Approaching Scientific Dissemination in a Cross-Disciplinary Way: Focus on Health and Well-Being

Abstract

This paper delves into the popularization of scientific topics related to health and well-being from an interdisciplinary perspective, between science, journalism, language, and communication studies. To this aim, we will address a subset of the SciencePop Corpus—a corpus of spoken science-popularization speech events—including 10 broadcast interviews and 10 audiovisual interviews published on YouTube. Through a mixed-method approach and a comparative perspective, the study analyzes the questions posed by interviewers, bearing in mind the rules of conduct on news interviews and checking how far such rules are applied in science popularization in the two different interview contexts, namely mainstream broadcast interviews led by trained journalists and online digital media interviews. The data testify to both similarities and differences between broadcast and online digital media interviews, with reference to (a) the degree of compliance with the rules of conduct and (b) the techniques of audience involvement employed by the interviewers, i.e., references to their private life, expression of opinion, and confirmation to build and maintain engagement. The study allows for a better understanding of interview styles and approaches in science popularization, particularly with reference to the “posture” of interviewers.

1. Introduction

In today’s Information Age, thanks to constant internet connection, users are exposed to—and can access at will—a plethora of content of differing quality and accuracy, including misleading or even entirely false information. One particularly sensitive topic is human health, as the spread of fake news (cf., e.g., Waszak et al., 2018; Melchior & Oliveira, 2021) may have negative consequences on both individual behaviors and public health. It is therefore key for public health representatives, scholars, and expert practitioners to provide evidence-based knowledge to the general public in a way that is accessible and comprehensible. While research on written science-popularization texts (e.g., Briggs & Hallin, 2024; Berti, 2025) or spoken monologues (e.g., Bernad-Mechó & Valeiras-Jurado, 2023; Xia, 2023) has provided valuable insight into effective discourse strategies that ensure comprehensibility and maintain audience engagement, spoken interviews have not yet been researched in detail. Furthermore, within interview popularization events, the focus is primarily on the interviewed expert who conveys the scientific content, but the role of the interviewers (IRs) should also be examined, as their collaboration in the interaction has been shown to be important for successful reformulation (Ciapuscio, 2003).

Hence, this paper delves into the popularization of scientific topics related to mental and physical health from an understudied interdisciplinary perspective, crossing the paths of science, journalism, language, and communication studies. Specifically, we analyze a set of interviews aimed at science popularization to investigate how questions are used to shape and guide the communication of scientific knowledge to non-expert audiences. In Section 2, we overview the state of the art on science popularization, highlighting the lack of studies on spoken data with special reference to interviews to science experts, particularly on health issues. Section 3 addresses the structure of interviews, bearing in mind the central role of the IR as a mediator between the expert and the general public. Section 4 focuses on the SciencePop Corpus (Facchinetti et al., 2024b), a corpus of science popularization developed at the University of Verona, Italy. We illustrate the selection process of the data for our sub-corpus and our research methodology. We take into consideration 20 audio/video interviews of science professionals/practitioners on health and well-being related topics, 10 broadcast on mainstream TV channels, and 10 audiovisual interviews published on content-sharing and podcast platforms online. Section 5 will focus on the analysis of the questions posed by interviewers (IRs), bearing in mind the rules of conduct generally agreed on news interviews (S. Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Sedorkin & Forbes, 2023) and checking how far such rules are applied in science popularization in the two different interview contexts. The main research questions will address (1) how far rules of conduct are applied in interviews aimed at science popularization and (2) whether there are differences in approaching interviewees (IEs) depending on the different interview context, that is, traditional broadcast television and online digital media. The final aim is to contribute to a better understanding of the role of IRs when addressing scientific health-related topics for the benefit of the general public.

2. Science Popularization

Science popularization can be broadly understood as the process through which specialized scientific knowledge is recontextualized and communicated to non-expert audiences in an accessible way. On a concrete level, this means the dissemination in science, medicine, and technology, as well as other domains of scientific inquiry, with the aim of making complex concepts understandable to the general public (Bucchi, 2004). Common forms of science popularization include popular science articles and magazines, newspaper science sections, documentaries and television programs, public lectures, TED Talks, podcasts, and interviews, as well as online videos and social media content. Despite differences in format and medium, these forms share the main goal of making specialized content accessible beyond the expert communities.

Back in 1986, UNESCO had already addressed the key issue of explaining science “in terms a particular reader or audience can understand” (UNESCO, 1986, p. 338). By building a bridge between the scientific community and the general public (Gotti, 2014), science popularizers have the crucial role of contributing to the advancement of modern society and of encouraging scientific literacy, critical thinking, and informed decision-making (Hartz & Chappell, 1997; Brownell et al., 2013; Beukel et al., 2019).

The current wide-ranging circulation of specialized content (Sugimoto & Thelwall, 2013; Ruokolainen & Widén, 2020) grants experts and practitioners unprecedented opportunities to disseminate knowledge more widely and efficiently than ever before (Davies, 2008; Ross-Hellauer et al., 2020). This has evidenced the need for critical awareness of the trustworthiness of the sources available to the general public.

