A Study On The History Of Science Popularization Of People's Republic Of China

Theoretical studies on the science popularization in China began in 1980s, and gone further in recent years accompanied with the development of science popularization. However, there still haven't been sufficient concerns of academic emphasized on the history of science popularization, especially of contemporary science popularization in China. Most of existing literatures just give rough description of them, lacking of a consistent theoretical benchmark and comprehensive quantitative analyses which is one of critical concerns of this paper, and the other is the in-depth descriptions of history of science popularization in China. From the perspective of developments and accumulations of science popularization in China, our study on the history of science popularization in China will fill the research gaps in this field, and enlighten the construction of Innovation-oriented Society.From the view of science sociology, this paper studies the history of science popularization in China in the background of the development of China history through context analysis. In the light of changes in the contents of science popularization, the history of science popularization in China is divided into four phases:(1) Open and Exploratory Phase (1949-1976), (2) Recovery and Developing Phase (1977-1994), (3) reflecting Phase (1995-2001), (4) Innovation Phase (2002-). This paper studies the developments of Science Popularization Context, Science Popularization View and Science Popularization status in each phase through applying methods in literature research, statistics and oral history etc. It's summarized about the characteristics of the science popularization in different history phases from different aspects of Science Popularization subject, Science Popularization content, and Science Popularization object. At last, it provides some suggestions to the innovation and development of Science Popularization in the context of constructing Innovation-oriented Society based on the study of history of Science Popularization. The innovations of this paper are as following:1. Unlike the previous studies that too much emphasis on form, in this paper, phasing the history of SCC is based on the contents of specific history which are the core elements of Science Popularization and are relatively stable and concentrated. The content of science popularization in China concerns mainly on scientific knowledge in the first phase, both of scientific knowledge and scientific thinking in the second phase, mainly the scientific spirit, scientific thinking, scientific method and scientific knowledge (also called four S for short) in the third phase, and the "four S plus two capability" in the last phase. All of these contents of science popularization in China have distinct historical clues.2. Applications of case study in phase sense. We reveal the manifold gradation and characteristics of Science Popularization by quantitative analysis on typical popular science journals and books.3. In-depth study on the relationship between Science Popularization and context. This paper analyzes the relationships between political context, economical context concerning with the relationship between technology and production relation, and cultural context in each phase of social development.4. Study on the evolution of science popularization view. Based on the divisions of history of science popularization in China, This study examines the formations, developments and characteristics of science popularization view in each different phase. We find that political context has a great influence on the formation of science popularization view.