公共治理是将分散个体通过协调机制生产出某种共识而结成集体行动。权威、交换和互惠是科层治理、市场治理和网络治理三种公共治理形式的基本媒介;代议制民主、协商民主和参与民主也是三种公共治理的基本机制。随着科学技术作为公共治理议题以及政策制定依据急剧增多,媒体在科学技术等知识传播中的角色与功能出现分化与嬗变,科技知识的生产、传播和应用需要在政治体系、知识共同体、媒体和公众之间形成一种新的共识。这种共识形成的过程,实际上就是知识民主与治理过程。知识民主与治理成为继科层治理、市场治理、网络治理之后的第四种公共治理形式,并在实践过程中生成了包括领域内、领域间与跨领域组成的多轨道治理结构,以及包含了科技治理、科普治理、分离治理和跨域治理的四种知识治理类型。 Public governance forms a collective action by decentralizing individuals to produce a consensus through coordination mechanisms. Authority, exchange and reciprocity are the basic media of the three forms of public governance such as bureaucracy, market governance and network governance. The representative mechanisms of the three types of public governance are the representative democracy, the deliberative democracy and the participation in democracy. With the dramatic increase of science and technology as a public governance issue and the basis of policy formulation, the role and function of the media in the dissemination of knowledge such as science and technology have been differentiated and changed. The production, dissemination and application of scientific and technological knowledge need to be strengthened in the political system, knowledge community, There is a new consensus among the public. The process of forming such a consensus is actually the process of knowledge democracy and governance. Knowledge democracy and governance become the fourth form of public governance following bureaucratic governance, market governance and network governance. In the process of practice, a multi-track governance structure including intra-domain, inter-domain and inter-domain is formed, Science and technology governance, science popularization, separation of governance and cross-border governance of the four types of knowledge governance.