Communicating Science and Technology Through Online Video

Researching a New Media Phenomenon

Bienvenido León, Michael Bourk, Bienvenido León, Michael Bourk

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351054560
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencia de la computación
• Subtopic: Medios digitales

Online video's unique capacity to reach large audiences makes it a powerful tool to communicate science and technology to the general public. The outcome of the international research project "Videonline, " this book provides a unique insight into the key elements of online science videos, such as narrative trends, production characteristics, and issues of scientific rigor. If offers various methodological approaches: a literature review, content analysis, and interviews and surveys of expert practitioners to provide information on how to maintain standards of rigour and technical quality in video production.

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Investigating Science-Related Online Video

Bienvenido León and Michael Bourk

The new communication paradigm that has been created by the Internet has opened the door to novel and fascinating possibilities for the public communication of science and technology, since radically different relationships are being established among scientists, communicators and the public. Furthermore, the Internet makes it possible to create multimedia texts, in which video plays a key role, and also makes it possible to create new narrative forms that have become tools of great efficacy to communicate science.

Science online video has adopted many different styles, formats and genres, creating a variety of categories that are difficult to classify and that have virtually no creative limits. As a consequence, this environment offers a set of new opportunities to develop efficient mechanisms to communicate science to the public, enabling a more active relationship of citizens with science.

1.1. Science Communication in the Digital Environment

There is little doubt about the increasing relevance of science and technology in our daily lives. It provides solutions for everyday problems and creates knowledge that helps to make decisions to improve our quality of life. Public perception of the main scientific issues has acquired great importance for governments and institutions ruling our society, and citizens must understand science in order to adapt to an increasingly scientific and technological environment. But this is not possible without the contribution of scientists, who must align their research with the challenges of the society where they belong and make their results comprehensible to the public.

However, science does not always play the role it should in social debates on those topics in which the scientific point of view is a fundamental reference. For example, scientific knowledge about climate change has often been displaced by political and economic considerations.

We live in a time of change—if not a change of time—where citizens are adopting a more active role in all areas of social action, including science. The traditional scientific process was completed inside the labs and afterwards spread into the rest of society, with varying degrees of success. But this model gave way to that of ‘science with society’, whereby participation becomes a fundamental requirement.

The participatory model of science relies on communication as a fundamental element. Communication is no longer a goodwill concession from the scientist to society but a core requirement that provides oil for the new mechanism to work.

But this new model is possible only because communication tools have multiplied and acquired huge power. The digital environment has provided effective tools that are accessible and easy to use, and the Internet has precipitated a new paradigm of public communication that situates the user in the centre of the process (Lister et al., 2009), while the traditional deficit model of science communication has given way to the participatory model (Miller, 2001). This has meant that ‘an important paradigm shift is taking place within the scientific community that involves a movement away from a singular focus on science literacy as both the culprit and the solution to conflicts over science in society’ (Nisbet and Scheufele, 2009: 1776–1777).

The Internet has radically modified the relationship among the actors involved in the process of science communication (Weigold & Treise, 2004). Scientists can now communicate directly with the general public without the intermediation of the mass media or the traditional limitations of time and space and within a rich multimedia environment that multiplies the options to communicate science.

The Rise of Online Video

We are immersed in the visual culture of the homo videns era (Sartori, 1998). Television and the other audiovisual media may even be transforming our way of thinking, which has been traditionally based on a written culture. Since television became a popular medium in the 1960s, moving images have been an essential element of current communication, but the Internet has increased the relevance of video even further, to a point difficult to imagine only a few years ago.

Online video consists of any form of audiovisual content that can be viewed through the Internet. Internet video is produced in several formats, the most notable being AVCHD, FLV and MP4. It includes videos hosted on YouTube and other aggregators, such as Youku, Hulu or Vimeo; films and series on demand; video produced for mobile and tablet consumption; videoconferences, video blogs and other formats. The consumption of video on the Internet has grown exponentially, thus ending the monopoly that the television channels had on the production of audiovisual content.

