| | | Hi everyone,
this newsletter continues to be in a transitional phase as you can easily see. But it still delivers the content you expect. We report on a surprising advantage of slides over video, on how to convince Republicans about climate change, and recommend an article which explains why video isn't on academic platforms. And that's by far not all.
Enjoy reading, and share your topic suggestions!
Thilo | |
|
|---|
|
|
| | | | Should communicators show slides instead of videos? One of the criteria to assess the impact of science communication is its impact on its audiences' behaviour. On August 26, 2020, the scientific journal Ecosystem Services published a study of Japanese researchers in which they compared the "willingness to pay" for the conservation of coral reefs of more than 10,000 online participants. The latter were presented either no information about the need for conservation efforts or a slide show or a video. Unexpectedly, the slide show proved to be most effective. The results are informative, but must be treated with caution. If you don't want to read the whole paper check out this detailed article on phys.org (August 25, 2020). |
|
|---|
| | |
|
| | | How to convince Republicans about climate change If you really want to make a difference by using film for science communication then take a closer look at this study, published on August 27, 2020 in the journal Science Communication. It's not just about moving images, but much more specifically about "entertaining and transportive climate change film". An experiment, conducted with 2,015 participants by the study's authors, comes to the conclusion that this type of film even "may present opportunities to bridge gaps between political affiliations" (in this case, even the huge gap between Republicans and Democrats in the United States). Sciencedaily.com also reports on the study, providing us with very telling quotes from the study's authors: "The more emotionally and cognitively involved (the participants) were, the more they felt climate change was a real risk affecting their lives." "Both (Republicans and Democrats) were likely to believe that they could personally take action against climate change." "… after watching the video, among participants who were most transported or engaged, that difference (between Republicans and Democrats) went away." |
|
|---|
| | |
|
| | | Science videos for exchange between academic peers and professionals Will video replace specialist literature in the future? That's highly improbable. Will it work as an independent medium, covering specific needs? That can be said for sure. An interesting approach can be observed at the international science publisher Springer Nature. Christoph Baumann works as editorial director physics books at Springer Nature Netherlands and is typically dealing with the publication of books. Some time ago, however, he started to ask potential authors who declined his offer to write a textbook: Might you be interested in recording a video instead? That's how videos like "Quantum Physics of Light and Matter – Bose-Einstein Condensates and Superfluids", presented by Luca Salasnich from the University of Padova in Italy, and "Astronomical Freeform Optics", presented by Daewook Kim from the University of Arizona in the United States, came into existence. Targeted to university students and scientific peers, they are about one hour long and divided in segments, each about 5 to 15 minutes long. Renowned scientists introduce themselves shortly and then present aspects of their respective scientific discipline in detail. In the long run, Christoph says, videos shall neither replace lectures for students nor scientific books but will become an additional source for an easy information exchange between researchers and professionals in the private sector. The production process is as follows. The scientists outline the scope of the video and which resources like slides, pictures or video clips they are going to use. If their proposal is accepted by Springer Nature the scientists go for producing the video, while the publisher pays a fee for their technical realization to her or him or to a service provider. As soon as the scientist delivers a video file, Christoph's team asks a peer scientist for a review to assure quality, carries out some editing, adds a trailer, a transcript, and logo, and publishes the video behind a paywall. Bundled into packages, such videos can be sold to university libraries on a subscription base, Christoph explains, similar to Springer Nature's ebook collections. The most important prerequisite for doing so: There must be a substantial number of videos, like 30 or 50, covering a specific discipline. In his own field of expertise, physics, there are nine videos, currently. Medicine and public health, dentistry and computer science, among others, are represented in the portfolio as well. For the whole list of about 180 videos, each typically containing 5 to 6 chapters, visit this ovierview on Springer Link. This project is still in its early stage, obviously. In addition, paywalls aren't state of the art any more in times of a general transition to open access publishing (including for example the recent Transformative Agreement for the Nature journals). However, the approach looks promising for science as a whole: science education is complemented by professionally produced videos, and scientists get another opportunity to increase their international visibility via an innovative medium. (Declaration of interest: The author of this blogpost, Thilo Körkel, is an employee of Springer Nature.) |
|
|---|
| | |
|
| | | German science news service starts channel for science videos On November 2, 2020 the German science news service Informationsdienst Wissenschaft (idw) launched a science news video channel (this newsletter had already reported here). Once a week, idw promises, the channel will be updated with new clips. The basic idea of the project which addresses the needs of communication offices is to offer a toolbox for video production as well as a channel to reach broader audiences. The overarching goal of the initiative is to promote the use of videos in science communication. The service and accompanying workshops are exclusive to the over 1,000 idw members. (Declaration of interest: The author has initiated the project and has been actively involved in it.) |
|
|---|
| | |
|
| | Videos only look good if you watch them | |
|
|---|
|
|
| | | | | | Videos to escape (from lockdown) This article is brought to you by Sibylle Grunze from Berlin based science film makers hgmedien.com. My search for the next video recommendation started out with a list of 13 videos of German collaborative research centers. Surely it would be a cinch to find a good video among these. 13 videos later – among them this hideous one as well as this boring and incomprehensible example – I was angry. All of these videos had one thing in common: They were all lacking joy and the wish to actually communicate with me the viewer. The speakers were drowning me in endless platitudes of lifeless "excellent research" combined with the dullest bog-standard of science video pictures. No thank you! |
| | | | In my frustration I was drawn to the very individualistic and fun looking artwork of one of the TED-Ed Riddle videos. (I don't know if this technically counts as a science video but we can be as flexible with this as we've had to be in our daily lives lately!). Ahhh! This is great fun. Riddles to solve by yourself or with the family, packaged in great artwork and fun stories. A great way to get your mind of things. Thank you!
