A team led by Professor Fan WANG from the Fudan Development Institute and a team led by Professor Shaojing SUN from the School of Journalism at Fudan University, in collaboration with journalists from Guangming Daily, conducted a systematic analysis of 14,706 doctor accounts and over 150,000 videos, using methods such as audio-visual analysis and typical case mining. The study delved into the current situation and challenges of Chinese doctors' participation in online science popularization, and put forward countermeasures and suggestions for optimizing the content ecosystem. Guangming Daily featured the research findings in a special section on September 25.The report shows that in the digital-intelligent era, an increasing number of Chinese doctors are engaging in online science popularization, with a rise in the number of such doctor accounts and the scale of their fans. Among the participating doctors, surgeons account for 31.4%, and department directors account for 78.9%, building trust among the audience through their professional images. However, challenges persist, including audience comprehension hindered by technical jargon, content homogenization and vulgarization, risks associated with AI-generated science content, and subject-specific biases. Optimizing the science communication ecosystem requires focusing on audience needs, enhancing doctors’ capabilities, and strengthening the platform accountability.

Translated by Guanyu LU

Full text in Chinese available at:

https://fddi.fudan.edu.cn/6d/7c/c18965a748924/page.htm