Profiles, Challenges, and Motivations of Science YouTubers

Testing how different narrative perspectives achieve communication objectives and goals in online natural science videos

“…These other social media platforms could be used to advertise and share either newly created channels or videos for further promotion (e.g. [ 7 , 97 ]) much like how they are currently used to promote blogs (e.g. [ 98 ]) or publications ([ 18 , 96 , 99 ]).…”

“…Online media has become a primary means through which public audiences connect with science (e.g., [ 1 ]). Online, science media originates from many producers, from traditional news-producing institutions (journalism/news, universities, science societies), non-traditional sources like online personalities (science communicators and YouTubers), and even apparently author-less presentations in the form of memes, infographics, or animations (e.g., [ 1 – 7 ]). Increasingly, research scientists are creating online representations of both themselves and their work for public audiences in forms ranging from institutional websites to personal/professional social media feeds.…”

“…Correspondingly, these video-focused platforms have increasingly become recognized and evaluated as popular media for effective science communication [ 21 , 24 – 26 ]. Many studies of this type of media assess characteristics of successful YouTube content by evaluating previously published videos from established and popular channels (e.g., [ 5 , 7 , 27 ]). While a few recent studies have included comparisons of videos presented by scientists versus science YouTube presenters [ 28 , 29 ], controlled experiments that are designed to test the effectiveness of scientists-as-presenters telling first-person narratives in online video compared to other narrative perspectives have yet to be done.…”

“…Traditional science journalism has been decreasing in recent decades, becoming increasingly overtaken by online media outlets [ 2 , 3 ]. Blogs, webpages, and social media however have seen a surge and the science stories presented there can be told by many individuals, from interested non-scientists, spokespeople with science backgrounds talking about the work of others, to the scientists themselves (e.g., [ 3 – 5 , 7 , 25 ]). The shift from traditional to non-traditional sources for science news also comes with a shift from a one-way dialogue towards two-way engagement providing greater access to the content producers themselves.…”

Análisis desde la perspectiva de género del engagement de los principales youtubers de divulgación científica=Analysis of the engagement of the main popular science youtubers from a gender perspective

“…La falta de participación de las mujeres como audiencia se ha mostrado como una de las posibles causas que, a su vez, explican su menor implicación como productoras y divulgadoras de contenidos (Welbourne y Grant, 2016), diferencia que se incrementa todavía más cuando la temática de los canales está relacionada con disciplinas STEM (ciencias, tecnología, ingeniería y matemáticas) en las que el número de mujeres se reduce drásticamente (Velho y Barata, 2020;Amarasekara y Grant, 2019;García-Nieto, 2013). Esta participación desigual supone también una implicación menos activa de las mujeres en el debate científico, ya que YouTube no debe entenderse únicamente como una plataforma de alojamiento de contenidos, sino también como una herramienta para la creación de una comunidad participativa (Welbourne y Grant, 2016).…”