Intro: Science Communication and Public Engagement
As researchers trained at the intersection of technical communication and the rhetoric of science, technology, and medicine who frequently teach courses in technical communication, we have oftentimes reflected on the boundaries of scientific communication, technical communication, and science communication. Readers might relate to the moment in conversation when an interdisciplinary colleague, a curious student, or a family member assumes these areas are the same or asks how they are different. As we illustrate in this section, the boundaries implied by conventional definitions become quite porous when you move away from prototypical examples toward more common spaces of practice.
Communication: Science, Scientific, and Technical
We might say, for example, that these are three areas of communication that all deal with "complex" subject matter, but are distinguished by their purposes, audiences, and genres. If we were to develop a composite of the most common, high-level distinctions, we might describe each area as follows:
Science communication is commonly understood as communication aimed at nonexpert audiences such as the general public, policymakers, and media, with the goal of making scientific knowledge approachable, enhancing public understanding of science, and influencing decision-making. Prototypical examples of this include Neil DeGrasse Tyson's StarTalk radio program, which discusses complex astronomical phenomena in an engaging way; public science museum exhibits, like those about paleontology that visually explain the prehistoric world; and articles in publications like Scientific American that address current scientific issues such as climate change for broader audiences.
Scientific communication focuses on communicating with peers within the scientific community to advance science through the sharing of research findings and discussion of theories. Typical forms of scientific communication include peer-reviewed research articles that detail new studies and discoveries, presentations at scientific conferences where researchers share and discuss their work, and academic posters that succinctly present research findings at gatherings of experts.
Technical communication is designed for both specialized and nonspecialized audiences, aiming to make specialized information or technology comprehensible and usable. This can include detailed instruction manuals that guide users through the setup and use of devices, comprehensive reports that communicate the results and implications of technical assessments, and thorough documentation such as software user guides or API documentation, which are essential for understanding and effectively utilizing technology.
| Audience | Purpose | Prototypical examples | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Science Communication | Nonexpert or general audiences, including the public, policymakers, and media | Make scientific knowledge approachable; enhance public understanding of science; inform decision-making | Neil De Grasse Tyson's StarTalk; Public science museum exhibit about paleontology; Scientific American article about climate change |
| Scientific Communication | Peers in scientific community | Advance science by sharing research findings, discussing theories | Peer-reviewed research articles, conference presentations, posters |
| Technical Communication | Specialized or nonspecialized users | Make specialized information or technology comprehensible and usable; use technology to communicate specialized information | Instructions, reports, documentation |
While these conventional understandings surely have some utility, the distinctions they rely on are often vague in practice. For example, consider the distinction between scientific knowledge and specialized information: Are the media, policymakers, and citizens not users of the evidence science produces? Does making that specialized information comprehensible and usable constitute science communication or technical communication?
Consider also the notion of peer, specialized, or technical audiences: At what point are researchers in adjacent disciplines or nonacademic organizations no longer peers? Are research articles published in the Journal of Environmental Management, written by ecologists and read by both environmental economists and government natural resource managers, scientific communication or science communication?
Finally, consider definitions of technical communication that hinge on the use of technology: Does the use of communication technology to make information comprehensible and usable position both scientific and science communication as also forms of technical communication?
The bounds of science itself are notoriously difficult to draw (take our word for it, or type "demarcation problem" into your search engine of choice), and we believe the same is true for technical, technology, and expert. At risk of complicating things further, each of the conventional understandings above stage communication primarily as one-way transmission as opposed to dialogue or deliberation. As scholars in the field of writing studies and specifically in technical communication have long held, transmission models of communication tend to rely on misguided "windowpane" theories of language (Miller, 1979; Read, 2022). This stands in contrast to the rhetorical view that all communication—scientific, technical, or science—is participation in a community, part of a socially situated back and forth.
Fortunately, our goal is not to resolve these definitional problems. Rather, we simply wish to disrupt conventional, narrow views of communication in order to make room for two arguments: 1) public engagement with policy making is a site of science communication, broadly construed, and 2) this communicative practice is also productively viewed through the lens of technical communication.
Science Communication in/and/as Public Engagement
Public engagement in policymaking may on its face appear to have little connection to science communication as it's often understood, so in this section we briefly articulate two ways we see public engagement as relevant to science communication.
What is public engagement?
For our purposes here, public engagement refers to the processes and mechanisms by which the public participates in democratic policy or decision-making. As Kristen R. Moore (2017b) suggested, public engagement as we define it here can be formal or informal and optional or mandated. Scholars in a range of fields as well as government practitioners use various terms to describe both public (civic, community, stakeholder, citizen) and engagement (participation, involvement, inclusion, consultation), but generally speaking these are all efforts to improve the transparency, legitimacy, and quality of government decisions through communication between decision makers and those affected by the decisions they make.
In other words, we might see public engagement processes as attempts to enact the ideals of deliberative or participatory democracy, where participation and dialogue are understood as central to good decisions. Formal engagement efforts often fail to achieve such ideals (Blythe, Grabill, & Riley, 2008; Card, 2020; Simmons, 2008), in part due to conflicting views of the relevant scientific evidence in a particular issue or disagreements over the proper roles of "science" and "democracy" in these contexts. That is, there can be a sense that decisions can be made democratically or scientifically, but not both.
