Étiquette : Science communication

Catégories
EN

Developing digital stories in research for science communication: reflections from researchers

Authors : Leanne Townsend, Mikelis Grivins, Christina Noble, Claire Hardy, Livia Ortolani, Gusztáv Nemes, Marta Baena-Sanz, Mags Currie, Mar Delgado

Audiovisual communication methods such as digital storytelling can reach wide audiences to realise greater societal research impact. Increasingly, researchers embrace (or are expected to embrace) these approaches but often lack relevant skills.

This paper draws on Horizon Europe-funded research where digital stories were developed in 20 European regions. Findings from a survey completed by the researchers highlight skills- and engagement-based challenges and explore how capacity to develop digital stories was built.

The paper focuses on the role of digital storytelling in science communication, and the challenges researchers face in developing these outputs, including in ensuring meaningful participant involvement and the authentic representation of participants’ voices within the final narratives.

We discuss how to better support researchers to embrace digital storytelling as a science communication method, with recommendations for effective research impact.

URL : Developing digital stories in research for science communication: reflections from researchers

DOI : https://doi.org/10.22323/148520260131095010

Catégories
EN

Who supports STEM early career researchers’ active science communication? A qualitative ego-network-analysis

Authors : Lennart Banse, Fenja Heinke, Friederike Hendriks

Early career researchers (ECRs) are increasingly socialised in professional environments where science communication is seen as part of their academic role.

ECRs respond to these expectations differently, shaped in part by social relationships within and beyond academia. stThis study uses ego-network interviews with 24 highly communicative STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) ECRs in Germany to examine how social relationships influence the importance as well as the integration of science communication in their professional identity.

Results show that recognition and support often come from private contacts and the science communication community, while workplace environments are perceived as less supportive and formative. Moreover, different formats and processes of science communication seem to be tied to distinct networks and underlying communication motives.

URL : Who supports STEM early career researchers’ active science communication? A qualitative ego-network-analysis

DOI : https://doi.org/10.22323/156620251115064727

Catégories
EN

Towards a terroir approach to science communication and its evidencing

Authors : Marianne Achiam, Martin Grünfeld, Sabrina Vitting-Seerup,
Jacob Thorek Jensen, Louise Whiteley

This essay proposes terroir as a metaphor for rethinking science communication. In contrast to dominant calls for a science of science communication, grounded in broadly replicable and generalisable methods, we suggest that communication practices are fundamentally shaped by the particularities of place, people, histories, and more-than-human relations.

Drawing on the agricultural origins of terroir, we argue that good science communication is not about imposing control but about cultivating resonance within specific ecosystems of meaning. This perspective also invites us to recognise the value of intuitive knowledge, local practice, and arts-based methods, which are often excluded from dominant frameworks.

As part of the research programme Addressing Sustainability with Arts-Based Science Communication, we explore co-creative, arts-based approaches that surface emotional, sensory, and contextual dimensions of sustainability science communication.

Ultimately, we call for a shift: from the search for universal best practices to the careful, situated crafting of an arts of science communication.

URL : Towards a terroir approach to science communication and its evidencing

DOI : https://doi.org/10.22323/161120251104104659

Catégories
FR

Communiquer la science : pratiques et discours de créateur·rice·s de contenus sur la plateforme TikTok

Autrice/Author : Sarah Rakotoary

Cet article examine les dynamiques de la vulgarisation scientifique sur des plateformes numériques, en se concentrant sur TikTok. Il explore la transition de la médiation scientifique classique vers une médiatisation adaptée aux logiques des réseaux socionumériques, où les créateur·rice·s de contenu jouent un rôle clé.

L’analyse de l’écriture scientifique « plateformisée » révèle comment ces acteur·rice·s construisent et affirment leur identité numérique tout en naviguant entre les exigences des algorithmes et les attentes du public. En s’appuyant sur des exemples de remédiation de pratiques et de stratégies identitaires, l’article met en lumière les formes renégociées, multi-formats et engageants de la diffusion des savoirs scientifiques

URL : https://lesenjeux.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/2025/dossier/09-communiquer-la-science-pratiques-et-discours-de-createurrices-de-contenus-sur-la-plateforme-tiktok/

Catégories
EN

Comparing science communication ecosystems: towards a conceptual framework for cross-national research on science communication

Authors :  Liliann Fischer, Mike S. Schäfer , Hannah Schmid-Petri

This paper proposes a framework to guide cross-national, comparative research on science communication. Current research often relies on ad-hoc criteria for selecting countries (such as geographic proximity) or on pragmatic considerations (like data availability), which may limit the ability to capture broader contexts or identify the cases best suited for analysis.

