This paper uses New Zealand’s AF8 [Alpine Fault Magnitude 8] program, designed to build resilience and preparedness for earthquakes, as a real-world example to explore how emotional appeals can affect preparedness intentions within the emergency management sector. Drawing on template analysis of 14 artifacts from AF8’s communication material and 34 semi-structured interviews with emergency management stakeholders (the AF8 material’s primary audience), the study examines how emotional appeals are strategically employed and perceived in practice.  Findings contextualize theoretical understandings of how risk communication can balance fear and anxiety with positive emotions like fascination and confidence using tools such as vivid imagery, narrative framing, and certainty. The research offers empirical insights into how emotional appeals are used and perceived in risk communication, providing a foundation for developing future hazard communication strategies grounded in real-world application.

This paper uses the Aristotelian concept of pathos to investigate how scientists can persuade their audiences through emotional appeals in science crowdfunding videos (SCVs). SCVs are short videos created to promote and fund a research project through online crowdfunding platforms, and represent an emerging genre of science communication that connects experts and audiences. By adopting a linguistic and semiotic approach, a sample of 50 SCVs was analysed with qualitative analysis software to identify linguistic and non-linguistic resources that could appeal to viewers' emotions. The findings show a strong emphasis on positive emotional appeals, particularly strategies that foster kindness and friendship between scientists and audiences. In contrast, appeals to fear and pity were minimal, suggesting that SCVs focus mostly on building trust and empowering potential donors rather than evoking urgency or guilt. These results shed light on the role of emotions in science communication, particularly in the context of research funding.

This paper proposes a framework to guide cross-national, comparative research on science communication. Current research often relies on ad-hoc criteria for selecting countries (such as geographic proximity) or on pragmatic considerations (like data availability), which may limit the ability to capture broader contexts or identify the cases best suited for analysis. Drawing on the ecosystems concept, we integrate theoretical perspectives on political systems, academic systems, and media systems to identify a set of ideational and structural factors that are essential for understanding country variations in science communication: political system settings, the role of the state/market, political attention to science communication, and societal values and norms. Based on these, we suggest (and preliminarily illustrate) a typology of four ideal-types of science communication ecosystems — public-service-oriented, market-oriented, state-centred and fragmented — that could guide and should be tested in future research.

In an era of digital fragmentation and contested expertise, mediated public trust is under pressure. This study examines how journalists in Germany, Italy, and Lithuania perceive their role amid structural media shifts, politicized environments, and the rise of alternative sources. Drawing on 14 focus group discussions and 8 narrative interviews, we explore how national media systems and professional cultures shape journalistic strategies. Rather than a uniform erosion of trust, journalists report polarization shaped by ideology, platform dynamics, and shifting audience expectations. Many strive to act as trust brokers but face constraints from precarious working conditions, editorial pressures, and fragmented publics. We argue that trust in science journalism depends not only on journalistic practice but on broader systemic conditions, including institutional support, media infrastructures, and audience trust cultures (i.e., prevailing trust norms among different publics). This cross-national comparison advances a more differentiated understanding of how trust is negotiated in contemporary science communication.

This study explores how YouTube content creators integrate scientific evidence into their videos by analyzing citation patterns across disciplines. The role of other alternative metrics is also considered. We apply Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to compare the citation count of 12,005 research articles from Biotechnology, Psychology, Astrophysics, and Ecology published between 2014 and 2023, including citations sourced from YouTube videos. Our findings provide a characterization of two principal components in evidence citation employed by various science communication stakeholders. The first component enhances a paper's visibility by driving social attention, while the second focuses on its social influence and impact, determined by the paper's quality and scientific relevance.

Science podcasts have become an increasingly popular channel for science communication. Although podcasting has risen in popularity, little is known about why science podcasters choose to pursue this pathway for communication and how they set about achieving their goals for their podcast. Drawing on qualitative data from interviews with 20 science podcasters in Australia, our results reveal that the podcasters are mainly driven by personal factors such as their interest in, enjoyment of, and curiosity about science and that while they employ various tactics to achieve their goals, they do not consciously consider these tactics to be a form of strategic science communication.

This research examines how public relations (PR) officers in Taiwanese scientific organizations view their science communication roles in a context with limited professional science journalism. Through a survey of 67 PR officers, we investigate their perceptions of public trust in their organization, their media relations and communication strategies. Results indicate that while PR officers recognize the importance of science communication, they perceive less media interest in scientific content compared to organizational news. Potentially, this leads to a self-reinforcing cycle where the perception of low media interests further reduces PR efforts in communicating research findings and potentially harms organizations’ perceived legitimacy at scientific research.

Stem cell research and therapies have been the topic of hype in the news media in Europe, America, Asia and the Pacific. Using a computational approach, we examine stem cell hype in the news media in the unique political, media and cultural context of Vietnam. The results indicate a pattern of the news media portraying this medical advancement as a source of national pride and achievement to tap into consumers' patriotism. The computational frame analysis method was shown to be efficient, helpful, and useful when researchers are confronted with urgent social, technological or public health matters. Findings from this study suggest that there is a need for national and international efforts to investigate news media content that misrepresents the current stage of stem cell treatment efficacy and risks.

This research investigates how members of the geoscience community in Portugal perceive and engage in science communication, identifying distinct patterns and practitioner profiles. Statistical analysis and a clustering algorithm were used to identify communication patterns based on practitioners' communication goals, target audiences, training, and self-efficacy. The results align with expected patterns but provide new empirical evidence of the relationship between communication goals and audience targeting, offering specific data for the geoscience community.

Extending previous research on how science fiction viewing and science news use predict attitudes toward a range of emerging technologies, this study draws on theories of genre-specific cultivation and narrative transportation to analyze how media consumption predicts attitudes toward two speculative technologies: mind uploading and terraforming. Results from a survey of the U.S. public (N = 1,015) show that science fiction viewing was positively related to support for mind uploading, while science fiction transportation was positively related to support for terraforming, belief that people are likely to develop mind uploading, and belief that people are likely to develop terraforming. Transportation also mediated relationships between science fiction viewing and attitudes. In addition, science news use was positively related to support for each technology and belief that people are likely to develop each technology. These findings highlight the potential role of media factors in predicting attitudes about hypothetical technologies.