and our dangerous reliance on non-renewable resources.

After more than 30 years, it was clear that climate change was still an important issue, and one that the writers of the remake still found to be an essential focus in 2014.

A decade after the original series aired, in a newly included “Cosmos Update” of the

“Heaven and Hell” environmental episode, Sagan stressed, “Since this series was first broadcast, the dangers of the increasing greenhouse effect have become much more clear” (episode 4). By the time that Cosmos: ASO aired, climate change had become a highly salient topic in the media and deniers were much more plentiful. While 97 percent of climate scientists agreed that the steep increase in global warming over the last hundred years was due to human activity (NASA JPL, 2014), only 42 percent of

Americans agreed with them and just 67 percent believed that global warming existed at all (NSB, 2014). It appeared that this may have been influential in the large increase in environmental references in the remake. Fortunately, it had been determined that not only are mass media and the Internet the public’s main sources for information on climate change, but television is also the most effective medium at impacting attitudes

121 toward it (Taddicken, 2013; Stamm, et al., 2000). Therefore, using the most effective medium for influencing the public about climate change, Cosmos and its remake may have been particularly successful at persuading viewers to accept the arguments presented by the two series.

Cosmos: ASO exposed corporate corruption that caused harm to the environment by telling the story of Clair Patterson, whose research led to the discovery of the harmful effects of using lead commercially. Tyson said this was “one of the first times that the authority of science was used to cloak a threat to public health and the environment” (episode 7). The story mirrored many elements associated with climate change, such as an industry-sponsored researcher causing confusion in the interpretation of results, the American Petroleum Institute looking out for its own interests at the expense of human and environmental health, and explaining how measurements taken from Antarctic ice can show levels of an element or chemical in the environment over time. At the end of the episode, an image of the Earth appeared and Tyson said, “Today, scientists sound the alarm on other environmental dangers.

Vested interests still hire their own scientists to confuse the issue. But in the end, nature will not be fooled (episode 7). This episode, without overtly discussing climate change, may still have had an effect on viewers who associated the lead poisoning narrative with issues surrounding climate change, utilizing engaging animation to discreetly make arguments to persuade viewers.

A more explicit climate change episode also took place near the end of the series. This episode explained how greenhouse gasses have had an effect on the planet Venus and how this related to the current global warming problem on Earth. It

122 told the causes of climate change, the research that had been done to understand its causes and effects, and directly called viewers to take action and stop further damage to the planet. “We stand on the shoulders of those who did the hard work that such a fundamental transformation required. Now it's our turn” (episode 12). This episode tied with the The Bachelorette for top ratings in the 18-49 age group, a demographic that is highly sought after, and may have been particularly significant for those seeking change in environmental policy and behavior (Mooney, 2014). Unlike the earlier episode, Tyson more explicitly discussed climate change with viewers, showing the series relied on a variety of techniques to be influential.

The hosts of Cosmos and its remake also specifically blamed climate change on themselves and the viewers, showing yet another method of persuasion. Sagan explained, “We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide increasing the greenhouse effect” (episode 4) and Tyson said, “We're destabilizing our climate”

(episode 11). Both series ensured audiences knew that everyone contributed to the climate change problem and that it was without a doubt caused by human activity, but the second time around, Cosmos: ASO made sure to tell viewers to get up and do something about it.

Challenging Authority

Cosmos: ASO had twice as many episodes as Cosmos that referenced challenging authority, which was one of the new, emerging categories. While the religious references had been more direct in the original series, references to challenging authority were more frequent, and tended to be stronger, in the remake. In the last episode of Cosmos, however, Sagan seemed to get particularly more blunt with all of his assertions. He outright said, “Arguments from authority are worthless,” but

123 typically these types of references came from the stories he told. Sagan made the points that people like Galileo Galilei and Giordano Bruno were made to “suffer brutally” in Italy for having their own ideas that contradicted authority, yet Christiaan Huygens was “showered with honors” for supporting similar ideas in Holland (episode 6).

Many times Cosmos: ASO portrayed people who stood up to authoritative figures as heroes, such as Bruno, who had been jailed for eight years and sentenced to death by the Inquisition but still refused to renounce his views, or Mozi the Chinese philosopher who argued “against blind obedience to ritual and authority” (episode 5).

But in episode eight, the animated character of Cecelia Payne learned a lesson by submitting to a leading scientist who thought her work was wrong, even though her research proved her right. After later finding that she had been correct all along she said, “I had given in to authority when I believed I was right. If you are sure of your facts, you should defend your position,” showing many different types of people resisting authority to further an understanding that it applied to everyone (episode 8).

In various episodes Tyson directly advised viewers to question authority or he glorified others for doing so. He said that to flourish, science needed free expression and it depended on “the fearless questioning of authority” (episode 5), and in the final episode he reminded viewers to always question everyone, including himself, authority, and also to remember to, “question yourself” (episode 13). It was evident from the many different examples that challenging authority was a concept in Cosmos, and particularly

Cosmos: ASO, that the writers felt was important. The increased use of this reference in the remake may have signified the creators’ desire to influence viewers to stand up for science. Some of these references included resisting religious, scientific, industrial, and

124 political leaders. This message gave no particular focus for whom might have been to blame for standing in the way of science, but that if anyone ever did, he or she should be defied. Since 1980 there has been an increase in television viewing, as well as the addition of the Internet, which has supplied the public with a variety of informational sources, many of which have made claims that were not based on science. Persuading viewers to stand up for evidence-based conclusions, in an information age that is prone to conspiracy theories and pseudo-science, could be particularly useful at combating these false assumptions.

Political

Some of the references focused on political issues. While the two series did not comment on specific leaders that currently held office during their times of broadcast, they instead told stories about historical politicians as a method to teach lessons and to focus on larger themes. These references included topics of governmental censorship, praising the creation of democracy, the high costs of war, and the consequences of nuclear warfare. Cosmos put much more emphasis on the damage of nuclear war while the remake put more of a focus on the destruction of war in general, how it had an impact on science, and particularly spoke of a political suppression of ideas.

This transition away from nuclear weapons was probably due to the efforts made by the United States and Russia to reduce each country’s number of nuclear arms.

Years after Cosmos aired, co-writer of both Cosmos series, Ann Druyan, recorded a special introduction on the DVD version of the show. Referring to when the original series aired, she said, “Back then, the U.S. and the Soviet Union held the whole planet in their perpetual hostage crisis called the Cold War… So much has happened since then. The Cold War is history and science has made great strides” (episode 1).

