Methods

To get a sense of viewer responses, for our study, we selected and analyzed the top 50 original comments on our Kurzgesagt video (the 50 most liked according to YouTube's algorithm in 2024), a little over 2 years after the publication of the video. María E. Len-Ríos et al. (2014) argued that examining online comments is "uniquely suitable for exploring how readers, through their cultural lenses, perceive the relationship among science, the individual, and society" (p. 779). While selecting only top comments is a limitation, they are also a suitable sample as it directly resembles the user experience of what audiences would encounter upon seeing the YouTube video directly (Rogers, 2019). This purposive sampling helps to better understand how users would interact (or not) with the channel and other commenters. For this study, we focus only on the initial comments that were part of how they became a top-50 comment and not any replies to these comments.

To conduct our study, we used thematic analysis to code and assess the comments. According to Virginia Braun and Victoria Clark (2006; 2021), after data selection, the process of thematic analysis involves six steps: data familiarization, code generation, searching for themes, reviewing themes, defining themes, and writing up a description of themes. A researcher can look at both the semantic level which involves the surface meaning of what was said but also look at the latent level to interpret more implied meanings, assumptions, and ideologies (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Maguire & Delahunt, 2017).

In our study, we familiarized ourselves with the data by reading and re-reading the comments to look inductively for patterns that might help answer our central research questions: How did the audience react to this video, and how might this engagement be important for science communication? Using these questions as a guide, we first open coded our data, refining the codes as we went along, and we found three significant categories that addressed how the comments engaged with the video.

In response to the question, how did the audience react to this video?, we found that the comments did three things:

  • Focused on Content: The comments focused on one or more themes from the video, including comments about simplification, production process, and the channel itself.
  • Showed Appreciation: The comments supported Kurzgesagt with varying levels of appreciation from neutural to praise and thanks.
  • Reflected Affect: The comments reflected an emotional response in reaction to the video and/or the channel with some reactions indicating a long-term impact.

Thus, we labeled the first category "content-focused," identifying and sub-coding three frequent themes that occurred in these messages, which—as the name suggests—demonstrated some connection to the actual content of the video, channel or the process of making this video. We labeled the second category "appreciation," which illustrate a sense of appreciation or gratitude towards the video, Kurzgesagt team, or channel. All the comments we reviewed in this category could fit into one of three sub-codes: praise, thanks, or an extension of the conversation without praise or thanks. Finally, we labeled the third category "affect," and this code described those comments that showed praiseful or thankful messages, a selection of videos went even further and expressed an emotional influence from Kurzgesagt to the viewers' personal lives or career development for example.

Overall, the coding of comments are not mutually exclusive to only one category. For instance, some sub-codes could overlap, such as in the first content category; often, one comment contained multiple themes like simplification or respect for the channel. The other codes could also overlap; every comment reflected somehow on content, and each comment could be categorized in their level of appreciation, and some of the same comments included discourses of affect. For our analysis and findings we separate the different emphases to draw attention to their significance and describe the findings in the results section.

We felt the answer to our second question, how might this engagement be important for science communication?, involves looking at the connection between these three elements and is ultimately extrapolated in our discussion section.