IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/palcom/v11y2024i1d10.1057_s41599-023-02247-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Affect in science communication: a data-driven analysis of TED Talks on YouTube

Author

Listed:
  • Olivia Fischer

    (University of Zurich)

  • Loris T. Jeitziner

    (University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland
    University of Basel)

  • Dirk U. Wulff

    (University of Basel
    Max Planck Institute for Human Development)

Abstract

Science communication is evolving: Increasingly, it is directed at the public rather than academic peers. Understanding the circumstances under which the public engages with scientific content is therefore crucial to improving science communication. In this article, we investigate the role of affect on audience engagement with a modern form of science communication: TED Talks on the social media platform YouTube. We examined how two aspects of affect, valence and density are associated with public engagement with the talk in terms of popularity (reflecting views and likes) and polarity (reflecting dislikes and comments). We found that the valence of TED Talks was associated with both popularity and polarity: Positive valence was linked to higher talk popularity and lower talk polarity. Density, on the other hand, was only associated with popularity: Higher affective density was linked to higher popularity—even more so than valence—but not polarity. Moreover, the association between affect and engagement was moderated by talk topic, but not by whether the talk included scientific content. Our results establish affect as an important covariate of audience engagement with scientific content on social media, which science communicators may be able to leverage to steer engagement and increase reach.

Suggested Citation

  • Olivia Fischer & Loris T. Jeitziner & Dirk U. Wulff, 2024. "Affect in science communication: a data-driven analysis of TED Talks on YouTube," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-9, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:11:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-023-02247-z
    DOI: 10.1057/s41599-023-02247-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-023-02247-z
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41599-023-02247-z?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cassidy R. Sugimoto & Mike Thelwall, 2013. "Scholars on soap boxes: Science communication and dissemination in TED videos," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(4), pages 663-674, April.
    2. Andrea Fronzetti Colladon & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Peter A. Gloor, 2020. "Predicting the future success of scientific publications through social network and semantic analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(1), pages 357-377, July.
    3. Jonas M. B. Haslbeck & Dirk U. Wulff, 2020. "Estimating the number of clusters via a corrected clustering instability," Computational Statistics, Springer, vol. 35(4), pages 1879-1894, December.
    4. Melanie Schreiner & Thomas Fischer & Rene Riedl, 2021. "Impact of content characteristics and emotion on behavioral engagement in social media: literature review and research agenda," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 329-345, June.
    5. Scott Emmons & Stephen Kobourov & Mike Gallant & Katy Börner, 2016. "Analysis of Network Clustering Algorithms and Cluster Quality Metrics at Scale," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(7), pages 1-18, July.
    6. Fedric Kujur & Saumya Singh, 2018. "Emotions as predictor for consumer engagement in YouTube advertisement," Journal of Advances in Management Research, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 15(2), pages 184-197, March.
    7. Cassidy R. Sugimoto & Mike Thelwall, 2013. "Scholars on soap boxes: Science communication and dissemination in TED videos," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(4), pages 663-674, April.
    8. Kate MacKrill & Connor Silvester & James W. Pennebaker & Keith J. Petrie, 2021. "What makes an idea worth spreading? Language markers of popularity in TED talks by academics and other speakers," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 72(8), pages 1028-1038, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Qianjin Zong & Yafen Xie & Rongchan Tuo & Jingshi Huang & Yang Yang, 2019. "The impact of video abstract on citation counts: evidence from a retrospective cohort study of New Journal of Physics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(3), pages 1715-1727, June.
    2. Hamid R. Jamali & Majid Nabavi & Saeid Asadi, 2018. "How video articles are cited, the case of JoVE: Journal of Visualized Experiments," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(3), pages 1821-1839, December.
    3. Hou, Jianhua & Wang, Yuanyuan & Zhang, Yang & Wang, Dongyi, 2022. "How do scholars and non-scholars participate in dataset dissemination on Twitter," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1).
    4. Ho Fai Chan & Bruno S. Frey & Jana Gallus & Markus Schaffner & Benno Torgler & Stephen Whyte, 2014. "Do the best scholars attract the highest speaking fees? An exploration of internal and external influence," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(1), pages 793-817, October.
    5. Moradi, Masoud & Dass, Mayukh & Kumar, Piyush, 2023. "Differential effects of analytical versus emotional rhetorical style on review helpfulness," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    6. Zhai, Li & Yan, Xiangbin, 2022. "A directed collaboration network for exploring the order of scientific collaboration," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4).
    7. Anqi Ma & Yu Liu & Xiujuan Xu & Tao Dong, 2021. "A deep-learning based citation count prediction model with paper metadata semantic features," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(8), pages 6803-6823, August.
    8. Haochuan Cui & Tiewei Li & Cheng-Jun Wang, 2023. "Climbing up the ladder of abstraction: how to span the boundaries of knowledge space in the online knowledge market?," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-12, December.
    9. Don Watson & Manfred Krug & Claus-Christian Carbon, 2022. "The relationship between citations and the linguistic traits of specific academic discourse communities identified by using social network analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(4), pages 1755-1781, April.
    10. Laura Freeman & Abdul Rahman & Feras A. Batarseh, 2021. "Enabling Artificial Intelligence Adoption through Assurance," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-15, August.
    11. Wanjun Xia & Tianrui Li & Chongshou Li, 2023. "A review of scientific impact prediction: tasks, features and methods," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(1), pages 543-585, January.
    12. Kevin W. Boyack, 2017. "Investigating the effect of global data on topic detection," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(2), pages 999-1015, May.
    13. Andrej Srakar, 2017. "Prevalence of Diseases and Health Care Utilization ofthe Self-Employed Artists and TheirEmpirical Determinants: Evidence From a Slovenian Survey," ACEI Working Paper Series AWP-08-2017, Association for Cultural Economics International, revised Sep 2017.
    14. Zhou, Ying & Huang, Wenmin, 2023. "The influence of network anchor traits on shopping intentions in a live streaming marketing context: The mediating role of value perception and the moderating role of consumer involvement," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 332-342.
    15. Sitaram Devarakonda & Dmitriy Korobskiy & Tandy Warnow & George Chacko, 2020. "Viewing computer science through citation analysis: Salton and Bergmark Redux," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(1), pages 271-287, October.
    16. Katchanov, Yurij L. & Markova, Yulia V. & Shmatko, Natalia A., 2023. "Uncited papers in the structure of scientific communication," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2).
    17. Fabio Bento & Marco Tagliabue & Flora Lorenzo, 2020. "Organizational Silos: A Scoping Review Informed by a Behavioral Perspective on Systems and Networks," Societies, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-27, July.
    18. Bazi, Saleh & Filieri, Raffaele & Gorton, Matthew, 2023. "Social media content aesthetic quality and customer engagement: The mediating role of entertainment and impacts on brand love and loyalty," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    19. Katy Börner & Adam H. Simpson & Andreas Bueckle & Robert L. Goldstone, 2018. "Science map metaphors: a comparison of network versus hexmap-based visualizations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(2), pages 409-426, February.
    20. Marlen Komorowski & Ruxandra Lupu & Sara Pepper & Justin Lewis, 2021. "Joining the Dots—Understanding the Value Generation of Creative Networks for Sustainability in Local Creative Ecosystems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-16, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:11:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-023-02247-z. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.nature.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.