Moreover, the communication of specialized content requires popularizers to ensure a meaningful, sound and sustainable balance between simplification and accuracy (Nielsen, 2013). Indeed, the core challenge lies in rendering highly specialized content understandable and engaging without distorting its meaning (Treise & Weigold, 2001). Such balance requires special attention particularly in healthcare communication, which needs to be tackled with crucial care in order to avoid misinformation and/or misinterpretation (Richard, 2006).

Science popularization can therefore take place across written, spoken and increasingly multimodal or audiovisual genres. So far, the attention of scholars and practitioners in popularizing discourse has focused largely on the popularization of written data and on the channels of communication (e.g., Corcoran, 2013; Parvanta & Bass, 2020; Mallik & Ameur, 2024), the different structure and rhetorical moves of popularizing texts (e.g., Caliendo, 2014), and on recontextualization and engagement strategies (e.g., Calsamiglia & Van Dijk, 2004; Hyland, 2010; Luzón, 2013). Attention has also been paid to the role the traditional values of journalism, first of all newsworthiness, play in the selection of what is published and highlighted in scientific journalism (e.g., Molek-Kozakowska, 2018, 2017; Garzone, 2014). To our knowledge, little attention has been dedicated to the language used in the spoken discourse of science popularization, yet discursive strategies play a vital role in shaping the message for the intended audience (Banks & Di Martino, 2019; Salvi, 2020). Indeed, recent linguistic studies offer valuable insights into how morphosyntactic and lexical choices, as well as language strategies, can influence the accessibility and effectiveness of specialized content. Research has addressed figurative language in TED Talks (Scotto Di Carlo, 2014; Mattiello, 2019), explanatory strategies in audio/video interviews and monologues (Corrizzato & Franceschi, 2025), and on a more general scale, the way in which content is shared in TikTok videos, Instagram reels and YouTube shorts/videos (Zhang et al., 2024; Sun, 2025). Specifically, dialogic genres such as interviews have not been investigated extensively in science-popularization discourse, especially in a perspective that addresses closely the role of the IR.

Overall, the way experts’ knowledge about physical and mental health is communicated and popularized orally is a subject that leaves considerable room for further investigation, particularly with reference to the discursive specificities of broadcast interviews on the one hand and online digital media interviews on the other. The former in particular are generally grounded in specific guidelines that will be illustrated in Section 3.

3. Questioning in (Journalistic) Interviews

The main goal of an interview is to gather and convey information on behalf of the audience; hence, IRs play a key role in the dialogical unfolding of the interview, especially in building a connection with their IEs as well as in establishing a relaxed atmosphere that should put the IEs at ease and encourage them to voice their thoughts and to share their knowledge (Rubin & Rubin, 2012, Lee-Potter, 2017; Sedorkin & Forbes, 2023, among others).

In spoken interviews, different kinds of questions serve different communicative purposes. A primary distinction is between open(-ended) and closed(-ended) questions. Open questions allow IEs to elaborate, explain and express themselves. These questions typically begin with interrogatives such as “what,” “how,” or “why,” as in (1):

(1)

For a lot of people who might be tuning in right now who don’t know what it is, what is CBD? (TVI013)1.

It is widely acknowledged that open questions encourage depth and provide information. Requests structured in the forms of imperatives, as in (2), can be subsumed under this category:

(2)

Tell me more about saffron and maybe some other supplements that that you think are good for the brain […] (AVI003)

In turn, closed questions restrict responses to binary answers such as “yes” or “no,” as in (3):

(3)

The spread of coronavirus is making people around the world anxious. So, first of all is feeling anxious at this time of the year perfectly normal? (TVI012)

While closed questions can be useful for obtaining clear, specific information and keeping the discussion focused, they limit the IE’s freedom to develop their thoughts and perspective. Hence, according to rules of conduct, they should be used sparingly and strategically rather than dominating the exchange. Within this category, choice questions—also called “polar”—can be subsumed, since they present two alternatives, and indeed the IR asks the IE to select between them, thereby guiding the response in a more constrained way.

(4)

All right, so let me ask just kind of a patient-level question is it, because that is already on the plant when you consume it or is that something that your body actually produces? (AVI018)

Alongside open and closed questions, “statements” should also be mentioned, which are not phrased as explicit questions. Indeed, they may be declarative sentences providing a personal comment of the IR on the previous reply or a commentary prompt for the next response, as in (5):

(5)

I learned some really interesting new things in here. I like that in the book you start by talking about the fact that we don’t think about food as medicine anymore and we should. (TVI026)

While (5) is an instance of a “stand-alone” statement, thus with no further question but just opening up to the IE’s reply, “prefatory” statements may also occur, whereby the IR’s comment on the IE’s reply acts as a preface to the next question in the discursive flow.

(6)

So Sarah, it seems pretty clear nuts have lots of benefits. They’re also surprisingly well studied in terms of sort of the research that you’re talking about compared to a lot of the topics, where we say, you know, there’s like three studies in the whole world ever and it seems particularly clear to do with cardiovascular health so you know sort of heart disease and strokes, but I think the elephant in the room is really weight: if nuts are high in calories, uhm, won’t they contribute to weight gain? (AVI023)

Overall, whatever question they ask, IRs are expected to remain neutral, avoid judgmental or biased language, and adopt a factual, objective approach throughout the interaction (S. E. Clayman, 1988, S. Clayman & Heritage, 2002). Indeed, their main role is “to elicit the stance, opinion or account of the one being questioned” without bias or prejudice “in the interests of a wider public in extracting information from individuals in the news” (Hutchby, 2003, p. 443).

