Hello and thank you for sharing your work. Engaging multicultural audiences in science content is a laudable goal. Using YouTube as a vehicle is an excellent choice as most young people consume social media content almost exclusively.

I am curious about whether your survey results about how people consume science content online are disaggregated (by age, ethnicity, etc.) to give you more information about your target audience. How are you promoting Terra to diverse audiences (via schools, districts, etc.) and how might that enable you to collect additional data? Finally, have you thought about linking your videos to other popular social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok?

I am intrigued by the use of a clever experimental design in the media domain.  In the experimental manipulation of new content or the selection of existing, representative examples, have you considered different forms of persuasion?  Perhaps covering the “gentler” part of the spectrum - modeling, reciprocity and social learning vs persuasive logic  or rhetoric (as opposed to manipulation for example).  Much of persuasive media (in general but also on this platform, including your own submission), take the more direct route/form - “let me tell you what this project is about”, rather than “show you what it is and let you draw your own conclusions”.  That style, unavoidably leads to a sales-pitch-like feel.  There is evidence that viewers respond with an inherent reservation or rejection of the main message. Your partnership with PBS and their productions expertise and storytelling acumen would cover that spectrum well and could lead to interesting insights.  

Hi Sara! Great to see a project that combines your Sci Comm expertise with PBS's deep experience in multimedia ISE creations - and right at the heart of CAISE's goals of bringing together those two communities.

Could you say a bit more about what you mean by "tactics"? 

Another question I have is about the framing of understanding "why they seek science video content online" - is it essential to your project to have the videos branded as science per se? I just wonder if there might be ways to reach audiences who don't usually think of themselves as science-interested, maybe by framing some of them in other ways and posting them in other channels. Thanks!

Hafa Adai from Guam!  

This is so wonderful to see!  I love to see how PBS is making such huge strides to bring the content to people where they are watching.  

Does you partnership with PBS occur on the local market level or is it with the national level?

I love the work and the idea. We have a somehow similar concept in our wavemakers series featured in my video.

Thanks for sharing!

Reaching underrepresented populations is so important! We do the same at the Journal of Emerging Investigators through our mentorship and manuscript publication process for middle and high school students. It's so impressive that you have PBS supporting your initiative which has such a broad reach in the classroom.

Thanks for this innovative and important work. We all know the impact of all forms of media, science communications and images on the development of science identity and STEM career intent, especially for students who have been historically disenfranchised from scientific pursuits. At AAAS we are in our 3^rd year of our IF-THEN Ambassadors Initiative where women in science create media products to inspire girls in STEM. We would love to connect with you on potential collaboration with our HBCU Making & Innovation Initiative . We support advancing innovation capacity at HBCUs by supporting HBCU student teams in creating an innovation or prototype in response to one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We have partnered with Shark Tank to help students develop their pitches but would love to collaborate with other organizations on assisting students with developing media content to disseminate their innovations to broader audiences and to expand awareness of the great work going at HBCUs.  If you would like to discuss further, I can be reached at iwagstaff@aaas.org. I really appreciate your project and the work you are doing. I look forward to learning more about the impact this great project will have. Great job!

Thank you for sharing this evidence informed project in a video presentation that is engaging and clear about your goals, strategy, audience(s), as well as where you are in the process and what is to come. I had the same question as Sue did above, about your use of the term tactics, so thank you for addressing that one, Sara. I was also thinking about John Besley's work in this area (e.g. his 2021 paper that assessed scientists’ willingness to use 11 different communication tactics and the relationship between these tactics and potential predictors of outcomes). Glad to see that you have also found the KQED/Texas Tech "Cracking the Code" work useful as you design this research. In terms of the audiences you hope to engage I might also recommend looking at the recently released report from Science Counts that assessed how Americans want to engage with science, which found some nuanced differences between demographic groups. All best with this project and looking forward to seeing the Terra videos that result!