To convey science to a wider non-specialist audience, it is usually necessary to “translate” the content of specialist scientific publications into so-called “popularisations” (e.g., see Royal Society 1986). Popularisations aim to make scientific facts and theories available to audiences who do not have scientific training (see Shinn and Whitley 1985; Burham 1987). Although they are not exclusively written for nor only read by non-specialists, the popularisation is characterised by a more broad-based accessibility than would typically be found within a specialist technical publication. The nominal target audience is not assumed to possess specialist knowledge.

Therefore, popularisations are vehicles by which scientific facts travel to a wider audience. These audiences are not an homogenous mass, but comprise a variety of “publics” with different needs and different levels of scientific training. Scholarship within science studies eschews the notion of a unitary “science” and a unitary “public” in favour of more nuanced, multiple conceptions of both “science” and “public.” As Silverstone states: “There is no such thing as the communication of science; … There is no such thing as the public” (Silverstone 1991, p. 106). This view has become conventional among scholars working within science studies (e.g., Hilgartner 1990; Locke 1999; Yearly 2000; Mellor 2003; Einsiedel 2007).