To study if and to what extent the abovementioned rules, particularly concerning the IR’s neutrality, are complied with in interviews related to health science popularization and to analyze this discursive practice in monologues as well, the SciencePop Corpus has been developed, which will be illustrated in Section 4.

4. Corpus and Methodology

4.1. The SciencePop Corpus and Interview Selection

The SciencePop Corpus (Facchinetti et al., 2024b) consists of 104 annotated English transcripts (texts) of spoken materials on health and well-being, broadcast over the period 2017–2024. The corpus contains 338,533 words (351,940 tokens2) and is organized into two main categories, each comprising 52 texts: interviews and monologues. Each category is further divided into two sub-corpora, each containing 26 texts. The interview sub-corpora include broadcast TV and online digital-media interviews, while the monologue sub-corpora consist of digital-media monologues and TED Talks3. An articulated set of XML tags is used to mark speaker turns, relevant para- and extra-linguistic phenomena in the speech events—pauses, emphasis, false starts, audience laughter, etc.—as well as questions and answers. Each question-and-answer pair is annotated according to type (open, closed, choice, statement). After automatic transcription using HappyScribe software and subsequent human review, the speech events were marked up using a convention schema later translated into XML tags using a Python script. A second stage of human review was then carried out and corrections made where needed. The XML tags partially integrate metadata into the files: each file includes an XML header containing textual genre and topic(s) and speaker tags embedding relevant speaker information (e.g., name, nationality, profession, role in the event). Two coders were involved in the annotation of the corpus: one master’s student intern who worked primarily on interview transcripts, and a postdoctoral researcher who worked extensively on the compilation of the entire corpus. Both coders were trained by the members of the team on the transcription conventions and annotation schema, which were adapted from a previous project (Interdiplo, cf. Cavalieri et al., 2021; Facchinetti et al., 2024a). Coding consensus was achieved through multiple review checks at each stage of corpus construction, and discussion within the research team to solve ambiguous cases or disagreements. As corpus annotation was carried out primarily by a single coder who reviewed the student intern’s work. No inter-rater reliability measures were carried out.

Table 1 below shows the coding criteria for question-and-answer annotation in the corpus. A choice was made not to include prefatory statements or introductory remarks in the tag, due to the frequent presence of multiple questions within one single interviewer turn.

Table 1. Coding criteria for questions and answers in the corpus.

Questions	Answers
Open: open-ended question that requires a longer answer	Open: answer to an open-ended question.
Closed: question that asks for “yes” or “no” as an answer	Closed: answer that is either “yes” or “no”
Choice: question that offers two or more options	Choice: answer that selects one or more of the choices provided in the question
Statement: declarative statement that aims to elicit a response from the interlocutor. It typically has rising intonation.

For the scope of the present study, the interview sub-corpus was selected for analysis, as it contains two different subsets of interviews: (1) broadcast interviews, i.e., speech events from mainstream news outlets in which broadcast journalists interview experts/professionals/practitioners who are also in the majority science communicators, and (2) online digital media interviews, i.e., audio(visual) interviews, published on content-sharing and podcast platforms online where interviewers, who have a range of different backgrounds, including medical, engage with healthcare experts and science communicators.

While each section—broadcast interviews and online digital media interviews—contains 26 speech events, a sample of 10 interviews per section was eventually selected.

For broadcast interviews, the selection followed the following criteria.

• Dialogic structure

Interviews were required to exhibit a clear interviewer–interviewee structure centered on a specific health-related topic. Speech events that resembled informal conversations rather than structured interviews, as well as those consisting primarily of simple question–answer exchanges or extended interviewee monologues, were excluded.

Number of excluded interviews: 5

2.

Type of interviewee

Interviews involving institutional representatives (e.g., minister of health, former CDC president, former health secretary, head of WHO unit) were not included. This choice was made to avoid the IR–IE relationship being biased by political and/or governmental roles.

Number of excluded interviews: 4

3.

Interview focus

Interviews primarily devoted to institutional initiatives or reports on specific actions were excluded.

Number of excluded interviews: 3

4.

Science popularization, including book promotion

Interviews containing book presentations were also excluded.

Number of excluded interviews: 4

Gender balance was considered during sampling to avoid an overrepresentation of one gender among interviewers (5 male IRs and 5 female IRs for each sub-corpus). Although gender was not analyzed as an independent variable, this criterion was adopted to increase the overall representativeness of the sample. In this regard, the AVI section only included 6 women IR, therefore:

• The shortest interview conducted by a female IR was not included in the final selection, as it contributed the least amount of analyzable material.
• Different IRs were favored, so 2 interviews were not included.
• Finally, a randomized sample of 5 interviews with male IRs was selected out of the remaining 17 eligible interviews.

The breakdown of the sample may be seen in Table 2 and Table 3 below.

Table 2. Subset 1—IRs in broadcast interviews.