Drawing on the ecosystems concept, we integrate theoretical perspectives on political systems, academic systems, and media systems to identify a set of ideational and structural factors that are essential for understanding country variations in science communication: political system settings, the role of the state/market, political attention to science communication, and societal values and norms.

Based on these, we suggest (and preliminarily illustrate) a typology of four ideal-types of science communication ecosystems — public-service-oriented, market-oriented, state-centred and fragmented — that could guide and should be tested in future research.

URL : Comparing science communication ecosystems: towards a conceptual framework for cross-national research on science communication

DOI : https://doi.org/10.22323/148320250924054927

 

Catégories
EN

Exploring how the public “see” scientists: A systematic literature review, 1983–2024

Authors : Weiping Wang, Hongxuan Ji, Ying Wang, Zhisen Wang

The public image of scientists significantly influences scientific literacy, science education, professional identity, science communication, and societal attitudes toward public issues. However, there has not been a thorough and detailed review of this topic. This paper presents a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of 233 high-quality articles examining public perceptions of scientists.

The findings indicate that studies emphasize vivid and emotionally engaging characteristics of scientists, reflecting contemporary trends, particularly during the pandemic. Research predominantly targets students across various educational levels, highlighting a gap between science education and science communication, with a reliance on quantitative methods despite the use of visualization tools.

Key research limitations include a lack of humanistic perspective, issues with validity and reproducibility, insufficient cultural context analysis, weak causal inferences, and limited integration of artificial intelligence and big data, which impede advancements in science education.

The paper concludes with recommendations for developing a more comprehensive conceptual framework to bridge the gaps between science education and communication, as well as their relationship with science teaching, in order to foster a positive public understanding of science.

URL : Exploring how the public “see” scientists: A systematic literature review, 1983–2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-05869-7

Catégories
EN

A role for qualitative methods in researching Twitter data on a popular science article’s communication

Authors : Travis Noakes, Corrie Susanna Uys, Patricia Ann Harpur, Izak van Zyl

Big Data communication researchers have highlighted the need for qualitative analysis of online science conversations to better understand their meaning. However, a scholarly gap exists in exploring how qualitative methods can be applied to small data regarding micro-bloggers’ communications about science articles. While social media attention assists with article dissemination, qualitative research into the associated microblogging practices remains limited. To address these gaps, this study explores how qualitative analysis can enhance science communication studies on microblogging articles.

Calls for such qualitative approaches are supported by a practical example: an interdisciplinary team applied mixed methods to better understand the promotion of an unorthodox but popular science article on Twitter over a 2-year period. While Big Data studies typically identify patterns in microbloggers’ activities from large data sets, this study demonstrates the value of integrating qualitative analysis to deepen understanding of these interactions. In this study, a small data set was analyzed using NVivo™ by a pragmatist and MAXQDA™ by a statistician.

The pragmatist’s multimodal content analysis found that health professionals shared links to the article, with its popularity tied to its role as a communication event within a longstanding debate in the health sciences. Dissident professionals used this article to support an emergent paradigm. The analysis also uncovered practices, such as language localization, where a title was translated from English to Spanish to reach broader audiences.

A semantic network analysis confirmed that terms used by the article’s tweeters strongly aligned with its content, and the discussion was notably pro-social. Meta-inferences were then drawn by integrating the findings from the two methods. These flagged the significance of contextualizing the sharing of a health science article in relation to tweeters’ professional identities and their stances on health-related issues. In addition, meta-critiques highlighted challenges in preparing accurate tweet data and analyzing them using qualitative data analysis software. These findings highlight the valuable contributions that qualitative research can make to research involving microblogging data in science communication. Future research could critique this approach or further explore the microblogging of key articles within important scientific debates.

URL : A role for qualitative methods in researching Twitter data on a popular science article’s communication

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2024.1431298