Reconsidering the endurance of the ‘Deficit Model’ of science communication: the communication of EU-funded projects as a case study

This paper aims to demonstrate that the endurance of the Deficit Model as a heuristic of science communication practice is rooted in material factors shaping the objective contexts of action that science communicators confront in their daily practices. To achieve this, it draws on 26 semi-structured interviews with communication professionals and other experts who have been directly or indirectly involved in the communication of EU-funded projects. An overwhelming prevalence of deficit-oriented conceptions of the functions and purposes of science communication among PBSC experts is found. In addition, through the interviewees’ own experiences and narratives, the paper identifies several potential factors embedded in the institutional setting of EU-funded projects that may account for the predominance of the Deficit Model. Our dialectical-materialist framework provides powerful analytical lenses for investigating the endurance of the Deficit Model across diverse science communication settings, as it turns attention from mental conceptions and cognitive schemes themselves to the objective conditions on the basis of which the deficit-oriented conceptions of communication gain or maintain their practical efficacy.