Framing science in the digital age: exploring the relationships between general, social media-specific, and research-specific news values and audience engagement with science news on Sina Weibo

Science news plays a key role in connecting scientific research with the public, shaping perceptions, and enhancing scientific literacy. This study distinguishes three types of news values for science news on social media, including general, social media-specific, and research-specific news values. Using 34,369 science news posts from Sina Weibo in China, we constructed a regression model based on a three-level framing structure to analyze the associations between different types of news values and audience engagement with science news on social media, with subgroup regressions conducted to examine heterogeneity across media contexts.

Results showed that although most news values were positively associated with audience engagement, the strength and direction of these associations differed across likes, comments, and shares. Based on these findings, the study discusses implications for understanding and constructing science news based on different news values in the Sina Weibo context. X.L. discloses support for the research of this work from the National Social Science Foundation of China [grant number 23BTQ058].

This work was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China through the project “Research on the Analysis and Evaluation of the Social Impact of Scientific Research Achievements from the Perspective of Public Trust” (Grant no. 23BTQ058). School of Government, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China Center for Computational Communication Research, Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai, China The authors declare no competing interests. This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

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Dai, X., Liu, X. & Tian, W. Framing science in the digital age: exploring the relationships between general, social media-specific, and research-specific news values and audience engagement with science news on Sina Weibo. Humanit Soc Sci Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-09465-1 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-09465-1