TVI	Date	News Outlet	IR	IE	Topic
TVI001	2019	BBC	M	Heart surgeon, author	Physical health
TVI002	2020	EBC—Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation	M	Public health specialist	Public health
TVI011	2023	Channel 4	M	Medical doctor, TV presenter, author	Nutrition
TVI012	2023	France 24 (English)	F	Psychologist, professor, author	Public health
TVI013	2019	NBC 6 South Florida	M	Medical doctor, researcher	Physical health
TVI014	2021	ABC	F	Medical doctor, author	Nutrition
TVI017	2023	WFMY News 2 (North Carolina)	F	Medical doctor	Physical health
TVI019	2020	Channel 4	M	Medical doctor, author, TV presenter, podcaster	Well-being
TVI020	2022	Telegraph Live	F	Health scientist, author	Nutrition
TVI026	2018	CBS	F + M	Medical Doctor, author	Nutrition

Table 3. Subset 2—IRs in online digital media interviews.

AVI	Date	Channel/Site	IR’S Profession	IR	IE	Topic
AVI03	2022	Institute for Integrative Nutrition	Wellness coach/hypnotist	M	Medical doctor, psychiatrist and brain disorder specialist	Mental health
AVI05	2019	Impact Theory	YouTuber	M	Medical doctor, psychiatrist and brain disorder specialist	Mental health
AVI06	2023	Zoe Science and Nutrition Podcast	Physics and tech (CEO of Zoe)	M	Medical doctor, physician	General well-being
AVI08	2022	Baha’i Blog	Museologist/English lit	F	Clinical psychologist, Mental health professional	Mental health
AVI10	2022	Peter Attia MD	Neuroscientist/academic	M	Medical doctor, physician	Physical health
AVI16	2022	Beaumont Health	Family doctor/ass. professor	F	Medical doctor, infectious disease specialist	Physical health
AVI19	2024	Nature Podcast	Senior Commentator	F	Researcher, Professor at the Institute Gustave Roussy, Paris	Physical health
AVI21	2018	Metabolic Health Summit	Co-Founder and CEO, Metabolic Health Initiative	F	Medical doctor, psychiatrist	Nutrition
AVI23	2023	ZOE Science & Nutrition Podcast	Physician (physics)	M	Researcher, nutrition scientist	Nutrition
AVI26	2023	The National Library of Patient Rights and Advocacy	Storyteller, senior member of The National Library of Patient Rights and Advocacy	F	Nutrition specialist, registered dietitian	Nutrition

The IRs from the second subset display diverse professional backgrounds with medical, entrepreneurial and/or communicative competence, different from the IRs of the first subset, all of whom are journalists working for broadcasting television channels. This heterogeneity in context may point to divergent attitudes in questioning IEs, depending on their professional background, experience in science communication and context of the interviews. Indeed, IRs in broadcast interviews would be expected to comply with the rules of conduct illustrated in Section 3, while IRs in online digital media interviews may operate with a higher degree of independence. Recent scholarly studies, however, testify to the fact that even professional journalists in traditional media do not necessarily fully adhere to traditional rules of conduct, especially when they do not share the same lingua-cultural background of their IEs on sensitive topics of international relevance, such as wars and geo-political issues (Cavalieri & Facchinetti, 2024; Facchinetti, 2023, 2025). Adopting a mixed-method approach and a comparative perspective, the study examines interviewers’ questioning practices across two science-popularization subsets—mainstream broadcast interviews and online digital media interviews—with particular attention to the extent to which interviewers reflect the interactional norms traditionally associated with news interviewing.

4.2. Methodology

The analysis of the data followed two stages. In the first stage, automatic extraction of the questions asked by IRs was carried out using the software SketchEngine. The text-type analysis tool was used to extract the different question types, and a subsequent filter was added to include only the questions occurring within turns with a true value for the tag attribute interviewer, that is, within the IRs’ turns. The unit of analysis here is therefore the question. This first step allowed for preliminary quantitative observations in each section of our dataset, bearing in mind the recommendations of the code of conduct for broadcast interviews. All frequencies were normalized per 1000 words and per individual text in order to account for differences in text length within the subsets, according to the following formula:

Normalized frequency = (n. of question type instances/individual text length) ∗ 1000

The second stage involved close reading of the selected interviews in each subsection. Qualitative analysis focused on the presence of engagement strategies in the IR’s turns. In particular, we focused on strategies that, while well-attested in popularizing discourse, have not been investigated from the perspective of the interviewer in dialogic speech events so far. Specifically, we decided to address the following:

−

Reference to personal experience and/or private life: this includes personal anecdotes about the IR’s personal or professional life, their own experience, their family’s or their patients’ in the case of medical practitioner IRs in the AVI subsection.

−

Overt opinion: grammatical expressions or evaluative lexical terms conveying the IRs opinion on the answers provided by the IEs.

−

Verbal expression of confirmation: overt expressions of agreement or backchanneling expressed through “yes,” “yeah.”

Indeed, the use of personal anecdotes has shown to create proximity with the public (Little, 2023). The expression of personal opinion regarding the topics discussed has been widely attested (Luzón, 2013; Scotto Di Carlo, 2014; Mattiello, 2019) to increase audience engagement, as well as to underline the importance of the content shared (Hyland, 2010). Finally, IR agreement may be interpreted as a further marker of the relevance of the knowledge discussed in the interview, as well as of the authority of the interviewed expert.

