Producers of Popular Science Web Videos – Between New Professionalism and Old Gender Issues

Abstract

This article provides an overview of the web video production context related to science communication, based on a quantitative analysis of 190 YouTube videos. The authors explore the main characteristics and ongoing strategies of producers, focusing on three topics: professionalism, producer’s gender and age profile, and community building. In the discussion, the authors compare the quantitative results with recently published qualitative research on producers of popular science web videos. This complementary approach gives further evidence on the main characteristics of most popular science communicators on YouTube, it shows a new type of professionalism that surpasses the hitherto existing distinction between User Generated Content (UGC) and Professional Generated Content (PGC), raises gender issues, and questions the participatory culture of science communicators on YouTube.