Can a technically synthesized persona function as a credible and effective communicator? Deep synthesis personas are showing distinctive potential in science communication, yet their inherently synthetic nature can trigger psychological resistance and raise doubts about message credibility. This study examines how shortening the psychological distance between audiences and deep synthesis personas can improve communication effects. We adopt the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) as the primary framework and incorporate psychological distance theory to integrate the analysis. Using a sample of deep synthesis persona science videos from Bilibili (N=193), we combined web scraping with manual coding and estimated regression models to test how features related to content and technology shaping effects, including reach, engagement, and endorsement. The results show that, on the content route, multi-character interactive discussion formats, as compared with solo monologue formats, and narration delivered through reanimated authentic historical figures, as compared with fictional characters, effectively reduce psychological distance and foster a more active discussion climate. On the technology route, higher visual realism and smoother, more natural facial animation increase viewers’ sense of presence and perceived authenticity, shorten psychological distance from the persona, and in turn raise interactive behaviors and positive feedback. In parallel, peripheral cues such as creator prominence exert significant positive effects on diffusion metrics, underscoring the importance of source credibility. These findings offer practical guidance for video production and dissemination strategy and provide a theoretical reference for understanding the opportunities and social implications of deploying deep synthesis technologies in science communication.

In digital intelligence era, short videos, as an emerging media form, have been deeply embedded in the practice of digital rural construction, empowering the development of rural industries. Based on Lefebvre’s theory of space production, this article integrates the physical, mental, and social dimensions with the production, dissemination, and practice of rural science popularization short videos. It analyzes the inherent logic, explores the dissemination dilemmas of suchvideos, s and finally constructs the optimization strategies for space reproduction. The research reveals that the current dissemination of rural science popularization short videos faces structural contradictions such as lagging physical space carrier construction, mental space knowledge alienation and cognitive gaps, as well as social space subject imbalance and relationship fractures. Because of that, this article constructs a three-dimensional strategic framework centered on infrastructure enhancement, content governance, and multi-stakeholder collaboration. Through approaches such as infrastructure modernization, content ecosystem optimization, and coordinated engagement of diverse actors, it aims to overcome communication barriers, amplify dissemination efficacy, strengthen the rural science popularization service system, and ultimately contribute to the revitalization of rural industries.

This research focuses on the science popularization videos in the field of earth science on the Bilibili website as its research object. Through data mining and content analysis, this research systematically analyzes the theme distribution, factors influencing communication effects, user interaction feedback, and communication challenges in 793 earth science popularization videos. The research finds that the content of these videos mainly focus on macro topics such as “cosmic exploration” and “natural geography”, while realistic issues such as “climate change” and “natural disaster” receive insufficient attention. In terms of communication effects, videos lasting 5-10 minutes show the strongest dissemination advantages, and videos released from evening to night tend to gain higher views than those posted in the morning or during working hours. Most of the comments are emotional expressions, with a high proportion of positive interaction. Currently, the main challenges for the popularization of earth science are balancing scientificity and interest, the difficulty of disseminating niche topics, the tension between knowledge depth and video duration, stratification of users’ interests and cognitive levels, platform mechanisms and uneven traffic allocation, and challenges in building credibility and public trust. To improve the quality of communication, this research proposes optimization strategies from three perspectives: enhancing creators’ diversified production capabilities, establishing a coordinated “quality-traffic-trust” mechanism, and emphasizing the social effects of science communication, providing theoretical support and practical paths for optimizing earth science popularization videos in the new media environment.

This study focuses on short videos on gender health science popularization, taking the account “Cheese Unknotting” as an example to reveal the influencing factors and mechanisms of young users’ information adoption behavior. Through in-depth interviews with young users and members of the creative team of this account, the thematic analysis method was employed to code the interview data, identifying five core themes: new media operation, gender health cognition, content quality, perceived value, and external environment. These correspond to the four stages of information awareness, belief confirmation, attitude change, and behavior adoption in the health communication process, leading to the construction of a gender health science popularization information adoption model. In this model, new media operation plays a driving role in the initial stage of information adoption, while gender health cognition and content quality together form the foundation for identifying with gender health concepts. Perceived value promotes attitude change before information adoption, and the external environment interacts with gender health cognition in a mutually regulating manner. It is recommended to build a tripartite collaborative ecosystem for gender health science popularization involving short video platforms, families, and schools, systematically addressing the cognitive gaps among young people. This study contributes to exploring the cognitive perceptions and adoption intentions of individuals of marriageable and childbearing age regarding gender health, promoting the dissemination of gender health knowledge, and enhancing gender relations and social harmony.