The two subsets inevitably differ along several dimensions, including the IRs’ professional role, media outlet, intended audience, degree of topic specialization and interview format. Rather than controlling for each of these variables independently, the present study considers them as characteristic features of two broader science-popularization contexts: mainstream broadcast journalism and online interviewing. This distinction reflects the study’s primary objective, namely to investigate whether different communicative environments are associated with different IR behaviors.

5. Data Analysis

Given the limited number of interviews included in each subset (10), the quantitative comparison is intended to be descriptive and exploratory rather than inferential. Table 4 shows the proportion breakdown for different types of questions in the two subsections, calculated on normalized frequencies per individual interview. The occasional choice questions were included in the closed category. Data testify to the fact that in both broadcast and online digital media interviews, open questions are favored, with similar proportions across the two subsets (51.61% vs. 51.89%). This is in line with a preference for open questions when IRs want to prompt dialogue and leave ground to the IE. This is unsurprising, bearing in mind the communicative role of this type of interview, where it is the IE that should lead the way on the topic to be popularized. In turn, statements occur slightly more often in the digital-media interview subset (19.95% and 22.16%), while closed questions are used more often in broadcast interviews (28.23% vs. 25.40%).

Table 4. Question types in the SciencePop sub-corpus.

TOT	Statements	Closed	Open
58.96	11.76	16.76	30.43	Broadcast interviews
100.00%	19.95%	28.43%	51.61%
36.13	7.71	9.1	19.41	Online interviews
100.00%	22.16%	25.40%	51.89%

Overall, however, it may be seen that the number of questions is higher in broadcast interviews than online digital media interviews. Normalized frequencies by subset rather than interview confirm a higher number of overall questions asked in broadcast interviews (23.12; 17.18; 9.03 vs. 19.15; 9.38; 8.38), with a resulting higher proportion of closed questions (34.83%) compared to per-interview normalization. More frequent use of closed questions may be due to a different type of audience. Broadcast interviews are aimed at the general public, and additional questions may be necessary to clarify aspects of the topic under discussion to the public. Closed questions may also be more often asked as follow-up questions to clarify specific points or ask for confirmation that what the IR—and as an extension, the public—has understood is correct.

In addition to aggregate frequencies, Table 5 and Table 6 below show per-interview counts, allowing readers to assess the normalized distribution of questioning strategies across each interview, the range of use of the different types of questions, as well as the proportions for each interview, in turn calculated on the normalized frequencies.

Table 5. Normalized frequencies and proportions for broadcast interviews.

Proportions (Normalized)				Normalized Frequencies
Statement	Closed	Open	TOT	Statement	Closed	Open	File
41.35%	27.57%	31.08%	7.11	2.94	1.96	2.21	TVI001
19.95%	36.07%	43.99%	7.32	1.46	2.64	3.22	TVI002
18.81%	34.29%	46.90%	4.52	0.85	1.55	2.12	TVI011
0.00%	72.69%	27.31%	4.76	0.00	3.46	1.30	TVI012
18.74%	43.78%	37.48%	6.03	1.13	2.64	2.26	TVI013
16.67%	0.00%	83.33%	5.28	0.88	0.00	4.40	TVI014
21.72%	13.06%	65.22%	13.17	2.86	1.72	8.59	TVI017
11.96%	43.84%	43.84%	2.76	0.33	1.21	1.21	TVI019
2.87%	41.25%	55.87%	3.83	0.11	1.58	2.14	TVI020
28.54%	0.00%	71.46%	4.17	1.19	0.00	2.98	TVI026
19.95%	28.43%	51.61%	58.96	11.76	16.76	30.43	Total

Table 6. Normalized frequencies and proportions for online interviews.

Proportions (Normalized)				Normalized Frequencies
Statement	Closed	Open	TOT	Statement	Closed	Open	File
5.88%	23.52%	70.58%	6.24	0.36	1.47	4.41	AVI003
6.12%	24.48%	69.38%	6.01	0.36	1.47	4.18	AVI005
35.71%	30.95%	33.33%	4.97	1.77	1.54	1.66	AVI006
33.33%	16.66%	50.00%	0.86	0.29	0.14	0.43	AVI008
40.00%	20.00%	40.00%	2.32	0.97	0.48	0.97	AVI010
33.33%	30.00%	46.66%	3.08	1.03	0.61	1.44	AVI016
0.00%	14.28%	85.71%	2.97	0.00	0.42	2.55	AVI019
25.00%	0.00%	75.00%	1.56	0.39	0.00	1.17	AVI021
41.17%	35.29%	23.52%	5.03	2.07	1.78	1.18	AVI023
15.38%	38.46%	46.15%	3.09	0.47	1.19	1.43	AVI026
22.16%	25.40%	51.89%	36.13	7.71	9.1	19.42	Total

Proportions show that for eight interviews in the TVI subset and nine in the AVI subset, open questions are equal or higher in percentage than closed questions, which are however heavily favored in TVI012 and TVI013. On the other hand, two interviews in the TVI subset and one in the AVI subset do not contain closed questions at all. All interviews in both subsets include open questions, whereas one interview per subset does not include statements. IRs in both subsets show a tendency to use multiple types of questions in their interviews; however, the difference in both frequencies and proportions suggests very high variability in the amount and type of questions asked. Indeed, sample standard deviation scores for each type of question in the two subsets appear to confirm high variability for each type of question, as may be seen in Table 7 below.

