ABSTRACT
As digital technologies rapidly evolve, they change how information is presented, transmitted, and shared, and concomitantly the ways in which semiotic resources (e.g., language, images, and hyperlinks) are used to construe meaning. While digital media is having a pervasive impact on the way science news is presented (Trench, 2007, 2008), the studies of online science news, however, are relatively rare compared to other types of online discourses (e.g., Djonov, 2008; Knox, 2007, 2009a; Lemke, 2002; Tan, 2011; Zhang & O'Halloran, 2012), despite growing concerns about the nature of science journalism today:
Precisely how, and to what extent, the internet is changing the characteristics of science news is deserving of our close attention. Even those who are dismissive of the celebratory claims being made about its potential for creating new spaces for “public engagement with science” need to recognize that it is here to stay, and that it promises to dramatically recast science journalism’s familiar norms and values in unanticipated ways. (Allan, 2009, p. 162)
