| "Natural History" is a popular natural science reading material for teenagers under the magazine of "China National Geographic",and its main purpose is to revive natural history and arouse readers' love for nature.Since its establishment in 2004,"Natural History" has been shortlisted in the annual outstanding newspapers and the "National Excellent Children's Newspapers Recommended List" of the State Administration of Press,Publication,Radio,Film and Television for many times.Its cumulative volume of publication has reached 10 million copies since 2016.Within natural history,a relatively niche field,"Natural History" is highly recommended by readers by virtues of distinctive feature,excellent reputation and impressive sales.Its communication characteristics are worth for other homogeneous popular science publications lacking creative vitality to learn from.This article selects the "Natural History" magazines from 2016 to 2019 as the research object.It is divided into five parts.This paper firstly introduces the necessity of the revival of natural history in contemporary era and the basic information of "Natural History" magazine.What's more,it analyses the communication characteristics of "Natural History" magazine from aspects of contents,form and target readers.Finally,this thesis offers corresponding suggestions.In terms of communication contents,"Natural History" aims at spreading natural history knowledge both in reading materials and related activity.It focuses on natural system,sets special columns to attract readers and combines social events to showcase social responsibility.It also invites "gatekeepers" in the academic field to ensure the quality of the content."Natural History" also organizes offline activities which are divided into "natural history tour","natural history class" and internet public lectures,enhancing the readers' sense of participation and experience in using and mastering natural history knowledge by encouraging them to contact nature.For communication forms,this article classifies the communication forms of "Natural History" into text communication,picture communication and network communication.This article employs narratology and Stuart Hall's "encoding and decoding" theory in analysis,finding that "Natural History" pays attention to secondary coding and feedback."Natural History" appeals to readers by strong narrative words,translating obscure science knowledge into easily acceptable expressions for readers.The picture communication characteristic of "Natural History" is to use a large number of pictures that are both realistic and artistic to attract readers' attention and assist readers in text understanding,improving the efficiency of scientific communication."Natural History" also actively expanded online communication channels.Based on new media platforms and online communities,"Natural History" opens multi-platform accounts and official communities to continuously make readers stick with magazine and enhance the diversity of communication form.In terms of target readers of "Natural History",this article utilizes questionnaire surveys and in-depth interviews to collect its data of readers and analyse the readers' profile.This article explores readers from the three levels of cognition,attitude,and effect based on the theory of "Uses and Gratifications".Finally,this article comes up with four suggestions for other popular science publications on the basis of communication characteristics of "Natural History".First,to improve content quality by clarifying the communication concept,reconstructing the production pattern,conforming to readers' reading habits,adopting excellent author resources,and establishing classical awareness.Second,more science practice activities need to be created.Third,other publications should enrich the forms of communication.Fourth,target readers should be cleared.Last,a unique style is necessary.Hope to be helpful for other popular science publications in ideas and experience. |
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