Table 7. Means and sample standard deviation scores.

Online Expert Interviews			Broadcast Interviews
Statement	Closed	Open	Statement	Closed	Open
0.77	0.9	1.94	1.18	1.68	3.04	Average
0.68	0.64	1.35	1.02	1.1	2.17	Sample standard deviation

The means were calculated on the basis of the normalized frequencies, and due to the small sample, a sample standard deviation score was calculated. For both subsets, the SD score appears to be very high, suggesting high variability, as could be expected in a dialogic communicative event where the completeness and accuracy of IE’s answer may influence the behavior of the IR.

In Section 5.1 and Section 5.2, we illustrate our findings from the two subsets, focusing particularly on the engagement strategies mentioned in Section 4, since our analysis shows that IRs in both broadcast and online digital media interviews rely on them, despite the traditional rules of conduct illustrated in Section 3.

5.1. Focus on Broadcast TV Interviews

The results of the analysis (see Table 5) reveal a clear predominance of open questions, which account for 51.61% of the total. Closed questions are the second-most frequent category (28.43%), whereas statements occur less frequently, representing 19.95% of the dataset.

The structure and content of the questions testify to a clear intent to speak for the benefit of the public. Indeed, all questions leave floor to clarification, starting from the opening one, which generally introduces the topic for the audience’s understanding:

(7)

We better just lay out our terms what we’re talking about, first of all. So, what is ultra-processed food? (TVI011)

Overall, when an open format is used, the question is aimed at defining/clarifying the subject itself (“What is X?”) for the general public, before moving into details. When a closed question is exploited, the IR largely asks the IE’s opinion, as in (8) and (9):

(8)

You have described the heart as a very simple mechanism, you say that it is a bag made of muscle, the simplest of pumps. Is that really the way you see it? (TVI001)

(9)

What do you think is the most important single thing that we can do this January to improve our health? (TVI020)

In turn, prefatory statements are exploited to comment on the IE’s previous reply, resorting to the IR’s personal experiences and opinion, so as to lead up to the next question where the IR invites the IE to add information and suggestions for the benefit of the audience, as in (10):

(10)

Statement: Yeah. And I think what actually appeals to me about what you’re saying and this slide you showed earlier is that it doesn’t have to be really sophisticated. I think lots of people do want to eat more plants but can feel a bit put off by the thought of being able to come up with a quick easy meal for a weekday evening that’s filling and satisfying and doesn’t have lots of elements but is still vegetarian.

Question: Is that something you find and are there any kind of principles you would offer up to people who want to get more plants in but feel a bit intimidated by it all? (TVI020)

Example (10) also exhibits direct involvement of the IR in the dialogue, with a clear expression of his point of view (“I think,” “what appeals to me”). This is not in line with the general rules of conduct for professional journalists illustrated in Section 3, which emphasize the importance of the lack of involvement of the IRs, as well as of their neutrality to the topics under discussion. Rather, this pattern reflects the IR’s attempt to participate actively in the discourse, co-constructing meaning with the IE, contributing to confirming what was shared by the IE and reinforcing a dialogic model.

Overall, our finding confirms that the diversified types and aims of journalistic interviews necessarily affect the discursive flow and the dialogical moves of the interlocutors, particularly when it comes to IRs, leading to a less restrictive adherence to the rules of conduct on neutrality and lack of involvement in such environments as the one of science popularization.

Indeed, all the data from this subset show that the IRs are personally involved in the conversation, as illustrated in Table 8.

Table 8. Personal involvement in subset 1.

TVI	Personal Reference/Private Life	Opinion	Expressions of Confirmation
TVI001	+	+	+
TVI002	+	+	+
TVI011	+	+	+
TVI012	+	+	+
TVI013	+	+	−
TVI014	+	−	+
TVI017	−	+	+
TVI019	−	+	+
TVI020	+	+	+
TVI026	+	+	+

All interviews exhibit at least two of the three features of personal involvement under scrutiny, with six out of ten even showing the IRs’ involvement in all three of them. Reference to personal experience can be exemplified by the following:

(11)

Well it’s great great to have you here this has come at the right time in my life because I‘m going through a sort of radical dietary change, so I’m absolutely fascinated by the ideas in your book and what you’re saying. (TVI011)

Example (11) exhibits the evaluative adjective “great” indicating opinion and reference to the IR’s personal life and experience of being on a diet with repeated resort to the subject “I.”. Personal opinion is expressed in (12) as well via the mental verb “think,” which is largely used through the data, along with “appeals to me”:

(12)

I really didn’t think I could learn anything new, yeah, and I learned some really interesting new things in here. (TVI026)

Personal opinion is also conveyed by means of modal verbs, like the semi-modal “I dare say” in (13):

(13)

I dare say just as a final thought it gave you an even deeper understanding of what your patients are going through. (TVI001)

Overall, throughout the data, overt opinion is expressed via (a) mental verbs like “I think” and “I wonder,” “I believe,” “I (would) assume,” (b) modal forms, be they verbs (“should,” “need”), nouns (“guess”), adjectives (“sure”) or adverbs (“really”), and (c) connotated words and phrases like “I’m fascinated,” “I’m glad,” and “I would assume,” as in (14):

(14)

I would assume that ultra-processed food is a relatively new thing. (TVI011)

Finally, verbal expressions of confirmation are conveyed largely via “yeah,” “yes,” “right”:

(15)

Yeah, so you know that’s a bigger question isn’t it. (TVI011)

(16)

Right now I know the answer to this. (TVI013)

Overall, our corpus data lead us to envisage that when interviewing experts with the aim of sharing scientific content with the general public, the IR gets fully involved in the topic under discussion and acts as a layperson who is interested in knowing, learning, and understanding more, just like the general public might want to.

