Filter by keyword: Visual communication

May 27, 2026 Practice Insight

Developing digital stories in research for science communication: reflections from researchers

by Leanne Townsend , Mikelis Grivins , Christina Noble , Claire Hardy , Livia Ortolani , Gusztáv Nemes , Marta Baena-Sanz , Mags Currie , Mar Delgado

Audiovisual communication methods such as digital storytelling can reach wide audiences to realise greater societal research impact. Increasingly, researchers embrace (or are expected to embrace) these approaches but often lack relevant skills. This paper draws on Horizon Europe-funded research where digital stories were developed in 20 European regions. Findings from a survey completed by the researchers highlight skills- and engagement-based challenges and explore how capacity to develop digital stories was built. The paper focuses on the role of digital storytelling in science communication, and the challenges researchers face in developing these outputs, including in ensuring meaningful participant involvement and the authentic representation of participants' voices within the final narratives. We discuss how to better support researchers to embrace digital storytelling as a science communication method, with recommendations for effective research impact.

Volume 25Issue 32026

Apr 22, 2026 Essay

Essay: Why multimodality matters when science is contested

by Julia Metag , Florian Wintterlin

Multimodality in science communication has increased with the rise of digital communication affordances. Digital platforms enable greater integration of modes — text, visuals, and sound — within single messages. We argue that multimodality is particularly crucial for contested scientific issues, where viral spread, emotional persuasiveness, and personalisation are significant. We review empirical evidence and propose future research directions, thereby contributing to science communication in contested environments by examining the role of multimodality.

Volume 25Issue 32026

Apr 15, 2026 Article

Marketing brain images and shaping ways of seeing: a visual analysis of a neuroscientific website

by Jorge Alexander Daza Cardona , Denielle Elliott

Brain images entice particular ways of looking that frame how brain health, human behavior, personhood, and cognition are understood. This article examines the brain images used to convey neuroscientific knowledge through digital media by examining the website of one of the world's leading tests for screening cognitive impairments. Based on Visual Discourse Analysis, this research found that the studied website prioritizes brain images to depict cognition by displaying MRI scans, drawings, and diverse futuristic and colorful digital representations. These images reinforce the idea that this cognitive test is a predominant instrument for understanding the brain and the cognitive domains. However, they also portray the brain as a simple and transparent entity while obscuring its sociomaterial dimensions. Finally, the article reflects on the rhetorical, epistemological and ontological consequences of intersecting science, marketing, and web design.

Volume 25Issue 32026

Apr 07, 2026 Article

You're the apple of my ambivalence: can the primary motivational aspects of GMO foods lessen GMO avoidance?

by Rachel Bailey , Jay Hmielowski , Myiah Hutchens , Pooja Ichplani , Jessica F Sparks , Sun Young Park

The United States population reports significant hesitance to consume GMOs. This article examines whether visual food cues can change attitudes, induce attitude ambivalence, and alter intentions to avoid purchasing GMOs. In a between-subjects experiment that varied the imagery cue (positive vs. coactive vs. no cue) accompanying GMO information, participants were randomly assigned to view a news-style article about GMO foods. Overall, positive visual food cues decreased potential ambivalence, resulting in lower felt ambivalence and lower likelihood to avoid GMOs. However, skeptics and uncertain individuals were not significantly affected by visual food cues. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Volume 25Issue 32026

Feb 11, 2026 Practice Insight

From the laboratory to the kitchen table? An insight into theory-based game development practices for science communication

by Andreas Siess , Oliver Ruf , Aleksandra Vujadinovic

This practice report aims to outline the idea of science communication as a multidimensional practice that extends beyond the transmission of scientific facts to include the tacit, cultural, and experiential dimensions of science—with a focus on ‘the university’ as an embodiment of the culture of science. Drawing on the idea of ‘kitchen table science communication’, we present a board game designed to foster critical engagement with the implicit norms and structures of academic life among students, their families, and broader publics. Emphasizing science as a complex, adaptive, and culturally situated endeavor, the game serves both as an educational tool and as a medium for participatory meaning-making. Through iterative development and ethnographic testing across diverse academic and informal settings, we explore how playful, narrative-driven formats can open epistemic spaces and promote a more intuitive, affective, and accessible understanding of science. Our findings suggest that games—by embracing abstraction, indeterminacy, and co-creation—offer unique affordances for cultivating science literacy as lived experience rather than codified knowledge.

Volume 25Issue 22026Science communication in Unexpected Places (Unexpected places)

Nov 10, 2025 Article

Pathos as a persuasive resource for online research funding: Exploring emotion-based rhetorical strategies in science crowdfunding videos

by Ana Cristina Vivas-Peraza

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.

Volume 24Issue 062025Emotions and Science Communication (Emotions and Science Communication)

Sep 01, 2025 Practice Insight

Imagining exoplanets as destinations: a case study of artist-scientist collaborations on NASA's iconic Exoplanet Travel Bureau posters

by Ceridwen Dovey

This is the age of exoplanets. Thousands of planets around other suns have been discovered, upending settled science. Unlike spectacular imagery of other phenomena (e.g., nebulae), exoplanets are difficult to `directly' image, and exoplanet scientific imagery is visually limited. This practice insight is a qualitative case study of how artists and scientists at NASA's Exoplanet Travel Bureau co-imagined exoplanets as destinations of the future, with the artists playing an essential role of clarifying and extending scientific thinking. Using textual/visual analysis of how the Bureau's iconic series of exoplanet posters (launched in 2015) invited the public to visit exoplanet landscapes, this practice insight reflects on a recent historical instance of how exoplanets were visually communicated to the public in innovative ways, using overlapping scientific and artistic practices.

Volume 24Issue 042025

Aug 25, 2025 Article

The evidence citation patterns of video creators and their relationships with other science communicators

by Pablo Dorta-González

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.

Volume 24Issue 042025

Apr 14, 2025 Article

More than humanoid robots and cyborgs? How German print media visualize articles on artificial intelligence

by Melanie Leidecker-Sandmann , Tabea Lüders , Carolin Moser , Vincent Robert Boger , Markus Lehmkuhl

Engaging with the ongoing debate regarding the portrayal of artificial intelligence (AI) in the public sphere – particularly the alleged predominance of sci-fi imagery and humanoid robots – our study examines how six German print media visualize articles related to AI. A mixed-methods approach combines qualitative and quantitative visual content analysis, analyzing 818 images from articles published in 2019 and 2022/23. Our findings indicate that human figures, rather than robots, serve as dominant visual objects, and no pronounced gaps between textual and visual representations of AI were observed. Overall, German print media appear to present a differentiated perspective on AI, balancing opportunities and risks associated with this technology.

Volume 24Issue 022025Science Communication in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (Science Communication & AI)

Dec 02, 2024 Practice Insight

Potentialities of science comics for science communication: lessons from the classroom

by Cláudia Faria , Bianor Valente , Joana Torres

The aim of this pilot study was to understand how the use of science comics, centred on complex scientific knowledge, can promote students' engagement with science, in order to discuss its potentialities as a tool to communicate science for the general public. The qualitative study involved 175 students and 7 teachers. The results revealed that the use of comics significantly increases students' motivation and commitment to the learning tasks. All participants highlighted that the narrative nature of comics, with a mixture of text and images, offering a story to follow, contributed to their engagement with the scientific topic, regardless of their complexity.

Volume 23Issue 082024

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