125 The notion that politics and science are intertwined was similarly expressed in the remake, not only through the stories it told but as an introduction by President

Barack Obama. A representative of the President had asked to include the introduction before the first episode, and the Cosmos: ASO team complied. In an interview Tyson believed it might have had something to do with the White House decreasing science spending for NASA the week before the series aired. Tyson said, “If you look at it politically, rather than gesturally, it’s easy to think of that as a way for him to try to gain points back in the science community, immediately after dropping the science budget for NASA” (Browne, 2014). Whether it was a way for President Obama to save face or a sincere attempt to encourage Americans to embrace discovery, it was a monumental moment for science television. This act signified that the Cosmos legacy was important and influential enough to warrant the first-ever presidential introduction of a television series.

Health

Of all the categories of kairos, the least prevalently found was health. Typically when either of the series discussed human health it was in conjunction with another cultural reference and was used to further a point. These references used the threat to human health to augment other persuasive arguments, such as describing how the people of Hiroshima suffered from nuclear warfare in Cosmos and imagining the same suffering taking place all over the world. Cosmos: ASO described the widespread use of lead in ancient Rome despite its harmful effects on the human body, and then told the animated story of Clair Patterson and his fight against the oil industry to ban commercial use of lead in the United States. Patterson’s story included a variety of cultural

126 references, but it appeared health was used to accentuate the other underlying problems and made the issues more relatable and concerning to viewers.

Ethos

The second research question studied the ethos, or the personas, of the hosts.

The coding sheets were designed to analyze the overall tones that each of them used throughout the series, as well as how they appeared to interact with, and include, viewers. Both of the hosts were found to speak similarly in tone, in a very calm and soothing manner. Instead of speaking arrogantly and technically, as some might expect a stereotypical scientist to do, Sagan and Tyson remained friendly and unthreatening throughout each episode. Viewers could more easily see aspects of themselves in the hosts, and so it was easier to make deeper connections which created stronger ethos.

Using metaphors and stories with which a wide range of audiences could connect, they presented information in an easy-going and interesting manner while increasing viewers’ knowledge in a variety of areas. They taught everything from relativity to molecular biology in a way that was understandable for children, without seeming “dumbed down” for adults. The informal, likeable personas they portrayed on both series allowed the more difficult topics, or those that some may have typically found dull, to be entertaining and worthy of understanding. Yet while both hosts may have come off as relatable to the average viewer, their intelligence and respectability were consistently established and were reinforced by their previously recognized credibility in the scientific community.

The hosts sometimes presented very controversial subjects and stated their points very clearly, but without aggression toward counterarguments. Their arguments were backed up by strong scientific evidence so there was no need to act hostile toward

127 those who disagreed. In presenting topics like climate change and evolution Sagan and

Tyson remained calm and collected, speaking with relaxed and sometimes poetic language. This may have helped viewers to be more open to accepting the hosts’ arguments and lessened an outright rejection of the content by viewers who had conflicting attitudes. Their gentle, yet passionate approaches also helped to communicate why they cared about these topics so much and why the audience should have too.

Sagan and Tyson appeared to interact with and include audiences by verbally or physically addressing them or asking questions directed at them. These aspects were of particular interest because previous research had found that these methods can significantly impact the experience viewers have when watching television (Hartmann &

Goldhoorn, 2001; Cummins & Cui, 2014; Giles, 2002). Each of the hosts used language such as “us,” “we,” and “our,” rather than “I,” to make viewers feel like they were one, going on an adventure and traveling together throughout each episode of the 13-part series. This inclusion may have created a much more personal experience for those watching at home. They sometimes pointed at the camera and regularly made hand gestures toward it as though they were looking back at those watching and having a casual conversation. To increase this sensation, Sagan and Tyson were also frequently filmed up close and at eye level. This may have further dissociated them from appearing as preaching scientists and made the narrative more like listening to a friend, encouraging audiences to be more open to their arguments.

Sagan referred to his series as “a story about us” (as Tyson later did as well) and said, “For the first time, we have the power to decide the fate of our planet and

128 ourselves” (episode 1). This made it seem like much more than a television show, maybe a chance to decide the world’s destiny together, and he was going to tell us how.

In this first episode of Cosmos, Sagan said, “Come with me,” inviting viewers to join him, which Tyson later repeated many times in the remake, even actually extending his hand as though offering anyone to take it. They took their audiences on a journey rather than preaching to them, and this made learning about science feel closer to taking a field trip through space than being stuck on Earth in a classroom.

Cosmos and Cosmos: ASO did not necessarily try to educate viewers on science, but they aimed to spark interest and inspire others to learn more about science on their own. In one episode Tyson spoke of Thales and Democritus sending us on a hunt for an “ever-deepening understanding of nature” and then directly asked viewers,

“Who among you will pick up that torch and take us down that next stretch of road?”

(episode 6). It was about halfway through the series at that point, after he had already developed a “relationship” with his audience, and he chose that time to put the onus on viewers to further the understanding of science and pursue their interests.

One of the episodes ended with Tyson sharing a personal story from his teenage years, connecting with viewers on an emotional level as well as offering a reminder of

Sagan’s influence on both him and the remake. By sharing something about his own life, it may have helped viewers feel even closer to him. The scene showed a silhouette of Sagan shaking the hand of Tyson’s younger self at a bus stop, and he explained this as,

A branch point on the road that brought me to this moment with you. It was the day I met Carl Sagan. Reminds me of those ghost stars in the sky. You know, the ones that still shine their light upon us long after they're gone (episode 4).

129 While Sagan and Tyson had shown many similarities in their tones and behaviors to include viewers, this was not to say they should necessarily be directly compared.

They were still two different people with unique personalities and had their own individual ways of presenting the content of their own series. For example, while the tone from both of them remained calm and soothing, Sagan hosted with a huge smile in most scenes, while Tyson appeared friendly but with more serious facial expressions.

They each brought something different to Cosmos, and while it is beyond the scope of this research to say which was more effective, it appears that the personas portrayed by both Sagan and Tyson played a large role in creating highly popular science television.

Aethos

The third research question studied aspects of aethos, which included an examination of the different types of imagery as well as the use of enthymemes in the two series. Cosmos: ASO aired more than 30 years after the original series, resulting in vast differences in imagery because of advances in CGI and special effects. Even though Cosmos included some CGI to enhance live-action filming, the series relied most heavily on Sagan’s talent for narration and captured various scenic locations from around the world. In contrast, only one episode of the remake was filmed largely using live action not enhanced by CGI (episode 4) to show Tyson in New York City and the countryside of Italy where Einstein had once lived.

