Divulgação científica adaptada ao Podcasting: análise de conteúdo do Podcom UFC

Abstract

This research aims to understand the process of adapting specialized language into popular science products. Considering, according to the DataReportal, that the Brazilian public is one of those who most consume podcasts in the world, the study focused on the role of this type of media in disseminating science content among society. To this end, quantitative and qualitative aspects of the verbal language presented in popular science podcasts and in the episode's reference sources will be evaluated. Therefore, it was intended to identify which communicative function is dominant in each of these sampling units. Starting from a model proposed by Isaac Epstein and adjusted by the author, the methodology used to answer the question was the Categorical Content Analysis. The design of the analysis categories was based on Jean-Michel Adam's theory of textual sequences. The sampling consisted of six episodes of PodCom UFC, a podcast aimed at the extension project Divulgação científica através de plataformas online, from the Universidade Federal do Ceará, in addition to five scientific and informative texts used as a source for episode 7, winner of the 3rd Gruppocom Scientific Dissemination Award in the podcast category. In all, 780 textual units were coded and analyzed. The study concluded that the dominant function in the winning episode was dialogical, while in the references the result pointed to argumentative and descriptive functions. The remaining episodes presented a predominance of argumentative functions.. In this sense, the findings reinforce Lilian Zamboni's idea that popular science is not a simple adaptation of scientific discourse, but a discourse with features of its own. Finally, the results were interpreted through some categories of Greimasian Semiotics, specifically in the implications between argumentation, truth as an effect of meaning and the construction of the utterances in scientific and informative discourse.