Popular Science Journalism: Quality Criteria, Creative Techniques

2021 ◽  
pp. 80-95
Author(s):  
Marianna V. Litke ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Criteria ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Science Journalism

scholarly journals “Making us see science” Visual images in popular science articles and science journalism

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harald Hornmoen
Keyword(s):  
Visual Representations ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Science Journalism ◽  
Visual Elements ◽  
Visual Composition ◽  
Communicative Functions ◽  
Science Stories ◽  
Scientific American

The article explores how scientific research and scientists are represented visually in popular science and science journalism. It discusses communicative functions and cultural meanings of visual elements in science stories. Drawing on concepts from the visual grammar developed by Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen, the author indicates how different kinds of modality are used to address the audience in popular science articles in Scientific American and Illustrert Vitenskap (a Scandinavian magazine). It is argued that the visual elements in popular scientific magazines conventionally are arranged in a manner coinciding with a pedagogical/educational intent typical of much popular science, taking the readers from a reality they are presumed to have experienced towards more abstract scientific knowledge. However, the two magazines analyzed differ markedly with respect to the audience competence they implicate in their visual representations. The level of visual abstraction in Scientific American contributes to creating an identity for its audience as belonging to well educated and advanced elites, as opposed to the images of Illustrert Vitenskap, where the emphasis to a larger extent is on a naturalistic coding. The author goes on to discuss how photographs, visual composition and verbal text work together in a multimodal rhetoric typical of many science and health stories in Norwegian newspapers.   

Phatic meanings of key words in popular science journalism

Neophilology ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 591-598
Author(s):  
Natalia A. Prokofeva
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
Science Journalism ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Modern Media ◽  
Actual Reality ◽  
Single Publication ◽  
Selection Of

The purpose of the research is to demonstrate the functioning of key words in the texts of popular science journalism. Modern media text is created not only to inform, but to attract the reader. This enlarges the role of contact-building means, for example – the address to the epoch key words. We consider the peculiarities of phatic meanings in popular science journalism, dedicated to the historic themes. The research contains the analysis of phatic meanings in two randomly chosen issues of historic magazines. The result of the analysis is the selection of two groups of key words, which make the journalistic text contain additional phatic meanings. The first group of words is the current key words, allowing relating the publication, containing the address to a historical event or a historical person, to the actual reality. This lexical group allows the journalist to make the publication politically critical and topical and also to evaluate the current political situation through the historical parallel. Such word usage allows including ironic subtext in the historical journalism. The second group of words is the key words of a single publication; they allow completely characterizing an event or a person, being in the center of a journalist’s attention. These are the words, which relate to the acute for the Russian culture value meanings. They stay aside with the complete semantics and characterize the speech subject, the journalist’s relation to it, but they do not relate the theme to the current political situation.

scholarly journals Science and popular science journalism: difficulties of definition and media typology

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 141-148
Author(s):  
Oksana Kyrylova
Keyword(s):  
Popular Science ◽  
Science Journalism ◽  
Normative Documents ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Functional Factors ◽  
The Media ◽  
Scientific Journalism ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
User Focus ◽  
Educational Component

This article is relevant because there is a need for scientific differentiation of two related categories of modern communication: science journalism and popular science journalism. There is no stable approach to this problem in the Ukrainian discourse, and the current normative documents force the editorial offices to determine the type of activity not according to the specifics of the media, but according to the list available, for example, in GOST. The object of the research were world and Ukrainian media specialized in scientific topics: “Cosmos”, “Popular Science”, “Discover”, “Scientific American”, “Kunsht”, “Spilne”, “Svitohliad”, “Vselennaya, prostranstvo, vremya”, “Science Ukraine”, “Alpha Centauri”, “Nauka i tekhnika”, “Kraina znan”, “Vichnyi mandrivnyk”, “Lokalna istoriia”, “Istoriia. Novyi pohliad”, “Malovidoma istoriia: daleke i blyzke”. At the same time, we analyzed digital practices (web resources), as well as traditional paper media (magazines). The subject of study is the peculiarities of the definition of scientific and popular science journalism and the complexity of the typology of the corresponding media. The main research method was comparative analysis, which, supported by discourse analysis, made it possible, firstly, to compare the existing scientific views on the categories of “scientific journalism” and “popular science journalism” and highlight the main features of each. Secondly, using these methods, an analysis of the world’s leading resources specializing in science journalism was carried out and parallels with this type of Ukrainian media were made. The result of the study is the typological differentiation of modern Ukrainian media resources. The study was based on the hypothesis that the characteristics of the audience and the functional specificity of the resource are decisive factors in terms of differentiation of the media as science and popular science. According to it, those media that are oriented towards advanced users, focus on the latest achievements of science and technology and restrained use online opportunities, almost without resorting to methods of edutainment and sciencetainment, we attribute to the channels of science journalism. The media that combine directions for the mass user, focus on the educational component and different popular pseudo-scientific topics with prolonged potential relevance, we refer to popular science journalism. Taking into audience and functional factors we include following projects of science journalism: “Kunsht”, “Spilne”, “Svitohliad”, “Vselennaya, prostranstvo, vremya”, “Science Ukraine”, “Alpha Centauri”, “Nauka i tekhnika”, “Kraina znan”. “Vichnyi mandrivnyk”, “Lokalna istoriia”, “Istoriia. Novyi pohliad”, “Malovidoma istoriia: daleke i blyzke” we refer to popular science journalism.

