Public- and expert-facing communication

Abstract

This chapter describes a qualitative case study of digitally-mediated production and communication of research in the biological sciences. The study focuses on the citizen science “Heartbeats Project,” conceived by a U.S.-based evolutionary biology lab to explore the data behind the well-known rule that, on average, mammals’ hearts beat one billion times per lifetime. Our analysis describes three ways that polycontextuality and context collapse figured in the team’s production of digital, spoken, and print-based genres arising from their work. These dynamics complicate traditional understandings of the relationships between scientific and public genres, as well as existing conceptions of composition, genre, authors, and audiences in the production and circulation of scientific findings and the (re)production of science.

Digital Frontiers and Traditional Boundaries: The Transformation of Genre Studies from 1995 to 2023

“…The concept of genre should be adaptable to accommodate new genre forms and non-text types as they emerge over time. According to Reid and Anson (2019), they argue that a more intricate genre model is necessary due to the emergence of a a willingness multidirectionality of impact. They suggest that single actions of producing should be viewed as performing in multiple genre ecosystems and accomplishing several roles simultaneously (as cited in Belcher, 2023).…”

Multimodal stance and engagement in digital video methods articles

“…Digital media also allow for easy distribution of "content" through the Internet, enabling interaction with diversified audiences including both specialists and non-specialists, as in academic blogs (Luzón, 2013) and social media posts (Luzón & Albero-Posac, 2020;Luzón, 2023;Tardy, 2023). These affordances facilitate collaborative relationships between specialists and nonspecialists (Mcgrath, 2016) and also make it possible for scholars to engage with the general public in activities like citizen science (reid & Anson, 2019) and popularization (Xia, 2023a). Thus, literacy practices in digital media are multimodal and polycontextual, frequently demanding attention to multiple audiences simultaneously and blending written and spoken styles in a way that necessitates the adoption of hybrid genres.…”

“Can I write this is ableist AF in a peer review?”: A corpus-driven analysis of Twitter engagement strategies across disciplinary groups

“…In fact, a tweet may even "go viral," in which case it spreads so rapidly between networks that it can quickly attract a lot of attention across the internet. The resulting blurring of traditional boundaries between contexts and audiences, also known as "context collapse" (Marwick & Boyd, 2011), takes place across digital media, but it is especially noticeable in the case of Twitter, where any given message can find its way to diverse audiences, transcend networks, and accomplish multiple purposes simultaneously (reid & Anson, 2019). This makes it difficult to distinguish between "expert-facing" tweets, whose content is addressed to academic audiences (e.g., fellow experts or scientific groups/organizations) and "public-facing" tweets, which are directed at journalists, decision-makers, government agencies, or any interested members of the public.…”