Our project partners from the University of Bordeaux and the University of Clermont Auvergne presented their research outcomes at the 21st annual conference of the European Association of Languages for Specific Purposes (AELFE2023) and the 7th Conference of the Asia-Pacific LSP & Professional Communication Association (LSPPC7).
Abstract:
Open Science principles have highlighted the need for researchers to make their results more accessible and transparent for their peers and scientific community, and research genres are thus evolving. With technological and social change scientists are also encouraged to disseminate their results and engage wider lay audiences in science on new media (Perez-Llantada 2021). Scientists’ communication practices are thus being transformed as they adapt and recontextualise their research and navigate between hybrid digitalized genres and the blurred boundaries of popularized and specialized genres (Luzón 2013).
The Campus Iberus digital science action group has carried out a first study to investigate how Spanish scientists communicate their work in digital media (Perez-Llantada et al, 2022). As international partners of this group, members of the French working group Literacies in Academic, Scientific and Professional settings have replicated the online survey across several Higher Education Institutions in France, in order to provide an international comparison.
Here we report on the results of the survey concerning both STEMM and human and social science researchers to focus on potential disciplinary differences while the inclusion of both PhD students and fully-fledged researchers should reveal the different approaches of novice and expert researchers (Lave & Wenger 1991). The aim is to identify the types of online science communication used by researchers in our context, especially those targeting wider, non-specialist audiences. This should bring to the fore the pertinence of emerging forms of science communication online such as video abstracts, podcasts, blogs, social media and Citizen Science initiatives. The survey results should also allow us to analyse the needs of these scientists in terms of developing the necessary language, communication and digital skills to communicate effectively in this context. We will therefore discuss existing support for scientists in the French context and make recommendations for future professional development programmes.