A study on the popular science mass media of China in comparative perspective

Author: Ji Zhao – National Academy of Innovation Strategy, CAST, China

Co-authors:

• Xuan Liu – National Academy of Innovation Strategy, CAST, China
• Fujun Ren – National Academy of Innovation Strategy, CAST, China

It is stressed in China that technology innovation and science popularization are like the two wings that drive innovative development. However, at this moment, the development of technology innovation and science popularization is still unbalanced in China. One of the main challenges is that the input in popular science is inadequate. Scientists, enterprises and mass media are not actively engaged in supporting science popularization.

In this paper, efforts are focused on the popular science mass media, to study the difference between China’s and abroad representative popular science mass media. In China, the popular science websites Guokr.com and SciMall.com are investigated. These two are among the most popular websites within the lay public and the scientific community. And each has its Wechat official account, which pushes once or twice posts daily. Internationally, the MIT Technology Review is selected for comparison purpose. The selection criteria of the investigated objects are these mass medias have the similar target audience in term of generation, education background, interest range. Comparisons are performed in aspects of topic quality and coverage, report depth and hotspots, journalist workforce, reader’s service and etc.

It is concluded that each representative popular science mass media has its unique characteristics. However, there is still room for the mass media in China to improve, such as focusing more on providing scientific perspective for the latest news to help people understand its long-term outcome and impact. Furthermore, it is suggested to establish the mechanism of converting scientific and technological achievements into popular science resources. Meanwhile, Work related to popular science should be included in the incentive system of scientific research personnel, and a certain proportion of national science and technology projects and talent awards should be reserved for popular science talents.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Visual presentation
Theme: Technology