Cosmos: ASO used a significant amount of CGI in each episode which allowed for a lot of creative freedom to fly through space and time and show viewers different concepts much more realistically than Sagan was able to relying on drawings and models, possibly drawing them into the show more deeply. In one episode Sagan used various illustrations of Alice in Wonderland to explain what changes in the force of

130 gravity might do to an Earth-like environment, but Tyson was able to show what this would actually look like in New York City. Portraying this concept in a way that was much more relatable to viewers, in a place that many had either visited or seen pictures of, unlike the fictional location of Wonderland, the content became much more convincing and allowed audiences to be drawn into it rather than just being entertained.

The New York City skyline was used later in the series as the backdrop for explaining different wavelengths of light and depicting what it might look like when viewed in infrared, x-ray, etc. Not only did this increase audience interest by using a familiar location and vivid imagery, but also it also succeeded in making a lesson in physics entertaining for viewers who may not have been interested otherwise.

The aethos immersed viewers in the series, and the inclusion of imagery as a rhetorical device may have functioned not only as an educational aid but a way to ease tension when presenting controversial topics. Sorensen (2013) said strong imagery could help shape a frame for the host, which may have made viewers more accepting of new points of view. Cosmos and its remake both used not only some of the most advanced special effects for their times to make the series engaging but also to strengthen their persuasive arguments. For example, when trying to convince an audience that the Big Bang had happened, the narrative could have been supplemented with images showing the processes of the early universe. As CGI has advanced tremendously since the original Cosmos series, visual effects in the remake were made to look so life-like that viewers could feel as though they were seeing reality and not just a simulation. Cosmos: ASO used this to its advantage when explaining the Big Bang

131 Theory, evolution on Earth, and the life cycles of stars to press the point that we are

“star stuff.”

In Sorensen’s (2013) research on Cosmos she wrote about the consubstantiality that was formed with viewers through the consistency in aethos that encouraged them to feel connected to the show. She said although the locations of each episode had changed, their overall arena remained consistent. Frequently comforting scenes were used such as nature scenes, ocean waves, and the inside of the Ship of the Imagination to bring viewers back to that “shared space” that generated nostalgia for Cosmos.

Sorensen had speculated there might have been backlash from fans if that consubstantiality was broken in the remake. Fortunately, Druyan and Soter, two of the original writers, were able to keep the same essence alive in Cosmos: ASO, transforming the series and remaking it, but keeping the original spirit of Cosmos very much alive. This may have helped attract fans of the original series, and kept the rhetorical structure persisting in the remake which seemed to have contributed to its popularity.

Many of the same types of serene images were reused, and the first episode of the series opened (and ended) with Tyson standing on a cliff with the ocean behind him, in the exact location Sagan had stood more than 30 years earlier. The original series included many popular concepts such as the Cosmic Calendar, the Ship of the

Imagination, the Tree of Life, the “rising of the Milky Way” galaxy from the view of a nearby star cluster, and a depiction of the Library of Alexandria. All were remade in

Cosmos: ASO using stunning CGI that really brought the imagery to life, while renewing the loyalty held by many long-time fans of Cosmos, and creating consubstantiality with

132 new ones. This builds stronger relationships with viewers as it increases investment and satisfaction in the series, leading to more commitment audiences have to the shows

(Eyal & Dailey, 2012).

Unique to the remake, however, was the large reliance on animation to tell stories about historical figures. Cosmos featured live-action portrayals of people like

Johannes Keplar, Jean-Francois Champollion, and Christiaan Huygens, but mostly the actors were silent while Sagan narrated for them. Many scientists’ lives were also portrayed in Cosmos: ASO but were animated and had voice actors speaking their parts. At times Tyson would interject but the characters mainly spoke for themselves.

Cosmos was different in that Sagan remained the main storyteller throughout the series, using actors in other settings as an aid to his narration. While less visually entertaining than the animation in the remake, this may have increased the ethos of the original series, creating a deeper perceived relationship viewers had with Sagan.

The idea for animation came after the scripts for Cosmos: ASO had already been written. Tyson said in an article that there had been various problems with trying to film live actors, including that Fox was “apprehensive about what it would mean in prime time to have actors with glued-on mutton chops and fake British accents reenacting historical moments” (Browne, 2014). Seth MacFarlane, famous for his successful animated shows, Family Guy and American Dad!, was producing Cosmos: ASO, so guided by his expertise, animation became the alternative. While very different from the original, the animation allowed the remake to show scenes that might have been very difficult or impossible with live action.

133 For example, in the first episode of the series animated Giordano Bruno was shown chained in a prison for believing in an endless universe, but in his mind he was free and imagined soaring “toward the infinite” and leaving far behind “what others strained to see from a distance.” As Bruno had imagined, he closed his eyes and became his much younger self, broke free from his shackles and flew through space past planets and stars. He then flashed back to reality when he was being tied up and burned at the stake. Using an actor to play this character likely would have been difficult to transition between these different scenes and would not have been as seamless and striking as it was portrayed with animation. While Cosmos: ASO continued to use the same type of animation frequently throughout the series, it included Sagan’s animation of life on Earth’s “evolution in 40 seconds.” The series used CGI and animation many times to present images of evolution, but the creators decided to keep this segment as a way to reference back to the original series, once again maintaining nostalgia for

Cosmos.

Another use of rhetoric found within both of the series was the inclusion of enthymemes. These are arguments that are presented without conclusions so that the viewers will come to an understanding on their own, creating a stronger persuasive effect. This can be difficult, however, because not everyone (or anyone) in an audience is guaranteed to come to a correct or unified conclusion. Regardless, Cosmos and its remake both used enthymemes to try to persuade viewers of arguments they had been building up ahead of time so that their effectiveness would be more likely.

In the last episode of Cosmos, when Sagan had become more direct about his views, he was shown in the Ship of the Imagination looking at a planet very similar to

134 Earth that had ended in destruction. He then traveled to see Earth and his computer told him that it had been the victim of nuclear war. Sagan used very emotionally triggering language about the deaths of the inhabitants on the planet, and then images of mushroom clouds and explosions appeared but he did not actually say anything negative about nuclear weapons. The viewers were meant to come to this conclusion on their own, making them feel as though nuclear weapons were particularly dangerous to their own lives, but Sagan did not have to seem as though he was strongly influencing them. This was used to make those watching at home believe they had decided on their own that nuclear weapons were bad, rather than explicitly telling them that. Without seeming to force this idea on viewers, it may have made them more likely to accept it.

