Popularization of Science on the Websites of Russian Universities: Models and Formats

The article considers the experience of science popularization by the press services of the leading universities of Russia according to the QS world ranking for 2020-2021. The research material was the news sections of the official websites of the universities, and the aim was to identify the specific features of their content models. The analysis revealed that popular science content on the news portals of Russian universities consists mainly of publications about scientific events and scientists' work. The relatively small number of publications in complex multimedia formats is explained by the conservatism of the universities, the workload of the press services, and the lack of mastery of their employees. The study is based on the classification of forms of scientific popularization proposed by Natalya Diveeva: (1) media and organizational event-related; 2) episodic, periodic, and permanent; 3) primary and secondary. Based on this typology, a codifier for sampling material for analysis has been developed. This codifier includes: primary form (reports on scientific and educational events); media form (the journalistic genres of interviews and commentary); scientific form (reports on research and development results); new media form (PR and entertainment materials). The analysis revealed: (1) the general level of the universities' publication activity (regional universities are leading); (2) the ratio of news popularizing science and the total number of news; (3) the ratio of the forms of popularization used; 4) the variety of news items of the “primary form”; 5) the variety of news items of the “scientific form”; 6) the percentage of news in the forms of new media and media forms. The analysis shows that the content models of the news portals of the universities are determined, firstly, by the image of the university as a “serious” organization, whose many employees express skepticism about the need for information policy in general; secondly, by the large volume and high pace of work of the press services, which prevents them from mastering new forms of communication; finally, by the level of mastery of technical means for creating creative content.

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