Critical science communication: Conceptual thoughts on explicating and practising normativity

Science communication research and practice share a normative understanding of science communication as a democratically required, socially beneficial and therefore generally desirable act. At the same time, their presumptions about the authority and autonomy of science in society tend to be idealistic with regard to the political and economic environments in which global science operates. Such idealism is equally common in scientific practice across diverse cultures of science. This interdisciplinary conceptual article argues that the necessary contradiction between the normative commitment to global cooperation and social progress and the national and economic realities restricting the field of action of science (communication) so far has not been treated as the fundamental tension that it is. Recent political conflicts within Western hegemony, catalyzed through national authoritarian backlashes, bring this tension to the surface and offer a chance for science and science communication to re-evaluate their normative foundations and consequential research perspectives. In this, there lies a chance for science communication to facilitate a process of reflexive transition regarding the self-understanding and research programme of the field. Practically, this could mean for science communication researchers to categorically and critically embed their findings into systemic contexts—and to expect the same from practitioners.