scholarly journals Science Communication around the World: eyes on Brazil

2004 ◽  
Vol 03 (04) ◽  
pp. F01
Author(s):  
Yuri Castelfranchi
Keyword(s):  
Science Communication ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Scientific Productivity ◽  
Scientific Communication ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
Science Journalism ◽  
The World ◽  
Communication Of Science ◽  
Practice Of Science

Internal scientific communication and public communication of science and technology are growing in Brazil at a good pace, along with scientific productivity. In this Focus we will try to analyze the debate on standard or alternative models of communication of science that can be seen in the practice of science journalism and popular science in Brazil.

scholarly journals Can scientists fill the science journalism void? Online public engagement with science stories authored by scientists

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yael Barel-Ben David ◽  
Erez S. Garty ◽  
Ayelet Baram-Tsabari
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Science Journalism ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Science Story ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Science Stories ◽  
Science News

AbstractIn many countries the public’s main source of information about science and technology is the mass media. Unfortunately, in recent years traditional journalism has experienced a collapse, and science journalism has been a major casualty. One potential remedy is to encourage scientists to write for news media about science. On these general news platforms, scientists’ stories would have to compete for attention with other news stories on hard (e.g. politics) and entertaining (e.g. celebrity news) topics written by professional writers. Do they stand a chance?This study aimed to quantitatively characterize audience interactions as an indicator of interest in science news stories authored by early career scientists (henceforth ‘scientists’) trained to function as science reporters, as compared to news items written by reporters and published in the same news outlets.To measure users’ behavior, we collected data on the number of clicks, likes, comments and average time spent on page. The sample was composed of 150 science items written by 50 scientists trained to contribute popular science stories in the Davidson Institute of Science Education reporters’ program and published on two major Israeli news websites - Mako and Ynet between July 2015 to January 2018. Each science item was paired with another item written by the website’s organic reporter, and published on the same channel as the science story (e.g., tourism, health) and the same close time. Overall significant differences were not found in the public’s engagement with the different items. Although, on one website there was a significant difference on two out of four engagement types, the second website did not have any difference, e.g., people did not click, like or comment more on items written by organic reporters than on the stories written by scientists. This creates an optimistic starting point for filling the science news void by scientists as science reporters.

Communicating environmental science beyond academia: Stylistic patterns of newsworthiness in popular science journalism

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska
Keyword(s):  
Science Communication ◽  
Environmental Science ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Science Journalism ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Discourse ◽  
Direct Address ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Magazine Articles

Science communication in online media is a discursive domain where science-related content is often expressed through styles characteristic of popular journalism. This article aims to characterize some dominant stylistic patterns in magazine articles devoted to environmental issues by identifying the devices used to enhance newsworthiness, given the fact that for some readers environmental topics may no longer seem engaging. The analytic perspective is an adaptation of the newsworthiness framework that has been applied in news discourse studies. The material is a sample of the 38 most-read environment-oriented articles in the online version of the international science magazine New Scientist collected between late 2013 and late 2014. The articles are analysed qualitatively to show the instantiations of such newsworthiness criteria as novelty and superlativeness, timeliness and impact, negativity and positivity as well as other strategies aimed at engaging the readers: rationalization and speculation, direct address and conversational style. The analysis reveals how, in this case study, science communication is turned into infotainment and considers the implications of this discursive shift for the public understanding of environmental science.

Finding Story Ideas and Sources

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip M. Yam
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Department Of Energy ◽  
Science Journalism ◽  
Oak Ridge ◽  
Medical Centers ◽  
Mailing Lists ◽  
Science News ◽  
Government Websites ◽  
E Mail

As a freelance or a staff journalist, you will face at some point dread and insecurity as you wonder if the story ideas you're about to pitch to an editor are any good. We've all been there. There is no formula for coming up with that novel angle or fresh topic. But certain approaches and strategies can help you hone your nose for science news and root out interesting stories editors will want. First, scope out publications, both print and Web. If you've contemplated science journalism, then you have probably read the science and technology sections of major newspapers and leafed through the popular-science magazines on the newsstands. Familiarize yourself with the weeklies, such as New Scientist and Science News, as well as the news section of Science. Gain a greater depth by, for instance, reading review-type articles, such as those that appear in Scientific American, Nature's News and Views section, or the News & Commentary section of Science. Check out clearinghouses for press releases, such as Newswise, Eurekalert!, and PRNewswire. They send periodic e-mail alerts and maintain searchable websites. Some require that you have a published body of work before granting you access to certain privileged information (such as the contact numbers of researchers). Others may require that you obtain a letter from an editor. You can also subscribe to mailing lists of media relations offices at universities, medical centers, and other research institutions and sign up for various industry newsletters. When surfing the Web for science information, don't forget major government websites, such as those of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, and the Department of Energy, which manages the national labs. Besides weapons work, the DOE labs—including Los Alamos, Brookhaven, Oak Ridge, and Lawrence Livermore—conduct research in both physical and biological sciences. Other worthwhile online resources include listservs and Web logs, but keep in mind that the ideas there are not vetted as they are in journals. Plus, you have to have the patience to get past the ranting and raving that can obscure good postings. For beginning science journalists, it may be best to follow blogs of well-respected researchers.

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