Science Magazines

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 the magazines for nonspe-cialists. Popularization has been seen as starting where science ended.

As part of the translation model, science magazines have traditionally served the institutional aims of science. The publications have emphasized science's ability to discover reliable knowledge [Page 728]about nature, stressed its potential for finding utilitarian solutions to humanity's problems, and boosted its status as an endeavor deserving political and public support. The magazines have been criticized for printing content that aims to excite readers with new discoveries, inventions, and claimed breakthroughs, rather than critical evaluations of science policy or the social implications of reseach.

Critics of this translation model have argued that science magazines are part of a continuum of science communication and are original forms of knowledge production aimed at different audiences. The magazines can influence the formal scientific process, as researchers read them to understand developments occurring outside their specialized fields. This popular understanding is then integrated into ongoing research work. Consequently, it is not clear where popularization ends and science begins.