Teachable Moments in News Media—An Analysis of Audience Awareness, Enjoyment, Interest, Opinion Formation, and Understanding (AEIOU) toward Science

• Main Authors: Leon Yufeng Wu, Shannah Pinhsuan Wu, Chun-Yen Chang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-12-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: science edu-communication; science news media; scientific literacy in media (SLiM); science communication; AEIOU
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/23/10212

In light of the increased time spent by people on watching the news via social media, what might be the communication impacts if science education could help in producing science news media for the public? The present study compared the audience levels of awareness, enjoyment, interest, opinion formation, and understanding (AEIOU) toward science experimentally between two groups: the general science communication (GSC) group (i.e., participants with general daily science news digestion) and the science edu-communication (SEC) group (i.e., participants who watched science news videos produced jointly by science educators, scientists, and news media production teams). As a result, those in the SEC group showed significantly higher levels of “interest”, formed more scientific “opinions”, and had better “understanding” than the GSC participants. In terms of creating an “additional opportunity” to develop science news media sustainably for the public, the present study confirms more salient outcomes when science educators are involved in the production of science news media.