Then in Cosmos: ASO three episodes also showed different uses of enthymemes. In the second episode Tyson walked viewers through the Halls of

Extinction, explaining the five past mass extinctions on Earth. He paused in front of a sixth corridor that was not labeled but rather than explaining it told viewers it was “for another day” (episode 2). However, if some were not led to wonder on their own that humans could be a part of the next mass extinction, Tyson found the same empty corridor in the ninth episode and outright said, “There's a chance that the end of our story lies in there.”

Also, in episode seven, when Tyson told the story of Clair Patterson’s fight to end commercial use of lead, there were many unstated links to the use of non-renewable resources that are harmful to the environment and human health, as detailed in the previous chapter. He ended the episode explaining that, “Today, scientists sound the

135 alarm on other environmental dangers. Vested interests still hire their own scientists to confuse the issue. But in the end, nature will not be fooled” (episode 7). Again Tyson dropped a significant hint that there may have been connections between Patterson’s fight with the oil industry and similar, more current problems. While he informed viewers that there were “vested interests” to be wary of, he did not explicitly tell them who to blame or what they should have taken away from the episode, but left them to make the connections on their own.

As climate change is a very strongly opinionated topic, many may be put off by a science series which directly promotes that it is caused by human activity. Using an enthymeme in this way might lessen the tension by building up the argument with an interesting animated story based off of real science, and then trying to help viewers make the connections to current issues that are being faced, without making them feel as though the host is pushing his own opinions on them. This concept was similarly shown in episode eleven, when Tyson wondered about civilizations that self-destruct and images of land, air, and water pollution flashed on screen, along with dead animals covered in oil. The graphic, emotionally stimulating images showed very clearly what might have caused the destruction of civilizations, but it was still left unsaid. The scene switched to a far-away image of the Earth looking tiny and fragile as he discussed how the economic systems would not protect our descendants. He had earlier determined with an animated segment that ancient Mesopotamia was a civilization that was destroyed by “abrupt climate change” (episode 11). Then walking through the desert he said we were in denial of the problem that large amounts of greenhouse gasses were getting pumped into the atmosphere after comparing us to that city.

136 Near the end of the episode Tyson speculated on the future of humanity, imagining: “The last internal combustion engine is placed in a museum, as the effects of climate change reverse and diminish” (episode 11). He was careful in this episode not to explicitly tell viewers that we could be destroyed by climate change but put it in the context of another civilization we could be compared to or imagined a future where it was not a problem. Tyson presented the audience with the facts and then let them come to the conclusion he wanted them to. This may have been more effective than in other episodes which placed specific blame on viewers for causing climate change, but cannot be determined by this study. Previous research had shown that use of enthymemes through text, imagery, or both, could be highly persuasive. It appears this may have been the case in Cosmos, as its remake once again used this technique, but even more prominently.

Mythos

The fourth research question examined the mythos of Cosmos and Cosmos:

ASO which included any storytelling, dramatization, or fictionalizing effects. Engaging the audience in such a way can increase the persuasive nature of television by transporting viewers out of their normal environments and making them more susceptible to influence (Dahlstrom & Ho, 2012). In Sorensen’s (2013) research on

Cosmos she found it was this effect that contributed most significantly to its long lasting popularity and believed that dramatizing content was necessary for its success.

LaFollette (2013) had said, “The fanciest visualization techniques could not sustain millions of viewers without assistance from skills perfected by generations of storytellers,” and the hosts’ narration skills may have contributed to the series enduring success (p. 134).The results of both the research in this study and Sorensen’s found

137 that the other types of rhetoric observed (kairos, ethos, and aethos) played central roles in forming mythos.

Kairos contributed a relevant cultural environment to ensure the stories presented were a reflection of the viewers’ own lives. It took the ethos of the hosts, who were likeable and interacted with viewers, to create the biggest emotional impact. They used their skills at dramatizing science and explained it in an understandable, interesting way to ensure the content did not seem too dull or complex. The personas and speaking skills of Sagan and Tyson seemed essential to the two series’ popularity.

Then aethos gave the imagery that brought the narration to life and used enthymemes to encourage viewers to make connections and think more deeply about science.

However, the level of popularity of Cosmos and its remake could not be attributed to any one of these effects in particular, as they all blended together to create the ultimate production. While the mythos might have been built up from the other forms of rhetoric used by the series, it also worked in return to enhance and strengthen them by increasing their emotional appeal.

Many examples of mythos were found in both series and were broken up into larger themes, including: Journey/Adventure, Ship of the Imagination/Cosmic Calendar,

Scientist Stories, Science Metaphors/Personification, and Poetic Language. While these themes were prevalent in both series and were used in different ways, it appeared that

Cosmos used more poetic language and metaphors for science than the remake, therefore putting a stronger emphasis on this technique. This may have been due to the greater amount of narration in Cosmos, whereas Cosmos: ASO was able to frequently rely on its masterful use of imagery to influence its audiences.

138 Viewers were invited on a journey for the duration of each series and then encouraged to keep exploring science on their own. In Cosmos: ASO Tyson referenced the original series to make the remake seem like a continuation of Sagan’s “adventure” and said, “It’s time to get going again” (episode 1). Sagan originally said, “Come with me,” inviting his audiences to join him on his journey through the universe. Tyson repeated this many times in the remake, not only building his relationship with viewers but adding an element of fantasy to the show. He wasn’t meant to be a mere host, but a guide to the cosmos waiting to take viewers aboard his ship.

In both series the hosts alluded to the future of space exploration, that there was still much to be discovered beyond the scope of what the shows covered, and gave a sense that even in the Ship of the Imagination there were still parts of the universe that remained hidden because they were yet to be found. The hosts used this to generate more excitement for discovering the unknown and encouraged viewers themselves to pursue the answers to many of the big questions faced by scientists. For example, in

Cosmos: ASO, when Tyson approached the event horizon of a black hole, while the screen shook dramatically and his voice distorted, he said viewers were entering

“uncharted scientific territory” and were never let inside to see what was there (episode

4). He said they could only use their imaginations “until the next Einstein comes along” to show them, which could have enticed those at home to try to pursue that discovery themselves if they really wanted to find out (episode 4). The exciting imagery and challenge to learn more might have encouraged viewers to pursue astronomy and become the next great scientists.

139 When Sagan called the surface of the Earth the “shore of the cosmic ocean” and said, “Recently we’ve waded a little way out, maybe ankle deep, and the water seems inviting,” it was almost like the “to be continued” before the roll of the movie credits

(episode 1). Building this interest in space exploration, as shown in previous research, may possibly lead to more support for funding (Munoz, et al., 2012; Ehrenfreund, et al.,

2010). Since the Millennial generation has been particularly unsupportive of missions to

Mars and elsewhere, Cosmos’ influence could be a significant factor in helping to build up support, particularly since the remake frequently topped ratings for this age group

(Mooney, 2014).

