Résumé:
Scientific popularization is not a contemporary phenomenon. It has got a story. However, contemporary literature on the most famous dimension of scientific communication suggests that this journalistic practice is a recent phenomenon. The idea of the mediator or third man is inseparable from research on popularization - This third man, who stands between the scientist and the common man , the only one able to translate science, is contemporary with the development of mass media. This representation is not entirely wrong since radio, cinema and even more television developed just after the Second World War. But, as far as the book, the print and the press are concerned, this vision is very irrelevant. And there is a lot of research to show that popularization is not a recent practice. The very birth of the verb popularize (with the meaning it has today) corresponds, roughly, to the beginning of the period of the First World War, which saw a real explosion of popularization. The word is thus attested in the language at the very moment when popularizing activities had been growing almost unmatched since. Whether it is the collection of Science et vie (from 1913), Science et Avenir (1947 ) Pour la Science (1977 ) Scientific American (1845 ) or La recherche (1970 ) , popularizing science has worked, relentlessly, to announce the future triumphs of science . Imagine how science and technology will revolutionize the world, the way we feed ourselves, or how they will cure us of incurable diseases. Popularizing science is not easy to define, contrary to any known rhetorical use, and because the term itself implies a rhetorical reference, this work try to study it in depth in an