Public engagement as a site of science communication
William Keith and Robert Danisch (2014) argued that for John Dewey and Deweyans, science and democracy are flip sides of the same coin: "Science, properly understood, is a democratic enterprise, and democracy is a scientific one" (p. 34). In this view, science involves open inquiry, debate, and collaboration. It isn't controlled by a single authority but rather depends on collective contributions and rigorous examination. Science values diversity of thought, peer review, and transparency—principles that align with those in a democratic society where people can freely express their opinions, challenge authority, and contribute to shared knowledge. Similarly, democracy is a process of continuous inquiry and experimentation, akin to the scientific method. It requires constant examination, questioning, and re-evaluation of policies and systems. Democratic societies rely on evidence-based decision-making, open public discourse, and adaptability in response to new information or changing circumstances. Keith and Danisch's idea that science and democracy are interconnected suggests that both thrive on open communication, inquiry, collaboration, and adaptability.
Taken together, these notions of science and democracy lead directly to Dewey's search for "social democracy"—a "search for the practical and intellectual conditions in which appropriate and timely communicative acts can guide public deliberation, and where public deliberation simultaneously considers both ends/values and means/technologies/knowledge" (Keith & Danisch, 2014, p. 28).
To make this point, Keith and Danisch (2014) distinguished between science1 and science2:
- science1: "the professional practices of those who pursue knowledge, not so much for its own sake but as a professional occupation: scientists, whether 'laboratory' or field scientists or even social scientists" (p. 35).
- science2: "a variety of practices having a strong family resemblance to professional science and its epistemology… [that constitute] a reflective and systematic practice of responding individually or corporately to perceived problems" (p. 35)
Following Keith and Danisch, public engagement is at the very least a process in which the results of science (science1) are communicated to a broader group of stakeholders so that it may inform their action. Put another way, public engagement with policy making is a site in which relevant science is communicated to those involved in making policy with the goal of informing decision making. Indeed, scientists themselves often participate in these processes when their expertise or research are in some way relevant to the decision or policy in question.
More radically, we might also view deliberation properly understood as scientific (science2)—as a process of inquiry where we collectively and systematically define problems and put what we know to work in an attempt to address them. Here, policymakers and other stakeholders are engaging in communication as part of a scientific process. Rather than address problems based on a limited definition of the problem and view of the the relevant evidence, they engage in a deliberative process to collectively define the problem, recruit and weigh evidence, and subsequently design an intervention. In this view, the science in science communication is expanded beyond the common view of scientists as folks in white lab coats and the facts they produce. Rather, science is expanded to include problem-solving activities, activities that from a Deweyan perspective are properly viewed as scientific when pursued in ideal conditions. For example, imagine a small coastal town facing increased flooding due to rising sea levels and stronger storms. Instead of relying on top-down policies, the town organizes a series of public meetings and workshops. Residents, scientists, policy makers, and other stakeholders come together to define the problem and propose solutions.
In the two cases of public engagement that follow, science1 plays a critical role. In the first case, for example, decision makers and other participants must consider what ecologists say about the effects of light and noise on local species when determining the impacts of building a currency production facility. In the second case, deciding how to mitigate the effects of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions requires that decision makers know what contributes to current emissions levels and how different actions are likely to influence those levels, both of which are questions that professional scientists in a range of disciplines have weighed in on. And through the lens of science2, the decision makers themselves are engaged in science and science communication to the extent that they are trying to systematically define and address a social problem.
Technical communication as deliberative experience design
Science communication researchers and practitioners increasingly recognize the need for a dialogic, deliberative approach. There is now widespread agreement that the deficit model of science communication, which relies on one-way transmission of facts, is limited at best and may even be counterproductive (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2017; Simis et al., 2016). The American Association for the Advancement of Science (n.d.) advocated strongly for public engagement with science, arguing that "public engagement can provide a constructive platform for public views to be combined with scientific expertise in decision-making contexts."
Around the same time scientists and science communication researchers began to view public engagement as a constructive platform, researchers in technical communication were arguing that technical communicators could serve valuable roles in these settings. Technical communicators are certainly skilled in navigating complex legal and scientific discourses, but technical communication scholars have articulated more expansive roles (St.Amant, 2018). Stuart Blythe, Jeffrey T. Grabill, and Kirk Riley (2008) illustrated how technical communication scholars can "[support] the inventional activities" of participants, in part by helping to situate knowledge claims and relevant information within complex institutional dynamics (p. 294). Kristen R. Moore and Timothy J. Elliott (2016) suggested public engagement be viewed in part as a critical opportunity for planners to collect data to inform the design of the final project, a view resonant with engagement-as-science2. They advocated viewing engagement processes like the ones we discuss in the remainder of the article as efforts to design "listening infrastructures." Building from this work, Moore (2017b) suggested technical communicators serve a three-fold role of participant, facilitator, and designer of public engagement. Moore positioned public engagement as a form of experience architecture, broadening notions of user experience design to include designing the participatory knowledge-making activites that constitute public engagement (2017a). Drawing on this experience architecture frame, Daniel J. Card (2023) explored how committments to procedural and environmental justice can guide technical communicators.
While technical communication scholars have provided useful ways to conceptualize the work of public engagement, these processes are increasingly mediated by emerging tools and technologies that warrant attention. In the two brief case studies that follow, we explore the practices these tools support, paying particular attention to how communication design facilitates not only information dissemination but meaningful dialogue.