Navigating the Digital Cosmos: Evolution of Popular Science Discourse

The importance of systematizing the goals and trends of the development of the popular science discourse is essential for deep understanding of the specifics of discourse structures, the dynamic aspect of the functioning of linguistic means, and the internal mechanisms of communication. Popular science sphere of communication is acquiring new features of virtuality, globality, mosaic structure and social orientation, which are essential in fulfilling its functions in modern society. Based on the examination of 92 podcasts, the study deals with podcasting research identifying typical characteristics of the podcast and factors contributing to the spread of podcasting in the popular scientific hypermedia communication. The survey showed that increasing popularity of the podcast in the popular scientific sphere is explained by several factors. First, informing the user becomes more accessible, quicker, and easier. Secondly, the listener takes part in interpersonal communication not with a virtual author, but with a real person, gets the opportunity to make his own conclusions based on sounding speech, which is more expressive, emotional, and has a strong impact on the addressee. Thirdly, most podcasts are interviews and discussions, i.e., dialogues and polylogues, which facilitate the perception and processing of new information making it more structured by means of questions, paraphrasing, exemplification, clarifications, etc. Analysis of the Nature publication podcast helped single out structural features that allow a podcast to function in a hypermedia environment as an independent multimodal node. Investigating the links of this node with others, it is possible to construct an entire open network consisting of multimodal texts, in the perception of which several perceptual modalities are engaged. Links are designed in the form of hyperlinks, repetitions of the headlines, the title of the journal, research keywords, names of scientists, names of scientific institutions, forming a hypernetwork with nodes of the first and second levels, the references to which come from each podcast. The conclusions about the emergence of new virtual environment for intercultural interaction and cooperation were made. Openness of the hypermedia discourse, the absence of a rigid hierarchy, the orientation toward interpersonal and specialized communication contribute not only to the global spread of innovative technologies that facilitate virtual communication, but also change the structural characteristics of the popular science discourse itself.