Extending Media Literacy Education: The Popular Science Video Workshop

Abstract

This article discusses the current relevance of videos for communicating science and presents the state of the art of Media Literacy Education programs for scientists in this area. Some initiatives of these programs are supported by university libraries and specialised libraries, and others by universities and research centres themselves. We introduce a program which is designed to provide scientists with specific training for creating and publishing video abstracts. The participants learn how to write a script for a video and acquire the basic skills they need to record audio and video, and edit footage together into a complete unit. This combines both scientific communication and creativity. The aim of this article is to show how scientists can effectively record video abstracts for their papers on their own, how libraries can support them in this issue, and how important it is to extend Media Literacy Education by programs for scientists.