The Ship of the Imagination was able to take viewers almost anywhere, other than the insides of black holes and outside of the observable universe, and was used frequently in both series as a familiar setting to travel through spacetime with Sagan and Tyson. Even though their ships looked different, they worked to serve the same purpose. They added a cinematic element to the series that allowed viewers to shrink down to the size of an atom and explore parts of the universe what normally could not be seen by human eyes. The fictional Ship of the Imagination was used to explain real science in an entertaining way and was very clearly meant to symbolize how viewers’ imaginations could take them anywhere and allow them to do anything. Including science fiction to teach science had been previously studied but had received some backlash because it sometimes confused what was fact and what was not, but in both

Cosmos series the hosts were careful to remind their audiences that the ships were purely fueled by the imagination so as not to be confused. They reaped the benefits of using fictional elements but were careful to always discern between fact, fiction, and

140 speculation to retain accuracy and not mislead viewers. Other studies had shown that including fictional elements can effectively improve learning, as long as students did not become so immersed in the entertainment that the educational value was lost (Brake &

Thornton, 2003; Rose, 2007). Proving that this can be done in Cosmos without confusing viewers could have significant implications for educators, who may be able to benefit from incorporating mythos into their own teaching methods.

The Cosmic Calendar was another concept used in both series which awed viewers with special effects and transformed a typical household object into a timeline of the cosmos. The calendar was used to give a visual representation of how the universe was created and how long it had to form into its present state. These would normally have been difficult topics to cover but the Cosmic Calendar put them into terms that the average person could comprehend and relate with. The hosts explained that humanity had only existed for the last few seconds of the final month, and Tyson took it a step further to note how very recently in the history of the universe major religious figures had been born. This may have made religion appear very short lived and defied the popular idea that everything had been created in the last 6,500 years. While many creationists protested this, particularly after the remake aired, it softened the blow by dazzling viewers with CGI and putting evidence for a 13.8 billion year old universe into a visual context that made sense. By adding the calendar as an interesting fictional representation, it may have lessened the outright rejection of scientific understandings of the age of the universe, the Big Bang Theory, and evolution, while increasing understanding.

141 Stories about historical figures were also used, such as of famous scientists and leaders, to explain the history and processes of scientific discovery and suggested to viewers to more easily adopt certain concepts. As mentioned previously, Cosmos used narration and live-action reenactments to tell stories, while Cosmos: ASO had much lengthier animated segments. They engaged viewers while promoting messages such as that women had made essential contributions to science, even the poorest or most unlikely people could become the next great scientists, and that basic research could be developed into important applications. They also brought to light many issues involved with climate change such as the oil industry’s profit at the expense of the environment and how authoritative figures could be used to misinterpret research. The stories gave scientists personalities and replaced the common view of an older white male in a lab coat, further encouraging a wide range of people to pursue science regardless of race, gender, disability, or socioeconomic status.

Many of the stories were used to promote challenging authority and referred to those who did as being courageous, and even portrayed Giordano Bruno as a martyr for science, encouraging viewers to idolize them and do the same. In one episode Tyson had asked: “Does the fact that most of us know the names of mass murderers, but never heard of Jan Oort, say anything about us?” This may have motivated viewers to reflect on science in a new way and possibly changed their impressions of scientists.

The two Cosmos series brought many forgotten researchers to life and helped viewers to both relate with them, making them appear less distant and more human, but also see them as heroes worth revering. Improving the image of scientists in such ways

142 might lead to more support for science if viewers felt like they could both understand and relate with them.

Another important characteristic of mythos was the type of language spoken throughout the two series. Sagan and Tyson consistently used metaphors and personification of science, as well as beautiful, poetic words to have an emotional impact on viewers. While both hosts used these mechanisms throughout the series,

Cosmos was found to rely even more heavily on the use of this dreamy narrative.

Tyson, on the other hand, had more CGI capabilities at his disposal, so while the language remained similar it allowed imagery to be used more often than in the original series to make emotional connections with viewers. For example, when explaining the life cycles of stars, both hosts described them as though they were alive. They were born in nurseries, matured, died, and then were reborn again. The stars were given human characteristics to make them seem more endearing to audiences so that a connection was made, calling everyone “star stuff.” This method aimed to create a sense of unity with the cosmos, because the Earth was “only a tiny part of the vast cosmic tapestry,” and tried to generate a numinous feeling in viewers for the universe

(Cosmos, episode 8). Cosmos: ASO furthered this and spoke of humanity’s connections to all of life on Earth through evolution and that it all came from the stars.

At the atomic level, Sagan and Tyson explained that while everyone was made up of the similar “star stuff,” all living creatures were only unique depending on how their atoms happened to be arranged. At first this almost seemed to create a very lackluster description of human life, but then Sagan romanticized it by explaining that, “The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it but the way those atoms are put

143 together,” emphasizing the artistry of evolution (episode 5). Both series used this type of language to not only persuade viewers by making them feel something for science, but it was meant to help demystify difficult concepts and persuade audiences to be more accepting of controversial topics.

In Cosmos: ASO, for example, Tyson explained the greenhouse effect on Venus, calling it “a ferocious inferno” but said, “the Earth, in stunning contrast, is alive. It breathes but very slowly. A single breath takes a whole year.” (episode 12). In explaining the difference between the two planets he continued, “That's all there is to the greenhouse effect. It's basic physics, just bookkeeping of the energy flow. There's nothing controversial about it” (episode 12). The hosts used rationality and simple ways of explaining controversial science like global warming, evolution, and the creation of the universe by presenting facts in interesting ways and letting viewers make their own decisions, rather than being overly aggressive with the points they wanted to make.

The ocean was also used frequently in both series as a metaphor for space exploration, and the hosts were filmed with waves crashing behind them and walking along the beach. These similarities made something that seemed disconnected from everyday life feel more tangible and as though travelling the universe was within reach.

Furthering the importance of space exploration, Sagan had said that by landing rovers on Mars we had “fulfilled a century of dreams” and compared it to the “kind of rapture” felt by Columbus and Marco Polo (episode 5). He also related the Voyager spacecraft to ships exploring the New World. Later Tyson described, almost word for word as Sagan had, a gorgeous view of a “galaxy rise,” similar to a sunrise but with hundreds of billions of suns that would only be visible by travelling outside of the Milky Way. They teased

144 viewers by painting a picture with both their words and complementary imagery that encouraged them to support space exploration if they wanted to someday make that view a reality. Including mythos in the two Cosmos series in these ways could have been the key to their success, and may have inspired some viewers to become the next generation of scientists, or at least see the purpose of certain areas of research and be more willing to support their funding.

