Paper Title: Increasing culturally relevant science media coverage: exploring the outcomes of a collaboration in Puerto Rico

Authors: Mónica I. Feliú Mójer, Andrea Isabel López, Wilson González-Espada, Ernesto Cabezas Bou, Claudia Colón-Echevarría, Ailed Cruz Collazo, Jetsimary García-Justiniano, José Liquet y González, Charlene Rivera-Bonet, Angelie Rivera-Rodríguez, Attabey Rodríguez Benítez, Luis Alexis Rodríguez-Cruz, Priscila Rodríguez García, Giovanna Guerrero-Medina

Published in: Journal of Science Communication

Volume 23 • Issue 05 • 2024

Publication date
Jun 24, 2024

URL: https://jcom.sissa.it/article/pubid/JCOM_2305_2024_N02/

Abstract
CienciaPR, a nonprofit that brings together the largest network of Puerto Rican scientists and one of the largest networks of Hispanic/Latine scientists in the world, has collaborated with El Nuevo Día (END), Puerto Rico’s newspaper of record, to increase culturally relevant stories in their science section. This Practice Insight quantifies and compares the presence of culturally relevant elements (e.g., referring to Puerto Rico, local landmarks, historic figures, slang) and other content information (e.g., topics, location, focus, protagonist) in articles authored by CienciaPR members versus articles by END, news agencies, and other organizations. Results demonstrate that CienciaPR-authored articles published in END featured culturally relevant elements more often (e.g., mentioned Puerto Rico, used Puerto Rican slang, stories located in Puerto Rico) than those by other sources.

Video Abstract Chapters

0:23 Article Overview
0:41 About CienciaPR
1:20 Cultural Relevance Context
2:16 Media Partnerships
2:51 Evaluation
3:33 Key Findings
4:41.Examples
6:27 Action Items

Abstract Presenter Contact Info: [email protected]

Transcript

Hi everyone. My name is Andrea Isabel Lopez, and I am the public engagement with science strategist at ciencia Puerto Rico. And during this presentation, I will be sharing a summary of an article that we published in the Journal of Science Communication this past June 19 2024 the article is titled, increasing culturally relevant science media coverage exploring the outcomes of a collaboration in Puerto Rico.

And the article was co authored by Mónica Feliú Mójer and myself, and developed in collaboration with the group of authors listed here. I first wanted to start by giving you guys a quick overview of what Ciencia Puerto Rico is and the kind of work that we do. CienciaPR Puerto Rico is a non profit that brings together the largest network of Puerto Rican scientists and one of the largest network of Latina scientists. Over the past years, we have collaborated with different media outlets in Puerto Rico to increase the cultural relevance of science content in Puerto Rican media. And during this presentation, I will showcase one of our efforts, where we establish a partnership with local media to publish more culturally relevant science content so in Puerto Rico, as well as in other minoritized communities in the United States and the global South, there exists a lack of contextualized and culturally relevant science information, and this is due to several factors, including that English is the language of science in and outside of academia.

And in the context of Puerto Rico, the lack of culturally relevant Spanish translations, it is also important to acknowledge the impact of the colonial relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico, this has resulted in little science coverage and mass media outlets, for example, out of about 20 newspapers only in Navarre, the newspaper of record in Puerto Rico has a long standing regular science section, and when we look at the articles published in Navarre by 2006 less than 20% had Puerto Rico as its main location. More than 70% of the stories were sourced from these wires and none were written by scientific experts. So to address this lack of culturally relevant science content, ciencia Puerto Rico established a partnership with El naboria Where ciencia Puerto Rico members with author articles highlighting science performed in Puerto Rico or by Puerto Rican scientists, or that contextualized universal science concepts to the Puerto Rican reality.

To assess the impact of this partnership, we conducted an evaluation focused on understanding the cultural relevance of the ciencia Puerto Rico articles, and this evaluation was based on a rubric developed by Luisa masarani and Bruno Baez. A total of 159 articles published in a no idea science section were randomly selected. 80 of them were authored by ciencia Puerto Rico members, and 79 by authors who were not affiliated with ciencia Puerto Rico, and during this evaluation, we also looked at the location of the articles and the expertise of the article authors, among other factors. So one of the major findings of the evaluation is that ciencia Puerto Rico articles have substantially more culturally relevant elements.

When compared to articles from other sources, 74 out of the 80 ciencia Puerto Rico articles had at least one culturally relevant element. In comparison, only 14 of the 79 articles five other sources contain at least one culturally relevant element. And this table highlights how sincere Puerto Rico articles had significantly more elements. And we use a criteria to identify the presence of Puerto Rico specific culturally relevant elements in the article. The most common elements use were to mention Puerto Rico or a specific place in Puerto Rico, to mention a Puerto Rican institution, a local landmark, or a Puerto Rican person, as this table highlights, Santia Puerto Rico articles have substantially more culturally relevant elements When compared to articles from other sources, I have included a couple of examples here to highlight how articles were inviting support to Rico Members Center Puerto Rican experiences. This example is of an article that contextualizes discoveries made in Australia about weight loss, anxiety. Money to Puerto Rican reality. It does so by connecting the study findings to elements of high cultural significance for Puerto Ricans, like Christmas foods like patellas, poquito and mitogra.

This second example is of an article focused on the contributions of Puerto Rican and Puerto Rico based researchers to the 1000 genomes project, and the article mentions how it was important for the researchers to obtain a representative sample of the Puerto Rican population. Since the population of Puerto Rico is not homogeneous, it provides specific examples of this diversity by mentioning Puerto Rican municipalities with different geographic locations and demographic makeups, like Jao colossa and Tawas, some of our other key findings are that more than two thirds socienza Puerto Rico articles had Puerto Rico as their main location. In contrast, only three of the 79 articles by other sources were located in the archipelago. It is also valuable to note that all of ciencia Puerto Rico articles were authored by stem experts, while articles not affiliated with ciencia Puerto Rico were mostly authored by journalists from Marina Walia or newswires. So if I were to leave you with some action items or lessons, it would be to first incorporate more culturally relevant tactics to your science communication.

And the articles I shared are just two examples of how you can do this. I would also say that we should promote partnerships between local media and scientists. The partnership with their navalia and ciencia Puerto Rico has been mutually beneficial for both parties. It has improved the quality of science content in Puerto Rican media, and it has also provided early career scientists with science communication opportunities. And finally, we need to empower more diverse voices to not just write about science content, but also to just do science examine samples of how to do this is by providing more funding for diverse voices and perspectives to both do science and to share their science. Thank you so much for watching the video. If you have any questions, or if you would like to reach out, please feel free to do so using the email listed here.