Online video has grown exponentially in the last few years: it accounted for 70% of all Internet global traffic in 2015, and it is expected to grow to 82% in 2020. This means that video traffic will have increased almost 100-fold from 2005 to 2020. It is difficult to imagine such a huge amount of video, but the following fact is helpful: it would take an individual more than 5 million years to watch the number of hours that will circulate in the Internet each month in 2020 (Cisco, 2016).

According to industry data, online video penetration is near universal in most leading online markets; 62% of world Internet users view online video every day (eMarketer, 2017). Google sites, including YouTube, are currently attracting over 1 billion unique users, and mobile video traffic is estimated to amount to 1.70 million per month (YouTube, 2017). A number of features define the online video environment, in which not only an exponential growth is observed but also a diversity of authorship.

Television companies are still the primary producers of professional-quality news content and generate the majority of online news videos, although they face increasing competition from YouTube (Peer and Ksiazek, 2011). In the case of news programmes, content is ‘repackaged’ on different platforms through ‘adaptation or translation’ processes (Erdal, 2009) and through audiovisual aggregators such as YouTube. For instance, it is common to find in social media short videos of fragments of programmes that reproduce a specific moment with a special meaning.

This overwhelming growth is related to several developments that digital technologies have propelled. The fact that images are recorded, stored and transmitted on a digital medium has many implications that go beyond technology itself. Audiovisual production tools have experienced a long process of democratisation that the digital era has accelerated by blurring the frontiers between professional and amateur equipment. For example, nowadays mobile phones are equipped with cameras that can record high-quality video.

There exists a new audiovisual participatory culture that is based on three pillars (Sørenssen, 2008: 51–52). Firstly, video production tools have become market products that are accessible to many. Secondly, equipment has become smaller, lighter and easier to use. Thirdly, the web has provided a powerful accessible distribution medium that opens any production to a virtually unlimited audience.

In the second decade of the 21st century, video consumption on social networks has become a fundamental contributor to the rise of online video. In the area of news, much of the growth of video consumption is related to social media. News media are aware of this fact and now use social networks as a fundamental medium for audience traffic. One of the main players in this area is Facebook, a platform that has increased video in its newsfeeds and has reported 8 billion daily video views in November 2015 (RISJ, 2017). But the rise of video in this platform is not only related to news: in 2017, more than 100 million hours of video content were watched on Facebook daily (Wordstream, 2017).

The growth of online video is also driven by the current market logic, since video is a crucial element in attracting advertising. For example, in the area of news, research indicates that ‘publishers and technology platforms are pushing online news video hard for commercial reasons’ Kalogeropoulos et al., 2016: 7).

Beyond technology and market factors, the rise of online video is linked to a new ‘participatory culture’ that the Internet has fostered. This term is often used to explain how more accessible technologies have propelled a new relationship between media industries and consumers, but it is also associated with popular culture and participatory democracy. In summary, we are immersed in a new cultural paradigm where individuals take an active role in the production, dissemination and interpretation of cultural goods, a role that is related to the ‘Do It Yourself’ ideology (Jenkins, 2006) and also to the blurring of lines between producers and audiences (Bruns, 2008).

Perhaps the most outstanding example of this new audiovisual culture is YouTube, a platform where ‘participatory culture is not a gimmick or a sideshow; it is absolutely core business’ (Burgess and Green, 2009: 6). This site was created in 2005 by three former employees of the electronic commerce company PayPal. One year later, it was acquired by Google Inc. for $1650 million. In 2017, YouTube was the second most popular site globally, below only Google (Alexa, 2017), with over a billion users who generate billions of views (YouTube, 2017).

YouTube is a hybrid platform shared by two different kinds of content: user-generated content and professionally generated content. Content produced by users was the basis of the early success of YouTube, turning amateur video into a huge commercial success that worries television executives (Strangelove, 2010: 40).

But in only a few years, TV networks and distributors became aware of the potential of this site and introduced abundant professionally generated content. However, in spite of this institutionalisation process, YouTube has created a new visual culture based on the original amateur aesthetics, which some reckon to be ‘the dominant form of early twenty-first-century videography’ (Lister et al., 2009: 227). As Kim (2012) points out, these videos set the tone and format of online video: ‘short, mostly humorous and easily accessible’ (p. 54).