5.2. Focus on Online Digital Media Interviews

As in the broadcast interview sub-corpus, these data show a clear predominance of open-ended questions, which account for more than half of the total questions (51.89%), followed by closed questions (25.4%) and statements functioning as prompts or assertions (22.16%).

The prevalence of open-ended questions confirms an interview style oriented towards eliciting expansive, narrative-driven responses rather than precise or constrained information. This tendency is consistent with a conversational and informal interactional frame, where the IR often adopts the role of an interested layperson rather than that of a scientific mediator. Open questions may thus serve to encourage experts to explain concepts in their own terms, increasing accessibility. The relatively high proportion of statements is also noteworthy.

Closed questions, while present, are less frequent. Their more limited use suggests that precision-oriented questioning, often associated with journalistic practices such as fact-checking or clarification, is not a primary goal in this context. Instead, the interviews seem to prioritize engagement over the systematic exploration of scientific content.

Overall, questions indicate that online digital media interviews tend to favor an exploratory and conversational questioning style, which contributes to enhancing audience engagement.

With reference to the IRs’ personal involvement, the IRs appear to not maintain a neutral stance or limit themselves to asking questions. Indeed, their approach is non-neutral, as they intervene through verbal expressions of confirmation, articulate their own viewpoints, and frequently include references to their personal experience, as summarized in Table 9:

Table 9. Personal involvement in subset 2.

AVI	Personal Reference/Life	Opinion	Expressions of Confirmation
AVI003	+	+	+
AVI005	+	+	+
AVI006	+	+	+
AVI008	+	+	+
AVI010	+	−	+
AVI016	+	+	+
AVI019	−	+	−
AVI021	+	+	+
AVI023	+	+	+
AVI026	+	+	+

As shown above, nine out of ten interviews include references to the IRs’ own lived experience, providing information related to their personal background.

All IRs but one engage the IEs by making explicit reference to their own personal experience, at times using it as a springboard for further questions. Personal anecdotes are a well-attested strategy in science popularization, with studies suggesting that experts use them to engage with their audience and build trust (e.g., Luzón, 2013; Caliendo, 2014). Most studies were, however, carried out on either written content or monologues. Our data show that this strategy is also used by IRs in dialogic events, as may be seen in the examples below.

(17)

You know, and I am one of them, you know, I eat everything. I’m actually in a very busy schedule right now, I work seven days a week and I don’t have time to cook or do anything absolutely. My finances are not in the best state, so I’m just either looking to save money, I am looking to try to eat better, but I don’t have the time. (AVI026)

In this turn, the IR talks about her own experience, but she prompts the expert into providing tips for healthy eating on a low income. This is a relatable occurrence for many people, and the anecdote both creates a connection with the audience and steers the conversation towards practical advice. A similar function is played in (18).

(18)

My dad actually just got his vaccine and the flu shot and he was probably walking with band-aids on both arms, you know, and I was like I need to get my booster, so and he did, he did really well, you know, he’s in his 70s and he he’s a soldier, I think he didn’t feel well for maybe a couple hours okay and then he was fine. (AVI016)

In (18), during a conversation on vaccine boosters, the IR, who is a medical doctor, in addition to mentioning his own patients, talks about his father’s experience with the flu vaccine. Again, this personal anecdote may highlight the safety of vaccines and boosters through a relatable experience for many members of the audience—aging parents—and reassuring them with a positive outcome.

In addition to the references to their personal experience, 9 IRs out of 10 enrich the dialogic space expressing their personal opinion on what the experts are saying. Similarly to broadcast interviews, the range of linguistic resources varies across the interviews, with a preference for mental verbs (e.g., I think) and evaluative adjectives (e.g., incredible, compelling), as testified to in (19) and (20):

(19)

I think it’s going to make a huge difference in reducing the severity of the fall and winter searches. (AVI016)

(20)

I’ve actually read that article that you wrote on Psychology Today and it’s a pretty incredible article. (AVI021)

Here, the IR comments on the IE’s previous turn, both expressing her opinion on the discussed topic and therefore stressing the scientific value of the IE’s content, while in (20) the IR compliments the article written by the IE, again establishing her as an authority in the field and highlighting the value of her research. This confirms previous studies that have traced personal opinions and evaluations of research findings as a common strategy employed by experts in popularization discourse (e.g., Luzón, 2013) for the purpose of audience engagement. Indeed, IRs, who are in many cases experts themselves, may contribute to highlighting the value of the scientific content illustrated in the interviews and to maintaining their listeners’ attention through positive evaluation.

