Science Communication Objectives and Practices of

Science News Websites

Ifat Zimmerman, Faculty of Education in Science and Technology, Technion.

Co-supervisors: Prof. Tali Tal & Prof. Ayelet Baram-Tsabari

Introduction

• The activity formats of science communication are diversified and reflect at least one of the three acceptable science communication model approaches: i.e., Deficit, Dialogue, and Participation, each of which:
• Regards the science-public relation differently (Bucchi & Trench, 2021).
• Places different goals for communicating science (Metcalfe, 2019).
• Has an effect on public attitudes and opinions (Bauer, 2012).

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• As the Internet has become the primary way of delivering information in general and the leading resource for those searching for scientific information in particular (Brossard & Scheufele, 2013),science news websites evolved to be an important worldwide media agent and likewise in Israel (Baram-Tsabari et al., 2020).

Research goal and questions

This exploratory study investigated four Israeli science news websites – digital journalistic outlets that cover only science-related topics – to understand their objectives and practices in communicating science to the public, and shed light on these online spaces of informal science learning environments.

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RQ1 What are the objectives of science news websites in communicating science to the public?

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RQ2 How are these objectives manifested through the website articles?

Results

Methodology

Conclusions

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Table 1. Analytical framework for analyzing the websites' science communication objectives

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Table 2. Interviewee ranking of the science communication objectives

Figure 1. Accessibility strategies and their use by the websites (n=298)

Step І: Eight semi-structured interviews with the websites' operators to understand the website objectives in communicating science to the public, using an analytical framework (Table 1).

Step IІ: Content analysis of a sample of 298 of the websites' articles to examine the ways and the extent to which the websites' objectives are manifested in their articles, using a codebook of thirteen accessibility strategies classified into four clusters: Clarity, Visualization, Relevance, and, Style.

RQ1

• Science news websites provide the public with mediated scientific articles using accessibility strategies that may contribute to the text comprehensibility in terms of clarity, visualization, relevance, and style. Doing so, they play an important societal role as informal science learning environments for advancing the broad public's scientific literacy.

• The websites hold similar objectives and perceive their significance in roughly the same order.

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• Most of their objectives reflect the deficit and dialogue models, though the former is more fundamental; while, participation model objectives are hardly held.

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• However, their potential to engage in dialogue with the public through user-comments and to utilize their online platforms to facilitate scientists' collaborations with the public, is not entirely fulfilled.

References

Baram-Tsabari, A., Orr, D., Baer, A., Garty, E., Golumbic, Y., Halevi, M., Krein, E., Levi, A., Leviatan, N., Lipman, N., Mir, R., & Nevo, E. (2020). The history and evolution of science communication in Israel. In T. Gascoigne, B. V. Lewenstein, L. Massarani, B. Schiele, P. Broks, M. Riedlinger, & J. Leach (Eds.), The Emergence of Modern Science Communication. ANU Press.

Bauer, M. W. (2012). Public attention to science 1820–2010 – A ‘longue durée’ picture. In S. Rodder, M. Franzen, & P. Weingart (Eds.), The Sciences’ Media Connection - Public Communication and its Repercussions (pp. 35–57). Springer.

Brossard, D., & Scheufele, D. A. (2013). Science, new media, and the public. Science, 339(6115), 40–41. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1232329

Bucchi, M., & Trench, B. (2021). Rethinking Science Communication as the Social Conversation Around Science. Journal of Science Communication, 20(3), 1–11.

Metcalfe, J. (2019). Comparing science communication theory with practice: An assessment and critique using Australian data. Public Understanding of Science, 28(4), 382–400.

Scheufele, D. A., Krause, N. M., Freiling, I., & Brossard, D. (2021). What we know about effective public engagement on CRISPR and beyond. PNAS, 118.

Acknowledgement:

This research is supported by the Ministry of Science Technology and Space under grant agreement 3-15725�

RQ2

Legend:

As to the two most preeminent objectives* (Table 2), the websites:

• Publish hundreds of articles per year and cover a wide range of science topics to interest various publics.

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• Employ multiple ways to expose their articles to a broader public, including posting them on their Facebook pages and exporting them to general online news outlets.

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• Apply the accessibility strategies, though to a different extent (Figure 1).

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* p< 0.05

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