6533b7d1fe1ef96bd125cfa9

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Hybrid styles in popular reporting on science :a study of "New Scientist’s" headlines

subject

description

This project explores some current trends in journalistic textual practices that reflect media outlets’ increased need to engage readers through hybridized forms of coverage. It aims to demonstrate to what extent popular journalism has been assimilated by science communication. It examines a sample of 250 headlines collected over the period of eight months from the list of five “most-read” articles as displayed on the webpage of the international magazine New Scientist. The linguistic, stylistic and rhetorical properties of these headlines are examined quantitatively and qualitatively. The analysis focuses on the ways in which scientific research is popularized through hybrid styles, including those that instantiate, e.g., domestication, celebration, emotionalization, personalization or conversationalization of science, as well as the implications of involving various proportions of academic and popular styles in science reporting.