Multimodal engagement strategies in science dissemination: A case study of TED talks and YouTube science videos

Abstract

The growing interest on science dissemination offers new opportunities to communicate science openly to various audiences, but also brings on the challenge of adapting to an audience that does not share the same academic background. This adaptation has been referred to as recontextualization. In the case of the formats that concern this study, that is, TEDx Talks and YouTube science dissemination videos, their multimodal nature suggests that recontextualization, and therefore engagement as a crucial aspect of this process, is likely to go way beyond purely linguistic aspects. The aim of this study is to unveil how engagement strategies in two science dissemination formats (a face to face talk and an online video) are realized through complex multimodal ensembles, and to highlight differences across them. In order to fulfill this aim, two talks by the same presenter and dealing with similar content were selected for analysis: a TEDx talk and a YouTube science dissemination video from the channel PBS Space Time. The recordings were annotated using the software Multimodal Video Analysis. The annotation included engagement strategies; embodied modes, that is, modes carried out using the body; and, in the case of the YouTube video, filmic modes, that is, modes triggered by the editing process of the recorded video. Our results show that the role of both embodied and filmic modes is paramount in the realization of engagement strategies. Our findings also bring to the fore significant differences in the ways in which the two distinct audiences are engaged, concerning the frequency and use of both semiotic modes and engagement strategies.

Engaging the Audience in Online Youtube Science Dissemination Videos: A Look at the Uptake of Multimodal Engagement Strategies

“…In fact, these views are very much aligned with previous multimodal studies of engagement in science dissemination videos (Bernad-Mechó & Valeiras-Jurado, 2023;Xia & Hafner, 2021) and with the multimodal analysis of the excerpts carried out by the authors. A detailed interpretation of the results of this analysis taking into account the students' views follows in the next section.…”

“…Both entities are partially Patreonfunded 1 and produce similar types of science dissemination videos aimed at a general audience. The specific clips were selected because of their engagement potential shown in previous studies (Bernad-Mechó & Girón-García, 2023;Bernad-Mechó & Valeiras-Jurado, 2023;Ruiz-Madrid & Valeiras-Jurado, in press) as attested by either a high number of views or a high percentage of likes. The videos all feature young English-speaking presenters dealing with scientific research in the fields of Medicine, Linguistics, Astrophysics, Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Anthropology.…”

“…In the case of EMI, content lecturers may now find themselves teaching in English to international and intercultural students for the first time (Dafouz, 2018); and for both EMI and ESP lecturers, present research calls for a digitalization of lectures that acknowledges the importance of multimodal discourse and raises awareness of the intricacies in the conveyance of meaning. In this sense, recent studies have explored YouTube science dissemination videos as complex multimodal resources (Valeiras-Jurado & Bernad-Mechó, 2022) with great engagement potential (Bernad-Mechó & Valeiras-Jurado, 2023) which can be employed in the ESP and EMI classrooms as a way to make real scientific content accessible to undergraduate students (Girón-García & Fortanet-Gómez, 2023). Thus, this paper sets out to investigate YouTube science dissemination videos as an engaging educational resource to be introduced in HE, both in ESP and EMI contexts, and contribute to the multimodal digitalization of the classroom.…”

multimodal analysis of humour as an engagement strategy in YouTube research dissemination videos

“…In order to answer the above-mentioned research questions, we have selected three videos from YouTube that disseminate science in three different fields (e.g., medicine, linguistics, and astrophysics). These videos were selected as part of a wider corpus to study how engagement occurs from a multimodal point of view (Bernad-Mechó & Valeiras-Jurado, 2023). In particular, these videos were identified as particularly engaging by an audience of higher education students within science dissemination videos produced by the company PBS (Public Broadcasting System).…”