Science journalism in Hindi in pre-independence India: A study of Hindi periodicals

Science journalism in Hindi originated in the late nineteenth century. Hindi literary periodicals provided the first platform for science to be discussed along with literature. The onset of the twentieth century witnessed a remarkable advance in Hindi literary writing, and science writing also flourished with this advance. A remarkable overlap and a complementary relationship between the development of Hindi literature and Hindi commentaries on sciences is evident. Equally important in this context was the backdrop provided by a politically contentious process of evolution of a ‘modern’, ‘standard’ Hindi, and by the anti-colonial freedom movement, yoked to the idea of cultural and economic nationalism. The article surveys certain popular periodicals that regularly published essays and commentaries on science and scientific subjects. These periodicals were instrumental in shaping the popular discourses on science. The article also underlines an overwhelming effort by the intelligentsia to seek a philosophical commensurability between modern science and ‘traditional’ schools of thought. It concludes that the predominance of these characteristics in Hindi science journalism was a reflection of the agenda of the Hindi intelligentsia, shaped by linguistic nationalism framed alongside or in conjunction with a revivalist perspective.

Development of Popular Science Journalism in the Cross-Media Context

The development of information and communication technologies and the digitalization of the media space create new opportunities for the popularization of scientific knowledge. There is an objective need to study popular science journalism as an activity that develops a multimedia network format and various media content distribution channels. The work is aimed at analyzing the features of the development of popular science journalism on the Internet in the context of cross-media. The study employed general scientific methods (analysis and synthesis), a method of studying documents with elements of content analysis, a comparative method that includes a comparison of different types of content, as well as data from social network and messenger analytics services. The authors studied media channels and ways to promote media content, its ideological, thematic, and structural characteristics, the features of its transformation on high citation index ratings scientific-oriented platforms Nplus1.ru and Naked-science.ru. As a result of the conducted research, it was discovered that the audience involved in the studied online media is carried out through a differentiated cross-media presence, the use of rewriting, and reposting processes. Particular attention was focused on the comparative analysis of the media content of official websites, accounts in the social network VKontakte, and Telegram messenger.

Mary Proctor: An astronomical popularizer in the shadows

The popularizer of astronomy Mary Proctor was well known in her days but has been little remembered since. A prominent lecturer and author, Proctor was trained in the craft of science writing by her father, Richard Proctor. She ‘held the very first place in the profession as a woman’ and promoted the role of women in science throughout her career. Her life illuminates many themes. Mary Proctor spanned the period between entrepreneurial science popularizers and professional science communicators. I suggest that one of her most important legacies is as an early pioneer of the practices of science journalism in the early twentieth century when the relations between science and society were in flux. Yet her legacy has been largely overlooked. A study of Proctor's life reveals multiple interests, diverse opportunities and the way that people are differently remembered.

Novel interfaces in science communication: Comparing journalistic and social media uptake of articles published by The Conversation Africa

Science amplifier platforms such as The Conversation have gained popularity in a changing media ecosystem in which the traditional roles of journalists are eroded, and scientists are urged to engage with society. The Conversation constitutes a blend of scientific communication, public science communication and science journalism, and a convergence of the professional worlds of science and journalism. In this study, we investigated the nature and impact of the Africa-focussed edition of this platform, The Conversation Africa. We analysed articles published over a 5-year period since its launch in 2015 ( N = 5392). Contents from South Africa dominate the platform, but contributions from other African countries are increasing. Regarding the role of The Conversation Africa as an inter-media agenda setter, mainstream media more often republished stories related to politics or economics, while stories about social issues such as education, conservation and art were more often shared on social media.