The progress of popular science is correlated to the given political, economic, cultural, and social contexts in historical stages, thus we can describe each different stage with the transition of paradigm, meanwhile each paradigm’s appearance and transition is due to some kind of “deficit”. Based on the analysis of each paradigm, this paper attempts to carry out some reflections, thereby proposes some worthwhile perspectives for theoretical and practical research.

science popularization  /  public understanding of science  /  science communication  /  deficit