Conversation and Science Communication

Everyday Conversation Versus Formal Science Education

Scholars do not yet have a full account of how specialized scientific knowledge can be translated most effectively into public understanding, nor are the central dynamics in the interplay between public sentiment and official support for scientific investigation well understood. Simply acknowledging that conversation between laypeople can play a role in shaping public understanding of science raises an important point of controversy for some scholars. Some see formal science education as the most plausible, and perhaps ideal, route for knowledge translation and thus tend to emphasize the role that formal education plays. Others, however, see communication occurring outside of classrooms as vital, if not central, in understanding public sentiment, understanding, and behavior.

One account of how publics come to understand science is the so-called popularization perspective. From that perspective, scientists supposedly develop knowledge and communicators, then spread that knowledge in simplified form. More recently, however, others have challenged the popularization account as an oversimplified description of how scientific knowledge functions—or ought to function—in a society. As an alternative, some have emphasized the central role of audiences in engaging in, and often generating, the discourse necessary to develop scientific findings relevant to society and to resolve emergent concerns. Rather than popularization, this rival approach suggests that the process instead is best described as secularization, a more balanced process of communication between scientists and various publics. From this perspective, the hierarchy of popularization is replaced by a more even exchange.

Science communication scholars working in the social representations tradition often side with the secularization account and in some ways even go beyond that perspective to describe everyday social life as an ultimate constraint on the communication of scientific knowledge. From this perspective, formal science knowledge is important to individuals outside of the scientific professions only insofar as such knowledge facilitates the basic social interplay that is a part of everyday life. People use science knowledge in their engagement with others. As a result, social representation scholars interested in science communication claim that public understanding of scientific knowledge and public prioritization of such knowledge are ultimately shaped both by the resonance of such knowledge with existing public discourse and with the connections people see between scientific observation and the basic tasks of survival and social interaction. This perspective suggests why laypeople do not talk about all scientific topics with equal frequency. Some topics might be more compelling in their resonance with day-to-day life than others. Moreover, scholars working in this tradition acknowledge that inaccurate representation of scientific fact sometimes can be functional for individuals.

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