At present, the paradigm of science popularization is undergoing a profound transformation from one-way output to participatory and interactive models. In this transition, the high-quality development of science popularization has an increasingly prominent demand for scene-driven innovation. From both theoretical and practical perspectives, this paper systematically analyzes the coupling logic between science popularization and scene theory. On this basis, it proposes four science popularization models derived from‘science popularization+scene’ and ‘scene + science popularization’. First, scenified science popularization reconstructs the production scene of scientific knowledge through technical means, transforming abstract scientific content into perceptible embodied experiences for the audience. Second, popularized scenes embed scientific elements into social spaces such as shopping malls and communities, activating the science popularization potential of non science contexts. Third, scenic popularization achieves the integration of multiple attributes of scenes through functional superposition and spatiotemporal reorganization. Fourth, scene-based science popularization promotes the integration of scientific spirit and daily practice through a context-constructed communication paradigm, thereby providing new ideas and methods for science popularization practice.

With the increasing impact of science and technology museums on enhancing public scientific literacy and science education, how to scientifically and objectively evaluate their social impact has become a critical issue. Based on third-party comments collected from over 400 science and technology museums nationwide, this paper employs natural language processing techniques such as topic modeling and hierarchical clustering to establish a social evaluation index system for science and technology museums. The system includes 9 primary indicators and 24 secondary indicators. Machine learning algorithms are used to conduct empirical analysis on 133 371 valid comments from third-party platforms such as Dianping, Meituan, and Xiecheng. The results show that the three primary indicators—“children’s entertainment and ecience interaction”“science exhibitions and cultural experiences, ” and “interactive learning and technology”—score high across all types of science and technology museums. However, there remain significant improvement possibilities in transportation and environmental satisfaction. The study recommends that mega-sized science and technology museums should leverage their strengths in science education exhibitions while addressing service shortcomings; large-sized ones should balance core functions and optimize infrastructure; while medium and small-sized ones can pursue a differentiated development path of “specialization+features” and refine operations to compensate for resource limitations.

Against the backdrop that the “Double Reduction” policy driving the structural transformation of basic education, as an important carrier of non-formal science education, science and technology museums have gradually become embedded in the after-school service systems of primary and secondary schools, becoming an integral component of the collaborative supply of educational resources. Based on a review of relevant policy documents and an analysis of typical cases, this paper systematically analyzes the science education service capabilities and operating mechanisms of science and technology museums during the implementation of the “Double Reduction” policy series from the dimensions of resource integration, content innovation, teacher support, organizational collaboration, and digital empowerment. The study indicates that science and technology museums have demonstrated strong practical responsiveness in promoting the integration of educational resources, optimizing the supply of science courses, supporting teachers’ professional development, and expanding digital education scenarios. Meanwhile, science and technology museums are also confronted with such challenges as insufficient depth of institutional embedding with blurred responsibility boundaries, fragmented coordination mechanisms with low efficiency in multi-party cooperation, and unbalanced resource and capability support alongside a weak digital foundation. Based on these findings, this paper proposes countermeasures to enhance the science education capacities of science and technology museums, including improving institutional supply to deepen their participation in the “Double Reduction” policy, reconstructing collaborative architectures to boost the governance efficacy of multi-party cooperation, and establishing a sound multi-faceted support system to consolidate the digital foundation. These measures aim to provide a theoretical basis and practical reference for expanding the science education functions of science and technology museums and ensuring the high-quality implementation of the “Double Reduction” policy.

