Mavis Tsai

Producing and Communicating an Interactive Popular Science Video for New Media: Using as an Example the Theme of Marine Microplastics Spelling Big Problems for Future Generations

Science is an important part of human life. It is the application process and the construction of knowledge regarding a phenomenon of nature. Scientific development and technology management are the basis for national development, social progress, and an important indicator of overall competitiveness of a country. Therefore it relies on education to improve peoples scientific literacy. Using media to convey scientific knowledge to the community is one of the best approaches, using diverse channels and platforms to pass on scientific information and knowledge, and thus enhance the publics scientific literacy and help with new technology or innovation diffusion. To communicate scientific information adequately, the mass media need to provide suitable information and channels so the community can acquire new information, and thus innovations can be generated. In addition, new media have become quite important and convenient for a new generation. The purpose of this study is to illustrate ways to plan and produce an interactive short film regarding environmental science or technology issues for new media so as to increase audience learning retention and involvement with regards to scientific topics and to do so at a lower cost and higher efficiency. The researcher picked as an example the issue of ways micro plastics spell big problems for future generations. In this application paper, it indicated methods of achieving collaboration among a group of scientists, journalists and video shooting teams, ways for them to plan and produce an interactive popular science video step-by-step, and means for applying science communication strategies, such as game/toy-based learning, fear appeal, and rationalized appeal strategies for interactive popular science videos production. In this paper, the researcher finished the interactive short film script following these communication strategies and hyper narrative types, demonstrate an example for how to plan the producing and communicating of an interactive popular science video for new media. This study selected scientists who knowledgeable in the issues surrounding microplastics to participate in this research and popular science video-producing process so as to help discover adequate video and animation design strategies for producing lower cost videos which promote scientific knowledge and deal with technological issues regarding microplastics.