Science communication

Science communication covers many ways of linking science with the wider world. Its usual aims are to tell non-specialists about new discoveries, spark public curiosity about science, shape people’s views and actions, guide policy decisions, and work with different communities to tackle real-world issues. The phrase typically describes outreach—talking to audiences who aren’t experts on the topic—but some writers also count expert-to-expert communication, like publishing in academic journals, as a form of science communication. Examples of outreach include science journalism and health communication. Because science touches politics, morals, and law, good science communication can help bridge gaps among policymakers, industry, and civil society, with trust-building at the heart of that process.

The people who do science communication come from many backgrounds: scientists, science journalists, science artists, doctors, educators at nature centers, science advisors to policymakers, and anyone else who talks about science with the public. They often use entertainment and persuasion—humor, storytelling, metaphors—to connect with what their audience cares about. Science communication is also a research field within social science, studying things like misinformation, how the public views new technologies, and the politicization and polarization of science. For decades, research in this area has had limited impact on how science communication is actually done, and vice versa, but both sides are now trying harder to bring research and practice together.

In the past, academic scientists were often told not to spend time on public outreach, but that’s starting to shift. Research funders now expect scientists to show broader impacts beyond just publishing papers. More scientists—especially younger ones—want to engage the public through social media or in-person events, though they still see major institutional hurdles. Science communication overlaps with informal science education, citizen science, and public engagement with science, and there’s no clear agreement on how to tell them apart. Like other parts of society, science communication is shaped by systemic inequalities that affect both outreach and expert-to-expert communication.

**Motivations**

In 1987, Geoffrey Thomas and John Durant listed several reasons to boost public understanding of science, or scientific literacy. More trained engineers and scientists could help a country compete economically. Science can also benefit individuals directly. It can have aesthetic appeal—think popular science or science fiction. Living in a tech-heavy world, some basic scientific knowledge helps people navigate it. The science of happiness, for instance, offers research with clear, personal implications. Governments and societies gain too, since an informed public supports a more democratic society. And science can inform moral choices—like whether animals feel pain, how human activity affects climate, or even a science of morality.

In 1990, scholar Steven Hilgartner criticized some academic work on public understanding of science. He argued that the “dominant view” of science popularization tends to draw a sharp line around who can claim true, reliable knowledge. By treating the public as “deficient” recipients, scientists reinforce their own expert status. So while science communication may aim to connect scientists with society, it can also strengthen the boundary between experts and the public—a point made by Brian Wynne in 1992 and Massimiano Bucchi in 1998. In 2016, the journal *Public Understanding of Science* ran an essay contest on the “deficit model,” asking why the idea of a public deficit keeps coming back. Carina Cortassa, for example, argued that this model is just one case of a universal problem in social epistemology: “epistemic asymmetry,” which happens whenever some people know more than others about a topic. Science communication is simply one way to reduce that gap.

Biologist Randy Olson noted in 2009 that anti-science groups can be so motivated and well-funded that science organizations’ political neutrality can lead to crises in public understanding. He pointed to denialism, like climate change denial, as a concern. Journalist Robert Krulwich argued in 2008 that scientists’ stories compete with efforts like those of Turkish creationist Adnan Oktar. Krulwich explained that Oktar’s attractive, easy-to-read creationist textbooks sold by the thousands in Turkish schools, despite the country’s strong secular tradition. Astrobiologist David Morrison has described repeated disruptions to his work from popular anti-scientific movements, and has been called on to calm public fears about an impending cataclysm.