And I found yet another one.
The TED Ed series There's a poem for that" pairs contemporary & classical poems with award-winning animators, making each video a piece of individual art. This is what the world needs now! Beauty in unique form to give our minds space to wander and enjoy. And for those of us that seek more than the pure joy there are also videos explaining the poems. |
|
|---|
| | |
|
| | | | | | Sci-Fi movie "Exit" plus AI expert panel Sorry: Movie and panel in German language only. What if you could talk with the deceased, at least with a perfect digital copy of them? That is what "Exit", a German Sci-Fi movie from 2020, is about. A small chip, implanted below the scalp, which recorded everything during a person's lifetime, delivers the data. An artificial intelligence then composes a convincing digital, human-like artefact. |
| | | | The 90-minutes-thriller (which received an enthusiastic review here) from director Sebastian Marka can be watched until Jan 28, 2021 in the mediatheque of the German public broadcaster ARD. Right before the TV screening on October 28, 2020, an online panel of scientists, TV editors, the film director Marka and his scriptwriter Erol Yesilkaya, moderated by YouTuber Mirko Drotschmann (MrWissen2Go), discussed how AI will impact our societies and how this impact can be shaped. |
|
|---|
| | |
|
| | | | Why video isn't on academic platforms (and how to change that) If you ever wondered why videos in scholarly communication do not play a big role, you're not alone any more. In this guest post on the famous blog The Scholarly Kitchen, Violaine Iglesias comprehensively compiles reasons why this is the case and proposes eight steps to change things: "It's time for societies and publishers to do what they do best with video: publish it." Violaine has her own reasons to promote the use of video: She is CEO of Cadmore Media, a video hosting platform dedicated to scholarly information. This service is probably a little ahead of its time, but is also an indication that there is a growing need. In her post Violaine also kindly shares some interesting information about major players in the field of what she calls video publishers. However, while she is perfectly right about most of what she writes, her recommendations rather challenge individual institutions or people (Create your own market!, Tag and transcribe video!, Think global!) than the whole system of publishing. Which brings us back to the start: videos do not (yet) play a big role in scholarly communication. |
|
|---|
| | |
|
| | | Spanish, French and English science YouTubers What's up beyond the frontiers? The German student Carla Reinhardt watched out for science YouTubers in neighbouring countries – and she made many finds. Among others she presents, in German language, the Spanish channel "La Gata de Schrödinger", "Fouloscopie" from France, and "Two Minute Paper" from England. At the end of the article three links lead you to comprehensive overviews of YouTubers in these three countries. |
|
|---|
| | |
|
| | | Video works – even when it's meant to misinform. Science communication via video can be highly successful in terms of impact. But not only the good guys make use of that fact. Especially inglorious examples of intentional disinformation are the two influential videos "The Greening of Planet Earth" and "The Greening of Planet Earth Continues". A few days ago YaleClimateConnections.org told their story which dates back to 1992 and 1998, respectively. According to science writer Karin Kirk they "were widely distributed to classrooms and found their way into bibliographies and lecture halls. The 1998 edition was distributed widely on Capitol Hill." Well-known Harvard University science historian Naomi Oreskes told Kirk that the videos "were instrumental in helping create the myth that higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are overwhelmingly positive for plants, crops, food supply, and humans generally." The story also explores how government scientists unwillingly became the videos' protagonists. |
|
|---|
| | |
|
| | | | This email has been sent to kirnegmbh.entsblog@blogger.com. You receive this email since you have subscribed to the Science & Video newsletter. | | | | | |
|
| | |
|
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen