Academician science popularization "brush screen", short video version of "100,000 whys" "circle powder", physics "Wu Grandma" became popular... In the past year, the number of popular science short videos has grown rapidly.
Popular science anchors, so that advanced scientific knowledge is within reach
Guangming Daily reporter Cui Xingyi
"Physics is too difficult", probably the feeling of many people when they were students. Recently, however, the Chinese Academy of Sciences' 2022 New Year's Scientific Lecture has caught fire on the short video platform. Gauge field theory, quantum mechanics, electromagnetism, and the difficult-sounding physical terms have been transformed into easy-to-understand language, attracting 2.6 million netizens to watch. Cao Zexian, one of the keynote speakers and a researcher at the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said: "It is very meaningful to start the new year with scientific speeches with super knowledge content. Previously, the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences shared a video clip from Cao Zexian's open class on the short video platform. One of the passages that explained electromagnetics in combination with long-distance love was praised by more than 2.5 million, and many netizens lamented: "Physics has become interesting." ”
For some time, major short video platforms have set off a popular science fever, and many professors and experts have incarnated as popular science anchors to use short videos as media to stimulate the enthusiasm of netizens to explore science. On November 25, 2021, tsinghua university and Douyin released the "Knowledge Inclusion Report 2.0 - Research Report on the Dissemination of Short Videos and Knowledge" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"), which shows that popular science short videos are rapidly rising. Up to now, the cumulative number of knowledge videos on the Douyin platform alone has exceeded 6.6 trillion, the number of likes has exceeded 146.2 billion, the number of comments has exceeded 10 billion, and the number of shares has exceeded 8.3 billion.
"From entertainment to knowledge, this active upgrade of the content industry is helping the network society form a 'knowledge trend' of finding knowledge, learning knowledge, and respecting knowledge." Chen Gang, head of the Department of Film and Television Media at the School of Arts and Media of Beijing Normal University, said.
On December 9, 2021, students of Zhongguancun No. 2 Primary School in Beijing watched the space science lessons brought by "space teachers" Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu to the vast number of teenagers on the China Space Station. Bright pictures
On December 12, 2021, children experienced in the core module model of the China Space Station at the Community Space Exploration Center in chaoyin community in Wuhou District, Chengdu. Xinhua News Agency
In Beijing Haidian Hospital, Ma Yuan, an orthopedic resident, is recording a short video of medical knowledge. Xinhua News Agency
1, the mission of science popularization is to "lead people into the door"
Short gray hair, often wearing a vest, novel experiments, concise and neat speech, this is the first impression of netizens on Wu Yuren, a retired professor at Tongji University. On short video platforms such as Douyin, millions of fans affectionately call her "Grandma Wu" and fall in love with experimenting with her.
A while ago, the Shenzhou XIII manned spacecraft was successfully launched. Many children also began to wonder: how did the rocket fly into the sky? In order to answer this question, Wu Yuren specially filmed a video, through blowing balloons, let everyone understand that the speed of rocket flying comes from the reaction force of rocket combustion; and then use liquid nitrogen spray experiments, so that children can intuitively feel how much fuel is needed to break through the first cosmic speed.
Wu Yuren has been adhering to the cause of science popularization for 16 years. "Physics is very interesting, but many students are scared." She said she just wanted to tell her children how to learn physics.
"The mission of popular science is to let people let go of the resistance to advanced disciplines, 'lead people into the door', and bridge the cognitive gap between science and the public." Chen Gang said.
Zhang Chenliang, real name of "@ Infinite Small Bright Science Popularization Daily", is the deputy editor-in-chief of The Museum magazine and the director of the China National Geographic Fusion Media Center. On November 14, 2019, he posted his first video on Douyin, opening the road of short video science popularization. Since then, he has successively opened columns such as "Distant Naturalism", "Flowers and Insects and Fish Around", "Bright Memories Catching the Sea", "Network Heat Transmission Biological Identification" and so on. The "Network Heat Transfer Biometrics" video series has now been viewed 1.28 billion times. His short popular science videos cite scriptures, and will also consult professionals such as ant experts and otter researchers.
In addition to the profession, calm and direct, clear personality is the characteristic of Zhang Chenliang's popular science. Because his face is slightly square, his eyes are slightly small, and his brows are slightly wrinkled, he constantly debunks rumors about water monkeys, and netizens jokingly call him "Tibetan Fox Jun" and "president of the Water Monkey Rumors Debunking Association".
When sharing creative experience, Zhang Chenliang said that the video platform is a place that can produce inspiration, "Some background music or a certain meme and mantra can make me shoot a case." Absorbing the ideas in it is extremely useful for popular science. Only in this way can the videos created by knowing oneself and knowing the other have the potential to be liked by the public."
In the popular science video of the Douyin platform, the highest like from "@Doctor Cao of Critical Care Medicine" "Sudden death news continues to appear, it takes only six minutes to face cardiac arrest, teach you real life-saving techniques". In the video, Dr. Cao used 6 minutes to decompose and demonstrate the steps of cardiac resuscitation in the family scene, receiving 2.73 million likes and 230,000 retweets, and many people commented: "I have watched it many times, I hope I can't use it, but I must learn it." ”
The "Report" shows that in the Comment Area of the Douyin Knowledge Video, there were a total of 1.36 million "learned" sighs and 2.54 million "understood" joys. Chen Changfeng, executive vice dean of the School of Journalism and Communication of Tsinghua University, believes that these figures are the satisfaction of users who can stay at home and learn different types of knowledge at a very low time, space and economic cost, and are the manifestations of the rise of the knowledge attributes of short video platforms and the decline of entertainment attributes.
2, science popularization is difficult in the "general", listening to and want to listen is the skill
In June last year, the State Council issued the "Outline of the Action Plan for the Scientific Quality of the Whole People (2021-2035)", proposing to deepen supply-side reform, promote innovation and improvement of science popularization content, forms and means, improve the knowledge content of science popularization, and meet the needs of the whole society for high-quality science popularization.
Let the advanced science enter the homes of ordinary people, what are the "secret weapons" of these popular science celebrities?
One of the words Wu Yuren likes to say is "fun". Chaotic pendulum perpetual motion machine, Stirling thermal machine small model, Newtonian pendulum, pointer tester, Fresnel lens... In addition to these small devices and small models dedicated to physical experiments, the "toys" in Wu Yuren's "treasure chest" are simply varied - in her hands, eggs, drying racks, coins... Daily necessities may be transformed into experimental equipment.
The reporter learned about cosmic rays when looking at Wu Yuren's popular science video, only to see that Wu Grandma in the video raised a bamboo broom in her right hand, and her left hand was drawn from the handle of the broom to the end of the whisker, which made people understand at once: The trajectory of cosmic rays in space is like a broom, from energy concentration to gradual weakening and dispersion.
"The construction and development of the country are inseparable from the improvement of the quality of the whole people, and more in-depth study and beneficial science popularization are needed", this is Wu Yuren's original intention to do science popularization.
Wu Yuren told reporters that when teaching the "University Physics" course at Tongji University, she found that many students still have obvious fear of physics, even physics students, may only be good at doing physics problems, but do not really love physics, lack curiosity and exploration, and can not see the light in their eyes.
"Fear is because you don't know enough; you don't understand because you lack curiosity." Wu Yuren said that the current popular brush-up education is obviously not feasible and counterproductive.
Unlike face-to-face lectures with students in the classroom, in the video, Wu Yuren needs to "translate" complex physical principles in plain language in a limited time and in easy-to-understand language to accurately convey them to the public. "The most difficult thing is the creative planning script in the early stage, and this part of the work relies on the inspiration and wisdom of 'Wu Grandma' many times." Team members said that it is fortunate that "Grandma Wu" has many ideas and "brain holes", and is not afraid of pain and tiredness, and often rotates with young people.
In fact, the difficulty of popular science is not in the "section", but in the "general".
