Social Media And Science Communication

Science and technology has became the decisive factor for the competition of comprehensive national strengths in the world today. With the advent of knowledge-based economy, scientific and technical innovation and development is the key to a considerable number of bottlenecks. However, the progress of science and technology shall not only be the responsibility of scientists and technologists, but also depend on the participation of and contribution from the society at large. To improve the quality of science communication and citizens'overall scientific literacy, and to promote the popularity of scientific knowledge among the public has been ever more urgent and crucial.Guokr, an open and pluralistic pan-science social network site has generated fire-new content on science communication, and created an interactive platform for exchanging ideas on science-related topics, by taking full advantage of its social media characteristics. It has become one of the most popular social network site on science in China.This study approaches science communication conducted by Guokr from both the content generated and interaction observed in the social network site. Content analysis is conducted to examine the total of 307 recommended posts at "Man of Science", Guokr's content-based section, throughout 2015. It's found that Guokr has put much more emphasis on natural science topics, and expository writing plays the leading role among all kinds of genres, implying that Guokr adheres to the principle of presenting scientific issues with fair and balanced analyses based on facts. Besides, the social network site is featured by empowering amateurs in science to play the role of science communicators, who overtake editors and scientists as the largest group of content production. It's also observed that Guokr values the use of multimedia elements greatly, as most posts are presented in more than one form, including pictures, animated gifs, graphs, videos and links in addition to text.Interaction on Guokr is also a scope of study in the research, to examine how Guokr takes advantage of its social media characteristics to mobilize users and build an virtual community. It's observed that users of Guokr are able to communicate with editors on a regular basis, through which intimate relationship are established between these two groups, and users'sense of belonging and emotional approval to Guokr may be aroused. Users are likely to interact in "one to one", "one to many" and "many to many" mode, by sending Guokr's built-in direct mails, raising or answering questions, and joining specific interest groups.Furthermore. Guokr has extended its science communication from online to offline by holding technique sharing events regularly.