Science magazines, also called popular science magazines, are mass circulation publications dedicated to detailed reporting of current scientific and technological developments, as well as science-and-society issues. Their readership consists largely of professional researchers and nonspecialists interested in technoscience. Their content, which often serves as source material for mainstream news media, includes science-focused reports, features, interviews, letters, reviews, photographs, opinion columns, and commentary articles. Among the most prestigious international publications are Scientific American, New Scientist, and Wired.

Popular science magazines have been generally sympathetic and supportive of the scientific enterprise. Sociologists of science have viewed these publications as part of what has been called the dominant or translation model, or the “canonical account,” of science communication, whereby scientists have produced reliable knowledge that is then translated through ...