Science popularization is an important approach to improving public scientific literacy, and science posters have become a significant means of science popularization. However, current research on science posters mainly focuses on design-level discussions and lacks systematic studies on the relationship between visual presentation and communication effects. Based on visual framing theory, this research explores how the denotative and stylistic levels of visual framing in science posters influence the effects of science popularization. The results show that at the denotative level, technology-knowledge posters are more conducive to alleviating cognitive load and enhancing the communication effectiveness of science popularization, whereas image entropy, as a measure of image content complexity, does not exert a positive effect on communication outcomes and may even increase cognitive burden. At the stylistic level, surreal and warm-toned poster designs can promote science popularization by building trust and empathy, while cartoon designs, due to oversimplification of knowledge and the loss of scientific professional objectivity, fail to improve communication effectiveness. Accordingly, this research proposes the following strategies and recommendations: (1) Poster design should consider audiences’ cognitive and emotional responses, select appropriate forms according to the complexity of scientific knowledge, and reduce image content complexity; (2) In designing science posters, surreal styles should be adopted when appropriate, and the proportion of warm tones should be moderately increased to enhance communication effectiveness.

Conventional models of emergency science popularization, characterized by linear knowledge production, homogenized information dissemination, and reliance on single physical settings, are increasingly inadequate for addressing the evolving nature of disaster risks, heterogeneous public perception, and limited scenario coverage. Systematic optimization of emergency science popularization is therefore urgently required. Drawing on socio-technical systems theory, this study employs Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling to analyze emergency science popularization texts, extracting a novel development paradigm driven by “technology-institution-space”. Research indicates that the technology-enabled dimension achieves real-time adaptation to evolving disaster risks through dynamic knowledge production; the institutional innovation dimension resolves the challenges of fragmented resource allocation and homogenized information dissemination via a standardised precision communication system; while the spatial integration dimension establishes a comprehensive coverage network by leveraging the convergence of‘physical-social-informational’ triadic spaces. These three dimensions collectively form a multidimensional, comprehensive, and efficient emergency science popularization paradigm. Based on these findings, this study proposes several optimization pathways, including strengthening the application of digital and intelligent technologies, improving the resource support system for emergency science popularization, and promoting comprehensive, cross-regional, and multi-scale dissemination. The study provides a theoretical framework and practical insights for addressing the imbalance between the supply and demand of emergency science popularization and for enhancing public disaster risk awareness and preparedness, thereby supporting the modernization of China’s emergency management system and governance capacity.

In response to the Communist Party of China’s call to “March Toward Modern Science, ” the All-China Association for the Dissemination of Scientific and Technical Knowledge and the All-China Federation of Trade Unions jointly convened the National Conference of Activist Workers in Science and Technology Popularization in Beijing in late October 1956. The aim was to foster closer collaboration between scientists and industrial workers while expanding the reach of science popularization. The conference, distinguished by its high-level organization, prolonged preparatory phase, and extensive participation, effectively galvanized workers’ enthusiasm for science popularization by recruiting activist employees into working groups and engaging them in the nationwide conference. During the preparatory phase, grassroots research helped formulate a guiding principle for science popularization—“integration with production, alignment with practical needs, and pursuit of broad outreach”—along with a methodology emphasizing “small-scale, diverse, easily understandable, and voluntary participation.” This landmark conference in the history of New China’s science popularization established the historical experience of mobilizing active participants to “strive for extensive reach” in science popularization, which continues to offer valuable insights for enhancing national science popularization capacity building in the new era.

The 17th century marked the golden age of modern scientific development in Europe. Amid this historical convergence, as a quadruple-integrated informal educational organization combining “meetings, publications, lectures and experiments, ” the 17th-century Royal Society exhibited distinct characteristics of its era: non-systematic activity organization, strong pragmatism, a blend of academic rigor and popular appeal, and a pronounced orientation toward elite education. Its legacy, transmitted to 19th century Western universities through a multi-dimensional chain of membership, scientific institutionalization and practical formats, exerted a profound and lasting influence on Western science popularization. Based on a review of The Royal Society of London’s early development, this paper focuses on analyzing its scientific educational explorations and core characteristics during the 17th century. It also examined experiences including the purity of the purpose of science education, the proactive pursuit of societal support, maintaining the autonomy of the organization, and the laying of the foundation for the institutionalization of science education. It provides historical insights for Chinese scientific societies to achieve the “nurturing effect” of formal science education systems via informal provision, thereby empowering Chinese independent scientific and technological innovation.