Popular Science, Overview

Alice Bell

This entry applies a broad definition of popular science , referring to science to be consumed in our free time, largely for personal rather than professional reasons. It is science for fun: to experience the wonders of nature, to learn more about an issue that is important to you, on a friend's recommendation, or simply because a piece of promotional material caught your eye. Although the term is most commonly associated with print media, popular science can exist in any medium. What popular science usually is not is the presence of science in explicitly fictional products. Fictional devices can be used by popular science, but its products are characteristically nonfiction. Neither is popular science journalism, although the two fields overlap considerably. Popular science is generally produced by members—or supporters, at least—of the scientific community. Indeed, popular science has been criticized for being overly supportive of science. It is, however, also ...

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