Leveraging Transmedia Communication Strategies to Improve Engagement and Foster Collaboration in Citizen-Science Projects

Abstract

Citizen science is the term used for the practice of harnessing non-expert, volunteer efforts to further scientific research using a crowdsourcing approach to collect, record, and analyze data and to fulfill other task work related to research. Maintaining enough interest and motivation to sustain participant engagement and involvement presents a challenge for project organizers. Current research indicates that a large percentage of participants contribute enthusiastically to citizen-science projects for a short period of time, only to lose interest, disengage from the project, and stop contributing. However, communication strategies can counteract some volunteer attrition by continually underscoring the importance and value of their contributions, and by raising a project's profile to keep it top-of-mind, relevant, and interesting to participants. This thesis explores how citizen-science projects could apply or adapt transmedia storytelling, communication and engagement techniques - particularly in a context similar to documentary filmmaking - in order to reward contributors with a positive, integrated media experience to bolster engagement with the subject matters and the goals of long-term research projects. It will examine the history of public participation in science, the history of modern participatory culture, and how new media strategies can by applied toward a top-down, novice-level, biological - and environmental - monitoring project (the most abundant type of project in citizen science.)