The intention to maintain an informal communicative structure, open to dialogue and less tightly organized than the traditional model of semi-structured interviews (which tends to be more rigid), is also constructed through the IRs’ confirmation of the guest’s contributions. This is accomplished through explicit agreement, as in (21), which also includes a clear expression of the IRs opinion on the matter under discussion, and (22).

(21)

I agree and I feel like headlines of that sort which have come up recently around various dietary interventions—we won’t go there, at least not for the time being—are nothing short of criminal. (AVI010)

(22)

I 100% agree. Yeah, we’ve got some great dietitians speaking at the conference we’ve got a great scientific poster session. (AVI021)

Backchannelling expressions are also used to signal interest in what is being said: as pointed out before, expressions like “yes,” “yeah,” “absolutely,” “well,” “mhm-mhm,” and “right,” are used to show solidarity and agreement to what is shared with the audience.

6. Discussion

Data analysis suggests that science-popularization interviews operate outside the traditional boundaries of the journalist code of conduct due to the peculiarities of the genre, whose ultimate goal is to ensure accessibility and understandability of scientific content that may be unfamiliar to the audience.

A higher number of closed questions in the broadcast interview subset may be related to the channel of communication and its audience. Broadcast interviews are usually addressed to a very broad generalized audience, so scientific content needs to be recontextualized to be accessible to as many people as possible. A relatively high use of closed questions in the broadcast interviews, which steer IEs to more precise answers, may have the purpose of clarifying potentially ambiguous statements on the part of the IRs, to summarize the IEs’ previous turns, or to translate content into clear behavioral guidelines for improved health. In turn, online digital media interviews are published online on channels that are mostly dedicated to various aspects of health and science, so the IRs may assume more familiarity with the topics discussed. A reduced need for clear-cut answers may have resulted in a smaller number of closed questions, with open questions being favored in order to allow the IE to navigate the topic of their expertise more freely.

Both subsets of the corpus show that personal anecdotes, opinions and expressions of confirmation and agreement are frequently used by IRs. This suggests that science-popularization interviews are managed very differently from traditional broadcast interviews, with a more informal style aimed at maintaining engagement and enhancing the connection between the scientific knowledge discussed and concrete implication for people’s health and well-being. Indeed, as already mentioned, employing personal anecdotes is a recognized engagement strategy in science-popularization discourse.

Relying on personal anecdotes is a well-attested strategy in monologic texts (Little, 2023; Gotti, 2014; Luzón, 2013), but this study shows that IRs in both types of interview draw on their personal or professional life to link the topic under discussion to relatable experiences for the audience. Particularly, many IRs in the online digital media subset are health experts or practitioners themselves, and their personal anecdotes may relate to their professional activity, which may contribute to reinforcing the authority and trustworthiness of IEs’ claims.

In traditional journalism, which includes broadcast interviews, IRs are discouraged from sharing their own opinions on the topics discussed, but in our data, nine IRs out of ten in both subsets explicitly shared their—positive—opinions about the scientific knowledge and recommendations discussed in the interviews. Sharing opinions and evaluating scientific content has also been already identified as an engagement strategy. In the case of IRs, it stresses the scientific weight of research as well as the positive implications for people’s health, lending more credibility to the expert and to scientific content (Hyland, 2010). Finally, expression of confirmation is often conveyed through backchannels and often overlaps with evaluation of research, as markers of confirmation may be followed by expressions of agreement or that stress the importance of the topics discussed.

These findings lead one to ponder whether successful science communication relies less on formal journalistic conventions and more on the strategic use of interactional resources that enhance clarity and audience engagement. Hence, interviewing practices in science popularization may be flexible, context-sensitive, and less governed by fixed rules.

Undoubtedly, the present study calls for further investigation and would profit from additional validation of these results, since our dataset is small, with 10 interviews per subsection that show high variability in the use of different types of questions, and purposive selection does not make our results adequately generalizable. Having no access to audience reception of the individual interviews also prevents us from correlating our results with increased comprehensibility on the part of the audience.

7. Conclusions

Our results intend to contribute to shedding light both on science-popularization discourse and on interview discourse by addressing spoken interviews, a type of dialogic communication that is still understudied. The analysis seems to show that in broadcast interviews with science experts, IRs appear not to apply traditional rules of conduct in science-popularization events, but focus instead on audience engagement and supporting recontextualization of scientific content. In turn, similarly to IRs in online digital media interviews, they help frame scientific knowledge to laypeople with personal anecdotes, clarify content through relatable experiences, and explicitly show agreement through frequent use of backchannels and agreement responses. A higher number of closed questions in the broadcast-interview IR subset, which again does not conform to the traditional code of conduct for IRs in traditional journalism, may be due to a need for added clarification in events oriented to a broader audience, even though open questions are overall favored in the subset.

Though providing a preliminary, exploratory perspective on the comparison of interview conduct between interviews carried out in different contexts, our data show that interviews aimed at science popularization require more in-depth scrutiny as a subgenre within the broader category of interviews, regardless of the context in which they appear or the background of the interviewer. Indeed, additional research would also be of help for training programs, which could include the adaptive communicative skills highlighted in our results for the benefit of the general public.