SCIENTIFIC DISSEMINATION ON YOUTUBE AND ITS RELIABILITY FOR UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS

Abstract

Traditional articles, books, chapters, conferences and seminars give
way to new tools for disseminating scientific knowledge such as social
media, betting on the concept of open science. This is understood as the
public distribution of research results in a deliberate way, so that the
public has free access to universal knowledge. This study was born from
this context, which aims to recognize scientific issues in trends proposed
by young Youtubers dedicated to the dissemination of science. Also, to
obtain an assessment of professors in Higher Education on the reliability
and appropriateness of the contents and arguments provided by this
route. The methodological procedure is based on a quantitative-qualitative
exploration through content analysis of four channels with 12 audiovisual
units and 144 minutes of viewing, and an online questionnaire that receives
the opinion of 205 university researchers. The qualitative results present
a medium-high index of rigour, credibility and reliability on the part of
Youtubers, as well as users’ interest in pseudosciences, sexually transmitted
diseases, mathematics and dogmatic beliefs. In contrast, the professors
surveyed declare a lack of coherence and scientific criteria on the part of
the influencers, demanding their participation in projects that support their
arguments. This paradox points to YouTube as a revealing platform for
the communication of knowledge, essentially aimed at young people and
sustained by the freedom to learn and teach science. In short, it introduces
a new, innovative and youthful way of disseminating the most controversial,
political, social and educational knowledge through online audiovisual,
social and general resources.