Wang Pin, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is a marine geologist, and three years ago, Wang Pin, who was over eighty years old, first completed the task of diving in the South China Sea three times in 9 days. Not long ago, Wang Pinxian became popular on major platforms with the video of popular marine knowledge. "Making a video can allow millions of netizens to learn about the ocean." The large barrage, like rain, looks spectacular and exciting. ”
"A lot of scientists aren't 'popularizers.'" In Wang Pinxian's view, one is because of the past division of arts and sciences, so that some scientists lack literary literacy, popular science works are not attractive; in addition, science originated in Europe, Chinese many scientific works are translated from foreign languages many times, which also leads to popular science works "copied around", lack of originality, but also sacrificed accuracy.
"The more big scientists' lessons are, the better they understand, and the more small scientists' classes are, the more difficult they are to understand." The little scientist is afraid that if he says the wrong word, he will not be right, and he only dares to follow the script, while the big scientist is more casual and free, because the principle is likely to be discovered by him. In Wang Pinxian's heart, the ideal state of science popularization is, "an hour, just a mouth, there is no PPT these auxiliary props, staring at today, tomorrow still want to come, this is called the skill."
3. In the new world of popular science, the quality of content is precious
The enthusiasm for short videos was ignited, but problems such as content homogenization and pseudoscience flooding gradually emerged.
Chen Rui, a young biologist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who is in charge of the Douyin account "Doctor of Zoology", discovered early on that the so-called "science popularization" on the Internet is often full of errors and false rumors. For example, he said, termites are not ants, but are more closely related to cockroaches; amber must be buried underground for tens of millions of years, otherwise it cannot be called amber. Every time he saw false information spread on the Internet, Chen Rui would feel the urgency of popular science.
The "Report" pointed out that the universal knowledge of short video also needs to further improve the quality of content, and it is necessary to focus on solving potential problems such as excessive commercialization of knowledge videos. Liu Chang, a professor at the Communication University of China, agreed. He mentioned that the diversified, all-round and high-level demand for knowledge has become an important part of the growing needs of the public for a better life. The continuous deepening of short video knowledge will be beneficial to the long-term healthy development of the entire Internet industry.
"For creators, we should emphasize the principle of originality and high quality, guide creators to improve the quality of content creation, especially for popular science short videos, and strictly do a good job in the review of scientific content." Zhong Qi, a researcher at the China Institute of Science Popularization, pointed out that short video platforms can use incentives to encourage professional science popularization institutions, professional teams and professionals to engage in the creation of popular science short videos and accumulate the stock of high-quality popular science short video works.
"This also puts forward higher requirements for the platform." Chen Gang said that it is necessary to "do subtraction" by clarifying relevant filtering standards and establishing a scientific and efficient review system, and to "do addition" by cultivating more high-quality creators and strengthening the protection of original knowledge content to further increase the presentation of high-quality content. At the same time, it is necessary to provide users with feedback channels to deeply participate in the process of short video product construction and optimization.
In this new world of science popularization, the call for crowd segmentation is also getting higher and higher.
Zhong Qi introduced that at present, more than half of the mobile terminal science users have a certain educational background, the audience of popular science has shown the characteristics of young and high education, and the coverage population has also expanded to white-collar workers, college students, business managers, humanities scholars, etc.
"For this type of population, we usually use the form of in-depth articles to meet their curiosity, but at the same time, we can't ignore the popular science needs of primary and secondary school students, the elderly and people with lower education." In Zhong Qi's view, primary and secondary school students have their own "circles", they use QQ communication instead of WeChat, and are fascinated by the two-dimensional culture... "If we use their thinking logic to produce popular science content and use their language to produce popular science videos, the communication effect will definitely be twice as effective." ”
The science popularization team of the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences once did a survey, and 40% of teenagers are interested in science and 40% are potentially interested. In the past, when children talked about their dreams, they all said that they wanted to be scientists, but now many children's dreams are to become stars and Internet celebrities. In this regard, Chen Rui, as a scientist, has some regrets, and it is more urgent to sow the seeds of science in the hearts of more children.
"I believe that children are born with curiosity about the world, nature, and life, and this curiosity and curiosity are precious." Many parents left messages urging Chen Rui to update, saying that children could not sleep without watching videos. "Children don't necessarily understand much, but they keep curious until the day they understand."
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily