Producing and communicating scientific topics for new media: How interactive vs. linear science and technology communication videos affect the attentiveness of audiences

Science is a truly important part of human life. Scientific and technological concepts should be familiar to the public rather than abstract or seemingly irrelevant. To adequately communicate scientific information, the mass media need to provide appropriate information and channels so the community can acquire new information, and thus bring the generation of new innovations. In addition, new media have become quite essential and convenient for a new generation. The purpose of this study is to investigate methods of communicating scientific topics via new media to reduce costs and offer convenient channels for the audience, and compare the communication effects of interactive vs. linear popular science videos. In this application paper, the researchers produced two popular science videos, one interactive and one with a linear narrative regarding invasive species and environmental protection; the purpose was to investigate which narrative style was more effective in educating the audience regarding this issue. The researchers produced the popular science videos and launched an experiment with 50 persons. Both videos' stories are identical and both use animation. Based on the literature review and our experiment, this study found interactive videos to be more effective in drawing the audience's attention, piquing their interest and enhancing their understanding. For online interactive popular science videos, if the producer can find an adequate hyper-narrative type to arrange some “nodes” to allow viewers to answer questions or decide how the story will continue, more interest and engagement can occur. Those who watched an interactive version of a popular science video can obtain an average scientific knowledge score of 12.32 which is considerably higher than those viewers watching the linear version.