TY - JOUR
T1 - The half-life of a “teachable moment”
T2 - The case of Nobel laureates
AU - Baram-Tsabari, Ayelet
AU - Segev, Elad
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2013
PY - 2015/4/1
Y1 - 2015/4/1
N2 - Some science-related events stimulate public interest, and create a teachable moment in which the underlying science temporarily becomes more interesting. Here, media attention, expressed by Google News reference volume, and changes in information seeking behavior, expressed by Google Trends, were used to estimate the length of a teachable moment for 2004–2011 Nobel Prize announcements. On average, Nobel Prize announcements attracted the attention of online users for no longer than a week. News coverage declined slower and occasionally displayed seasonal trends. There was a 50% drop in searches between the day of the announcement and the following day, and an analogous pattern for news coverage of all laureates varying for different disciplines. The affordances of using publicly available online data to identify the most effective teachable moments relating to science are discussed.
AB - Some science-related events stimulate public interest, and create a teachable moment in which the underlying science temporarily becomes more interesting. Here, media attention, expressed by Google News reference volume, and changes in information seeking behavior, expressed by Google Trends, were used to estimate the length of a teachable moment for 2004–2011 Nobel Prize announcements. On average, Nobel Prize announcements attracted the attention of online users for no longer than a week. News coverage declined slower and occasionally displayed seasonal trends. There was a 50% drop in searches between the day of the announcement and the following day, and an analogous pattern for news coverage of all laureates varying for different disciplines. The affordances of using publicly available online data to identify the most effective teachable moments relating to science are discussed.
KW - Google
KW - Nobel Prize
KW - data mining
KW - media effect
KW - quantitative analysis
KW - teachable moment
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84926373338&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0963662513491369
DO - 10.1177/0963662513491369
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AN - SCOPUS:84926373338
SN - 0963-6625
VL - 24
SP - 326
EP - 337
JO - Public Understanding of Science
JF - Public Understanding of Science
IS - 3
ER -