Literature Review
Spurred on by both instrumental desires to reach and inform public audiences or communal desire to make social impact and a better world (van der Sanden & Osseweijer, 2011), science communication, in a broad and simplest definition, is communication that revolves around the goals of telling the story of science in a compelling way to any range of nonexperts, to include expert scientists in different fields (Medvecky & Leach, 2019). Science communication is often used for purposes like education, archiving, or promotion (Debove et al., 2021), reaching those that are appreciative of the message as well as those that may be uninterested and even skeptical of the information being relayed and the stories being told (Longnecker, 2023).
Over the past few decades, science communication—like many other forms of communication—also had to establish its position in a digitally mediated world. On social media platforms, science communication in a multimodal form (like on YouTube) has been conceptualized as a space for both media professionals and non-professionals to create factual, science narratives to reach diverse and distributed audiences (Birch, 2011; Welbourne & Grant, 2015). Academics and research institutions have taken advantage of these digital affordances brought about by social media platforms, like ease of access and visibility (Medvecky & Leach, 2019; van der Sanden & Osseweijer, 2011) and are often trying to think of the best ways to deliver their work, whether it be those outside of one's department or a larger public.
While translating complicated topics for nonexperts can be seen as a worthwhile endeavor, simply putting content on YouTube does not guarantee an audience. However, often a channel or video's "success" is counted through its popularity, be it in the form of an audience, number of video views, or subscribers (Welbourne & Grant, 2015). Popularity is in some ways defined by YouTube itself, as when Dustin J. Welbourne and Will J. Grant (2015) noted, "the popularity of YouTube content is not determined by the quantity of videos a channel uploads but by the views and engagement" (p. 709).
Previous work on YouTube science communication videos has considered which videos are the most popular and offer best practices and how-to solutions to make science communication videos better. For instance, Stéphane Debove et al. (2021) looked at the most successful science communication creators in France; Jesús Muñoz Morcillo et al. (2016) created typologies of popular web videos; and Welbourne and Grant (2015) and Raphaela Martins Velho et al. (2020) looked at factors that affect the channel and popularity. However, most of these studies took a highly practical focus which discussed the technicalities or infrastructures of these videos over the effect or reception of the content they contain by an audience.
Further, these how-to recommendations fit typical instrumental uses of science communication which "sets out to 'communicate something,'" and with that aim "comes a clear understanding of what it means to communicate successfully" (Nordmann, 2011, p. 106). While there are what Youmna Borghol et al. (2012) termed "content-agnostic factors" like algorithms or existing social network connections that can affect the popularity of a video, other content-driven factors like message, style, duration, and delivery are also frequent targets of how-to recommendations (Welbourne & Grant, 2015). For instance, Welbourne and Grant (2015) pointed out best practices for time, noting that the most popular videos on YouTube are less than 5 minutes. Further, simplicity of story is often a recommendation (Medvecky & Leach, 2019), and visuals are often key to relating scientific data (Kjærgaard, 2011) and creating engaging science communication videos on YouTube (Boy et al., 2020).
Welbourne and Grant (2015) also drew attention to the value of a channel's consistency and that a regular communicative personality helps maintain engagement and a brand; they noted more popular videos tend to have a recognizable face. This consistency implicitly suggests that videos are not one-offs, and that one video is just one element in a larger sample. But, although helpful, these recommendations for best practices on YouTube are often couched in the aim of getting more viewers. And while we often use these how-to recommendations for thinking about how to get more eyes on our work, we found that for Kurzgesagt's work these practices were often already implemented. So, we could see how previous studies could be practically applied and successful (e.g., viewership of Kurzgesagt's videos is consistently high), yet what is missed in the current scope of studies is understanding what kind of effects, potentially even long-term effects, these produced videos might have on the audiences they are tailored to.
As such, instead of taking a focus on metrics or formulas, we explore what kind of impact these science communication videos might have on their viewers. Doing so invites us to reflect on the potential long-term impact, or, at the very least, offers a first more sentimental response to science communication topics. We can think broader than views and quantifiable metrics of a video and towards the long-term impact of science communication, or what we call the long tail. The long tail, as a concept coined and popularized in marketing studies by Chris Anderson (2004), illustrates a process that pays attention to niche markets and emphasizes the longevity of a product over its immediate success factor. There are rigorous quantitative and qualitative methods through which academics can look at the long term "success" of a video, such as asking viewers for their feedback in a variety of ways, ranging from questionnaires, to focus groups, to interviews (Grant, 2011); asking more holistic and longitudinal questions of science communication (Cavanah et al., 2023; Tydén, 1996); or investigating the effects of digital, social media content in complex ways more broadly (Deng, 2024). Yet we argue that in the particular case of this Kurzgesagt video, given its unique topic and self-reflection, viewer comments are able to demonstrate the long-term impact of this channel, or its long tail. While not representative of all Kurzgesagt videos, the glimpse this video gives of the audience connection to the channel shows more clearly forms of science communication impact through a long tail relationship. To show this, we will walk through our video to show not only how the video reflects this best practice approach, but also how affect is also a factor in measuring success. As opposed to a focus solely on metrics, we can do our assessments and understandings of science communication in video contexts differently.
Our Video
This research focuses on one particular video to show a bit more in depth science communication as a practice of audience engagement. As noted, part of the motivation was its connection to the authors' larger project on building trust in science communication. Although the same project also released a massive open online course on the topic (refer to Pridmore & Tulin, 2021), consisting of videos with an educational focus, the reach and accessibility of the Kurzgesagt video was critical to understand the impact of this type of science communication on audiences. Kurzgesagt and their English YouTube channel has been able to build up a large subscription of viewers, suggesting a certain level of involvement. Building on the affordances of YouTube, and as a professional company, the videos on this channel maintain high quality visuals and production standards. In this video, Kurzgesagt detailed openly how they simplify complex subjects into easily understandable videos to fit time constraints and audience expectations. Kurzgesagt called these simplified explanations of complex scientific concepts "lies to children," acknowledging that simplification can be problematic as it can lead to misleading definiteness or a false sense of security.
To address this, they argued that they strive to be transparent about their sources and simplifications and aim to inspire curiosity and further learning. In the video, they also discussed the challenges of science communication, such as dealing with disagreeing experts, nuances to scientific results, and complex systems with no easy solutions. Ultimately, though, the video described that their goal is to distill scientific information in easily consumable ways to spark curiosity and inspire people to learn more about the universe, while being responsible and protecting the integrity of their videos. The team explicitly noted the connection between the video and the authors' TRESCA project when they stated,
We are still trying to improve and want to be transparent about what we are trying to do. For example, we are taking part in the TRESCA project about science communication to learn more. (Kurzgesagt — In a Nutshell, 2021, 7:24)
This description itself simplifies a video and a narrative storyline that deserves a more in-depth experience: