Science Communication

History of Science Communication as a Process

Science communication generally refers to public communication that presents scientific information to non-expert audiences. This form of public communication was established from a desire to close the division between experts with a high level of scientific information and a larger public audience comprised of non-experts who do not have an understanding or a priori interest in science issues. In the 1980s, the information deficit model (or simply the deficit model) was proposed by social scientists studying the communication of science information. The deficit model attributed public misunderstandings and skepticism toward scientific information to a lack of adequate public access and exposure to science information. The model proposed that with increased information to overcome this knowledge deficit, general public opinion would align more closely to subject-matter experts, meaning that, generally, public audiences would be quicker to support scientific endeavors and be more interested in science. However, over the last 30 years the deficit model has been largely criticized and discredited in favor of alternate conceptualizations of science communication. The deficit model assumed that members of the public are “empty vessels” that once filled with the proper science information would hold similar views to expert audiences. Such accounts do not consider that people maintain cultural, ethical, and religious beliefs—as well as personal experience and history that create rigid ideologies and worldviews that influence how individuals process and respond to science information. Furthermore, this form of top-down communication in which messages have been tailored by experts who transmit information to non-experts has been criticized as being overly patronizing, elitist, and not adequately allowing for public input and response.

Since the refutation of the deficit model, two alternate, but related conceptualizations of the process of communicating science information have been proposed—the democratization of science, and the popularization and dissemination models of communicating science.