Limitations

The coding process in this research was based off of Sorensen’s (2013) framework for the rhetoric of Cosmos. The purpose of this study was to find some of the clearest examples of the specific aspects of rhetoric in Cosmos and its remake which

Sorensen believed created successful science television. Although this research used a mixed method, it was still highly qualitative. While the researcher closely followed the coding guidelines throughout the coding process, qualitative research can be subjectively interpreted. While co-coders agreed that there was an abundance of examples of kairos, ethos, aethos, and mythos throughout Cosmos and Cosmos: ASO, there were so many examples to select from that those chosen from each episode differed between the researcher and each co-coder as to which appeared to be the most representative. Ultimately, while these results may have differed slightly, they did show that there were many instances when each type of rhetorical device was used throughout both series.

Similarly, in studying kairos, the original list of cultural aspects that could be selected from on the coding sheets had been determined based on Sorensen’s (2013) previous research. While two new categories were found during the coding process, religion and challenging authority, they may not have been the only cultural reference

145 categories that could be uncovered from the two series. The researcher found these two additional categories had distinguished themselves as being highly prominent in

Cosmos and its remake and were therefore added to the coding sheets. Future studies on the two Cosmos series may find there are other emerging cultural categories as well.

Future Research

This topic lends itself to much further investigation. Different aspects of rhetoric were investigated in this study which may have a strong influence on viewers when used in science television. There is still much that can be learned from each of these aspects that could be explored further individually. While this research showed that these elements were frequently used in Cosmos and Cosmos: ASO, future studies could be conducted on the actual effects they can have on viewers, such as how they specifically affect education, interest, and willingness to fund science. The coding method used in this research could also be used as an outline to similarly compare how kairos, ethos, aethos, and mythos are found in other science series to further test if there is a correlation between this rhetorical structure and an impact on popularity and effectiveness at influencing attitude and learning.

Since Cosmos included more narration, but the remake had animation and more

CGI, another study could involve experimentally testing whether viewers find more narration or more imagery to be the most effective, memorable, or educational. This may also be of interest to parasocial interaction research which could determine if the increase in time Sagan spent on camera created a stronger perceived relationship with viewers than Tyson did.

The enthymeme may prove to a very effective type of persuasion in television, and more research into the effects it has on viewers of Cosmos: ASO, in particular, may

146 be useful. For example, the episodes used different methods of persuasion (e.g. enthymeme, directly blaming) to attempt to influence viewers to hold certain attitudes toward climate change. A study could be conducted comparing these different techniques to see which is most effective at influencing public opinion.

In addition, Cosmos: ASO had the Internet as a resource while the original series did not, which had many implications for the show. The remake may have suffered the collective backlash from certain religious groups, but it was also able to implement an interactive Star Science Teacher of the Week contest, and integrated social media pages which allowed further interaction with viewers. Studies on how this interactive online presence helped or hurt the series’ popularity could influence how the Internet is used in conjunction with other science television series in the future.

Conclusion

The science documentary series, Cosmos, and its remake, Cosmos: ASO, have both been widely popular since they were broadcast. Following Sorensen’s (2013) research on the rhetorical style of the original series, this study strengthened her findings and analyzed the similarities and differences within the remake as well. While

Sorensen wrote an in-depth analysis of Cosmos, this research used a mixed method to study the rhetoric in a way that was more quantitative. Previous studies have focused on the effects of television from using different persuasive techniques, but there has been very little literature on how television is rhetorically structured, particularly in the science genre. Since both of the Cosmos series were so successful they offered a unique opportunity to break down their rhetorical structure and speculate on how this may have affected viewers.

147 The rhetorical devices found to be prevalent throughout both series included kairos, ethos, aethos, and mythos, which may have contributed significantly to the two series’ rare success, leading Cosmos to decades of popularity. All of these aspects of rhetoric were used to persuade audiences of the views presented by the series’ creators and explained very controversial topics, made complicated concepts in science more understandable, and portrayed science and scientists in a more relatable way to the average person. As both series were a reflection of culture in 1980 and 2014, their analyses may have also represented how society has changed and what challenges science has faced within each time period. While the original series focused on the destruction of nuclear war and accumulation of nuclear weapons, it was phased out in the remake as the Cold War was over and therefore not as relevant. Instead, the new series put even more emphasis on evolution and climate change, which were much more salient topics during the time the remake had aired.

Cosmos: ASO had many direct connections to the original series including voiceovers of Sagan, similar lines, reused concepts, and methods of persuasion, keeping the soul of Cosmos alive while bringing back some the original fan base. There were some differences in the remake, however, particularly the addition of animation and the vastly updated CGI, rather than live-action filming and use of physical replicas.

The storytelling and use of metaphors for science were similar, though Sagan seemed to rely on this type of narration more often because he did not have the visual effects that were afforded to Tyson. With these new imagery capabilities, Cosmos: ASO fought many of the common arguments against science.

148 One episode showed a “creature’s eye view” of what eyesight may have looked like as it evolved and explained the process of natural selection to challenge the view that complex organs could not have been produced naturally. There was also the story of a scientist fighting the oil industry to stop commercial use of lead because of its health and environmental damages, which closely mirrored problems associated with climate change, and the episode explained why sometimes authorities of science would misinterpret results because of financial interests. This likely had been meant to fight the popular argument in 2014 that not all scientists believed climate change was caused by human activity, though those who held this idea only totaled three percent.

The dreamy, poetic language persisted as a defining aspect of the remake that may have created an emotional bond with viewers and made them feel something for science. Through their masterful use of language, Cosmos and its remake were, quite literally, poetry in motion. In one episode, Tyson said, “We pulled the stars from the skies and brought them down to Earth” (episode 8). He was talking about electricity, but metaphorically both series seemed to do this by taking what seemed very distant from viewers and offering it to them in a more tangible way, in a sense bringing the universe to light.

Television, as an informal method of science learning, may be more successful when presented in the rhetorical structure followed by the two Cosmos series. Rather than attempting to pack an entire lesson plan into an episode, it may be more effective when presenting interesting information about topics in science not covered in the classroom, or those that are relevant to current policy issues, that could stimulate more interest in science and motivate viewers to learn more information on their own. While

149 the two Cosmos series would most likely not have had a “magic bullet” effect on most viewers, automatically making them fall in love with the material, they may have served as a gateway to interest in science or helped persuade them of the views expressed in the series. There may not be any medium which creates a defining moment that persuades the public to pursue a career in science or be certain to fund it in the future, but successful science television series such as these may aid in the accumulation of science interest and understanding which could lead to those end results. By applying the rhetorical structure observed in Cosmos to future science television, it may prove to strengthen the persuasive effects available to the scientific community as well as contribute to a more educated society capable of making its own informed, democratic decisions about science.