However, the Internet has developed multiple forms of online video, ranging from a mere diffusion of content created for television or cinema that follows the traditional formats, to radically new forms especially designed to be delivered online, thus creating a variety that is difficult to classify.

Based on the new participatory paradigm, the Internet has shown an enormous potential to create innovative forms and styles that may be designed either to serve a small group of potential users or to reach a large audience. Sometimes innovation is the way the new producers (either amateur or professional) try to distinguish themselves from the traditional content producers, in order to attract online users, especially young people. This variety of forms and styles offers an enormous potential to communicate science.

Science Online Video

In some countries, the Internet is one of the leading sources of scientific information for most citizens. For example, in 2014, 47% of Americans cited the Internet as their primary source of S&T news, up from 9% in 2001, while television was cited by 28% (National Science Board, 2016: 36). In Spain, in 2016, 37.7% of citizens said the Internet was the first recalled source for science information, ahead of television (36.4%) (Fecyt, 2017). Therefore, given its relative predominance in the online environment, video has become a tool of crucial importance to communicate science to society.

In addition, images can play an important role in spreading scientific information to the public, in several ways. Firstly, images can work as icons that may get into people’s minds to illustrate concepts that may be more difficult to understand in a written medium. Research indicates that images can work as a valuable tool to facilitate comprehension of difficult information. Compared to words, images are more effective in transmitting information that can later be remembered (Korakakis et al., 2009).

Besides, moving images can transmit emotions that may involve the viewer and promote engagement with scientific issues for a wide group of citizens. This becomes crucial in many scientific issues, since science needs to address audiences that are used to receiving high-impact visual materials on other topics that are constantly raised by the media. Therefore, images may be necessary if science has to attract citizens in a highly competitive attention market, dominated by commercial and entertainment content. For example, environmental campaigns can benefit from the impact of images, in order to inform and promote behavioural change in some citizens who would not be easily reached with other tools.

As explained earlier in this section, production technology has become more affordable and easy to use. This includes the tools to produce computer-generated images that can be effective to communicate scientific information. Very often, science communicators need to explain processes that are difficult to perceive by the naked eye or the camera. But animation can help to overcome this difficulty, especially when it becomes accessible to amateur producers. These developments have helped science to become more seductive and more competitive as a visual spectacle.

Online video is considered to be an accessible tool to spread scientific information to the general public (Sugimoto and Thelwall, 2013; Thelwall et al., 2012; Young, 2008), offering a new opportunity for scientists to take part in the public discussion in an increasingly visual culture. But not all visual representations of science have the same efficacy or similar beneficial results. For example, in the case of climate change communication, research shows that some images have become icons that have helped to build a socially shared reference. In contrast, other images, like that of a polar bear on an ice platform, have contributed to create the sense that climate change is a remote process with little connection to the daily lives of most people (Heras and Meira, 2014: 35).

In spite of its huge potential, science online video is still scarcely researched. Some studies have focused on online video about specific scientific topics like chemistry (Christensson and Sjöström, 2014), environmental sciences (e.g. Jaspal et al., 2014; Notley et al., 2013; Slawter & TreeHuggerTV, 2008; Uldam and Askanius, 2013) and medical issues (e.g. Murugiah et al., 2011; Sood et al., 2011;; Yoo and Kim, 2012).

Welbourne and Grant (2016) provide the first overview of science communication on YouTube, focusing on content factors that affect popularity. They conclude that user-gen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• 1 Investigating Science-Related Online Video
• 2 An Overview of Science Online Video: Designing a Classification of Formats
• 3 Producing Science Online Video
• 4 When Science Becomes Controversial
• 5 New and Old Narratives: Changing Narratives of Science Documentary in the Digital Environment
• 6 Rigour in Online Science Videos: An Initial Approach
• 7 Audiovisual Formats and Content in University Corporate Communication: Lost Branding Opportunities?
• 8 Entertainment in Science: Useful in Small Doses
• 9 Framing in Climate Change Videos
• 10 Conclusion: Innovation and Future Challenges
• Appendix 1 Notes on the Research Method
• Contributors
• Index