Popular Science Pays Off PowerPoint by Nesrin Mutlu

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Popular Science Pays OffPowerPoint by Nesrin
Mutlu
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Contents

• What is popular science?
• Popular science in infotainment shows
• MythBusters
• Galileo Experiment
• Brainiac
• What makes these shows so successful?

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What is popular science?

• Popular science demonstrates and interprets
  science for a general audience rather than for
  students or scientists.

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Popular science in infotainment shows

• Several TV shows present popular science and
  experiments in ways an average viewer can
  understand.

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Popular science in infotainment shows
( Infotainment Information Entertainment )

• MythBusters (US)
• Galileo Experiment (Germany)
• Brainiac (UK)
• Try yourself real or fake?

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Mythbusters

• Adam Savage
• Co-hosts MythBusters, teaches advanced model
  making in the industrial design department at the
  San Francisco Academy of Art
• Jamie Hyneman
• Co-hosts MythBusters, holder of several patents
  and the winner of numerous industry awards

MythBusters promotional video
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Mythbusters

• Mythbusters want to discover the truth in sundry
  urban legends (e.g. Dontuse a cell phone at a
  gas station the emissions from the phone will
  ignite a fire! is this true??). They plan,
  construct and experiment, sparing no efforts.
• The show is interesting exciting, and arouses
  the audiences curiosity by dealing with legends
  and questions taken from everyday life.

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Galileo Experiment
The Galileo Experiment is a rubric of the
infotainment show Galileo on the German TV
station Pro7. It has a similar format to that of
MythBusters, also dealing with legends and
questions taken from daily life. The experiments
are presented rather reliably and at the same
time quite entertainingly. The show has been
broadcast since January 2005 (Galileo, the main
program, began in November 1998), moderated by
Daniel Aminati.
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Brainiac
The British infotainment show Brainiac has been
on the air since 2003. The show concentrates on
experiments which have more entertaining effect
than scientific value. Brainiac is hosted by
Richard Mark Hammond.Usually the experiments are
faked by a pyrotechnics department in order to
make them more dramatic.
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What makes these shows so successful?

• We can find infotainment (a portmanteau of
  information entertainment) on TV in European,
  American and Asian countries. The success and the
  ratings of this kind of program depend on the
  interests of the audience in the respective
  country.
• In Europe and the US these shows are very
  successful, because the audience is interested in
  the answers they find to everyday mysteries and
  practical technical questions. Not only people
  who are interested in the scientific explanation
  but also people who love exciting and informative
  entertainment on TV are the target audience. The
  shows appeal to the curiosity of the audience,
  assuring high ratings and economic success for
  the broadcasting station!