Pro-science, anti-science and neutral science in online videos on climate change, vaccines and nanotechnology

Abstract

Online video has become a relevant tool to disseminate scientific information to the public. However, in this arena, science coexists with non-scientific or pseudoscientific beliefs that can influence people’s knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. Our research sets out to find empirical evidence of the representation of pro-science, anti-science and neutral stances in online videos. From a search on Google videos, we conducted content analysis of a sample of videos about climate change, vaccines and nanotechnology (n =826). Results indicate that a search through Google videos provides a relatively small representation of videos with an anti-science stance, which can be regarded as positive, given the high potential influence of this search engine in spreading scientific information among the public. Our research also provides empirical evidence of the fact that an anti-science stance is more frequent in user-generated content than in videos disseminated by other types of producers.