The task that was set required the students to produce analyses of media
archives on contested science topics during a day-long activity where they
worked in small groups of 4-8 participants. In the online seminar that we
examined there were nine students as sometimes groups need to be
re-organized to make sure every group had comparable numbers. After students
individually examined the archive of newspaper articles and videos (provided in
course materials) and performed a content analysis of this media archive, they
sent an opening statement (about 250 words) to the online seminar. They
addressed the following questions in their opening statements:What is the nature of science portrayed by the different
1. announcements?
2. How does this impact on the coverage and the development of the story?
3. Does this change over time?
4. What is the target audience for the video material?