150 APPENDIX A BEST PRACTICES FOR SCIENCE TELEVISION PRODUCERS

Research has shown successful science television can:

 Increase understanding and interest in science (an important informal method of science learning).

 Lead to more positive attitudes toward science.

 Lessen stereotyping of what a scientist is (encouraging a variety of students to pursue STEM degrees).

 Lead to more support for funding of science.

Cosmos and its remake, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, have both maintained long-lasting popularity that has not been matched by any other science documentary series. This may have been due to their similar rhetorical structure which included these aspects:

 kairos (cultural environments during each series)

 ethos (personas of the hosts)

 aethos (imagery and enthymemes)

 mythos (storytelling, dramatization, and fictionalizing effects)

All of these aspects of rhetoric were used frequently throughout both of the series. Previous studies have examined them separately, finding that each aspect can be used to increase popularization and persuasion in television. They may be used as a model for structuring future successful science television series.

Kairos included various cultural references that were significant during the times that the two series aired (1980 and 2014). It may be used to present science in a way that is interesting and relevant to viewers. The types of references were similar across both series, but changed in frequency and in how they were portrayed as shown below:

151

152 Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey also contained more cultural references than Cosmos across each category:

Number of Episodes with Cultural References by Type Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey vs. Cosmos

0 Political Health Environmental Creation Religion Challenging Authority Cosmos: ASO Cosmos

Ethos included the personas portrayed by the hosts, Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson. Both hosts consistently used calm and soothing tones throughout the two series and relied on scientific facts to help present arguments on controversial topics, rather than seeming too forceful. Viewers could more easily connect with them because they appeared friendly and easy-going, seeming relatable while maintaining credibility. Other tactics included:

 Filming up close, at eye-level, to make them seem more personal.

 Using inclusive language like “we” and “us” instead of “I” or “you.”

 Physically addressed viewers by pointing or motioning toward them when speaking.

Aethos included the dominant imagery presented by each series which was determined between live action, computer generated imagery (CGI), or animation. The filming transitioned from live action and more reliance on narration and models in Cosmos to more use of CGI and animation in the remake, probably due to the increase in technology and design capabilities in the 34-year timespan. The differences in the predominantly used type of imagery can be seen below:

153

Both of the series used:

 Imagery to both entertain audiences and distract them when presenting controversial material like climate change, evolution, and the Big Bang Theory.

 Peaceful, serene settings, with the hosts speaking from fields of grass and flowers or in front of ocean waves.

 Images that might trigger emotional reactions in viewers.

Another aspect of aethos included the use of enthymemes, which presented arguments without a conclusion so that the viewers would come to it on their own, creating a stronger persuasive effect. This technique was used more often in the remake. An example from each series included:

 In Cosmos- Showing images of a tiny, fragile-looking Earth and switching to a mushroom cloud to show the danger of nuclear weapons without explicitly say it.

 In Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey- Showing images of land, water, and air pollution and animals covered in oil to show how human activity is damaging the environment and leading to climate change without actually saying it.

Mythos included storytelling, dramatization, and fictionalizing effects which were frequently used throughout both series. Previous scholars have found that engaging the audience in such a way can increase the persuasive nature of television by transporting viewers out of their normal environments and making them more susceptible to influence. The two series included five main themes which were used to entertain

154 viewers, make difficult concepts more comprehensible, and present controversial topics in a more delicate way:

 Ship of the Imagination/Cosmic Calendar- The SOTI was used in both series as the home base for traveling through the universe with the hosts, adding an element of fiction to keep viewers engaged and a means to transition between scenes. The CC was used in both series as a visual representation of the timeline of the universe to explain the Big Bang Theory and challenge the belief of a 6,500 year old Earth.

 Journey/Adventure- Sagan and Tyson tried to make viewers feel like they were on a journey throughout the two series. They said, “Come with me,” multiple times, inviting audiences to join them, and said that exploration was a part of human nature. This added to the dramatization of science presented in the shows.

 Scientist Stories- The series told stories about historical figures that had an impact on science. Cosmos used silent actors while Sagan narrated, and Cosmos: ASO mostly used animation. The stories helped to convey controversial messages like that climate change is caused by human activity and showed cultural aspects (kairos) and traits the creators wanted to highlight like challenging authority. They showed that all types of people can be scientists and portrayed scientists as heroes.

 Science Metaphors/Personification- The shows personified the stars to make them seem more endearing. They used many references to the ocean as a metaphor for space exploration which took something far away and unfamiliar and made it seem more tangible. They also used early human exploration to promote our human need to explore space.

 Poetic Language- Both hosts used poetic language throughout the two series to create an emotional impact on viewers and to make difficult concepts more easy to understand, but Sagan used it even more so, probably because of the lack of special effects that were available during that time.

155 APPENDIX B EPISODE LISTS

Cosmos

Episode Number Title

1 Shores of the Cosmic Ocean

2 One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue

3 Harmony of the Worlds

4 Heaven and Hell

5 Blues for a Red Planet

6 Travelers’ Tales

7 The Backbone of Night

8 Journeys in Space and Time

9 The Lives of Stars

10 The Edge of Forever

11 The Persistence of Memory

12 Encyclopedia Galactica

13 Who Speaks for Earth?

156 Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

Episode Number Title

1 Standing Up in the Milky Way

2 Some of the Things That Molecules Do

3 When Knowledge Conquered Fear

4 A Sky Full of Ghosts

5 Hiding in the Light

6 Deeper, Deeper, Deeper Still

7 The Clean Room

8 Sisters of the Sun

9 The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth

10 The Electric Boy

11 The Immortals

12 The World Set Free

13 Unafraid of the Dark

157 APPENDIX C CODING SHEET

(1) Item Number: (2) Name of Series: (3) Episode Number: (4) Title of Episode: (5) Air Date: __/__/____

Examining Kairos

(6a) Contemporary Cultural Reference: ___Political ___Health ___Environmental ___Creation ___Other______

(6b) Cultural Reference Description(s):

Examining Ethos

(7) Overall Tone(s) of Host: ___Calm/Soothing ___Excited ___Ominous ___Angry ___Sad/Disappointed ___Other______(8) (9) Audience Acknowledgement and Inclusion:

Examining Aethos

(9a) Dominant Types of Imagery: Live Action CGI Animation

(9b) Description of Imagery:

(10) Use of Enthymeme:

Examining Mythos

(11) Description of Mythos:

158 APPENDIX D CODING GUIDELINES

(1) Item Number: Indicate the item number in the sample.

(2) Name of Series: Write the name of the series, which will be either Cosmos or Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey.

(3) Episode Number: Indicate the number of the episode in its series. This will be a number from 1 to 13.

(4) Title of Episode: Write the name shown as the title at the beginning of the episode.

(5) Air Date: Write the date that the episode first aired on television in mm/dd/yy format.

Examining Kairos:

(6a) Contemporary Cultural Relevance: Use an X to indicate the type(s) of cultural reference(s) in the episode. These are references to culturally salient topics at the time which the series debuted. Cosmos aired in 1980. Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey aired in 2014. Cultural reference categories include: Political: This includes references relating to politics or government. This may include topics such as leadership or nuclear weapons.

Health: This includes references relating to the physical health of individuals or society as a whole.

Environmental: This includes references to topics such as climate change, air quality, pollution, and environmental damage/preservation.

Creation: This includes references to topics such as evolution, biological creation, the Big Bang Theory, or creation of astronomical objects such as the Earth, stars, galaxies, or universe through a natural or scientific process.

Other: For a clear cultural reference which does not fall under one of these classifications, select “Other” and write in the category.

(6b) Cultural Relevance Description(s): For each cultural reference in 6a, write a brief description of the visual image (live action, CGI, or animation), symbol, or quoted narration which clearly demonstrates an example of the reference it portrays.

Examining Ethos:

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(7) Tone(s) of the Host: Use an X to indicate the tone or tones of the host throughout the episode. The choices include: Calm/Soothing: This tone is mild, serene, relaxing, or consoling.

Excited: This tone is elated, charged, exhilarated, or overjoyed.

Ominous: This tone is cautionary, foreboding, grim, or intimidating.

Angry: This tone is aggressive, irritated, resentful, or offended.

Sad/Disappointed: This tone is sorrowful, pessimistic, discouraged, or defeated.

Other: For a clear tone which does not fall under one of these classifications, select “Other” and write in the category.

(8) Audience Acknowledgement and Inclusion: If the host directly addresses the audience or uses language which includes or invites them as participants in the episode, write a brief description of the example(s). This may include instances such as pointing to or physically reaching out toward viewers, using phrases such as, “Come with me,” or frequently referring to “we” and “us” rather than “I” and “me”.

Examining Aethos:

(9a) Type of Imagery: Is the episode mainly dominated by Live Action, CGI, or Animation? Underline one or two options. These categories are defined for this research as: Live Action: Footage that is filmed with real-life environments and is not animated or enhanced with computer generated effects.

CGI: Computer generated imagery which is not filmed from real-life but uses computer graphics to enhance or create life-like scenes and special effects.

Animation: Use of moving illustrations or cartoons, which are clearly not life-like, to tell stories or explain scientific concepts. A type of imagery is dominant if it is present for more than 50% of an episode or two types are dominant if they are both largely used for an episode and together present for more than 50% of an episode. (9b) Description of Imagery: Describe the dominating form(s) of imagery in the episode that is indicated in 9a. Give examples, such as: mostly live action shot on location in a foreign country, use of CGI throughout entire episode to visit various planets in the Milky Way, or mainly animated to tell story of a historical figure.

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(10) Use of Enthymeme: Write any example of the clear use of an enthymeme in the episode. An enthymeme is a persuasive tactic in which the speaker presents part of an argument (through narration or imagery) but lets the audience come to the predetermined conclusion on their own. This may also involve telling a story which portrays an issue similar to one that is familiar so that the audience comes to the same conclusion for both issues. An example from Sorensen’s (2013) research on Cosmos included showing an image of a fragile looking Earth and then switching to an image of a mushroom cloud while talking about nuclear weapons without explicitly calling them dangerous, but leading viewers to that conclusion. Another example involves telling the story of an “alien world” that closely resembles the Earth but is suddenly destroyed. Sagan determines the cause was nuclear war and uses emotionally triggering language such as, “never again a love, or a child…no more songs from the earth” to describe the alien planet without explicitly saying that nuclear war is bad and could destroy our own similar planet (p 79).

Examining Mythos:

(11) Description of Mythos: Describe any elements of storytelling, dramatization, or fictionalization in the episode. These terms are defined for this research as: Storytelling: This includes narrative components such as plot, character development, and narrative arc to help portray the stories of historical figures and events or scientific concepts.

Dramatization: This includes the presentation of exciting, intense, or emotionally triggering imagery, metaphors, and storyline to depict people, places, or science in an interesting and familiar way.

Fictionalization: This includes representations of real life which may have been altered slightly to increase interest. While Cosmos presents truthful information, Sorensen (2013) believes there is a fictional aspect to portraying the storylines of scientific or historical figures. This may be expressed as the specific dialogue or actions of historical figures which cannot be known to have occurred and are considered representations rather than completely accurate portrayals. According to Sorensen, mythos includes, “Archetypical storylines, characters or other elements, which would be familiar or recognizable, in some way, to the audience” (p. 82). Some examples found in Sorensen’s research include depicting the birth of galaxies, the DNA replication process, and the story of the Library of Alexandria. There is also an emphasis on imagery and dialogue that help the viewer familiarize herself with scientific topics, such as taking viewers on a voyage, using the ocean as a metaphor for space exploration, or using personification. Include quotes, details of images, or brief description of a scene or storyline which clearly demonstrates mythos.

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168 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Alexandrea Matthews came to the University of Florida to receive her master’s degree focused in science communication after finishing her BA in communications and public relations from Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts. Her transition to communicating science came from the combination of a course called Exploring the

Universe with Professor Jamie Kern, watching Cosmos, feeling numinous from viewing the Andromeda Galaxy for the first time, and having an intense curiosity to understand neutrinos. While at BSU she worked in communications, event planning, and public programs for the university’s observatory. She has also worked at the University of

Florida’s Office of Technology Licensing writing press releases and turning technical information about new technologies into marketing material for business executives.

Alexandrea spent many nights during her time in Florida huddling around telescopes with fellow members of the Alachua Astronomy Club, hunting galaxies and showing children the rings of Saturn. Her research interests involve examining how different types of media can be used as tools for science. Her future goals include building up the field of science communication, and increasing interest, education, and funding for science, particularly in astronomy and physics. Inspired by Carl Sagan and the Cosmos series, she hopes to continue to fill her life with astronomy and share it with the world. She looks to Sagan, Tyson, Soter, Druyan, and many others for inspiration in communicating science. Standing on the shoulders of those giants, she remembers, “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.”

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