User:Nafrow/sandbox/Cienauta

Cienauta
Type of site
Blog
Available inPortuguese
Founded2007
Headquarters
OwnerJalton Pinho
URLcienauta.blogspot.com
CommercialNo
RegistrationNot Required
Current statusActive

History

edit

In May 2007, the Cienauta blog, initially named Projeto Ciência, focused its activities primarily on the perimeter of the city of Rio de Janeiro with regard to images of urban fauna and flora, among others mixed with questions in science, dissemination of scientific book, environmental film show, etc. The first post of the Project took place on 05/27/2007.

Cienauta flourishes in a time of still intense creative restlessness in the blogosphere, in which many internet users ventured into new genres of writing, taking advantage of the competition of various blog creation tools in the Brazilian scenario and creating different types of partnerships between blogs. In turn, his record breaks through some aspects of the journalistic genre such as the review, the note and the report.

Its content covers environmentalism, the exhibition of high school and elementary school experiments, neuroscience, visits to university campuses -inside and outside Rio de Janeiro, social sciences, indication and recording of scientific events and spaces and sometimes including a textual and/or photographic report of these events, TV programs in science, information resources in science and technology in general. Its evolution to the Cienauta blog (opening of the new phase) took place on 05/20/2016.

On August 10, 2014, it functionally expands itself into the city's geography by starting a persistent tak in science awareness by donating scientific publications in public spaces. The idea came from the perception that the promotion of commerce, services, religion or even party politics was usual in society, whether in the form of distribution of pamphlets, or eventually gifts, by interested individuals, occupying the public space. Interestingly, there was no visible and regular practice of donating items of literature focused on science to passers-by in this area.

The donation of publications (mostly books, magazines and scientific pamphlets) came from the elimination of works from the personal collection/of eventual collaborators and from duplicates discarded from scientific institutions and universities.


This activity started in the green leisure area located in Quinta da Boa Vista around the municipal Zoo and the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). The record of these incursions in different urban places was accumulated in his sub-blog Ciência no Ponto, later renamed to Cienauta-Pontos.

In its last years, the sub-blog was based on visiting bus stops in downtown, due to the presence of passenger queues, who were extinct or displaced. The massive relocation of bus stops in downtown was conducted by the local city hall to accommodate the making and start-up of Light Rail Transit (LRT) known locally as VLT.

The sub-blog was planned as a seasonal project because it was based on empirical experience to determine on which days and times there would be a greater presence of passengers at the points. The city hall's initiative caused some bus end points to be extinct and others relocated, causing their users to change their urban displacement strategies.

Thus, passengers chose to reduce their frequency at the remaining points or their waiting time at the intermediate points, making it impossible to plan the donation meetings sponsored by the blog, since this phase of urban transition. With that, the sub-blog Cienauta-Pontos came to an end on 09/23/2018.

The current digital scope of the main blog comprises collecting informational resources on Science and Technology in Brazil and around the world, one of its most active parts being the curation of links about news in S, T & I, embracing certain ecological and anthropological causes, in form of undersigned and public petitions and to highlight changes in legislation related to Science and Technology.

Context

edit

The policy of inclusion of sites in the posts always privileges bibliograchic and relational databases, courses, events and works in the public domain, of free download or free and open-source software. In many blog posts, the information organization format consists of offering a title of the publication of others able to download, the image of its cover or a digital illustration created to present the work to be downloaded, reference data such as size in pages and consumed disk space, as well as a link to download the document.

The blog is non- profit one and did never have funding from a legal or physical person other than the author himself. Likewise, it was a design option not to insert commercial advertisements as a way of not distracting or confusing the potential audience, also strengthening the public's understanding of the blog as an independent informational resource. His authorial nature and the option for the centrality of all his productive aspects in the figure of the blogger explains his contrast between active and resting phases, since digital and analog life often have their borders blurred.

The lack of pretension of the initial posts now gave way to a more systematic and professional position in the texts, alternating between reference and reports of experiences in the immersion in scientific culture, consolidating a new style of visual presentation and textual layout. This change was made possible by the Blogger platform, in terms of editing and managing its content, which in parallel offered new features to its older users over the years.

More creative improvements regarding the illustrations were put in motion behind the scenes, in the vast majority of the author's own creation and in the plan of action in society. There was also a change regarding the creative decision to compete in the visual record of the blog photos captured with cell phone cameras and better resolution images obtained from a semi-professional camera, fixing the latter as the definitive option, gradually abandoning the handmade appearance.

The concern with improving the framing and preparing photographic scenarios, researching fonts, prospecting for visual effects during the graphic evolution was not forgotten. Administrative management was better taken care of, establishing a routine to back up some blog data for prompt restoration as well as standardizing file names and creating procedures to deal with unused surplus creative material.

Other techniques of copyright protection of the images of the blog, in the years that passed, collaborated for less rude interventions in the inserted photos. The diversity of promotional material was also the result of experimentation with languages ​​and new low-cost supports, offering a whole new inventive horizon.

The blog gained development momentum in 2009 with the abundance of free scientific events, emergencies of recent cultural facilities and very diverse themes in the city, practically stable and low-cost logistics, with a wide, functional and predictable transport network. Likewise, the low population density around these facilities or the ignorance/disinterest of a large part of the population in visiting these spaces made the experience of visual recording safer from the probabilistic point of view of avoiding violence.

edit

Various periods in the blog's lifetime have spawned various logos. One of the most recurrent graphic symbols used was the one that gave rise to the possibility of creating a mascot, an elasmosaur called Elasmoestro, which continues to integrate the image of this information resource.

Campaigns

edit

The blog launched several campaigns to encourage visits to municipal and state parks in Rio de Janeiro by structuring a raffle of gifts to its visitors in the form of donating DVD movies with promotional bags from the blog. The initial objective was to stimulate the relationship between society and the environment in order to make the experience gratifying and lasting.

Institution of symbolic award

edit

Creation of the alternative award "Best Explanation", within an existing scientific event - Science, Technology and Innovation Fair of the State of Rio de Janeiro (FECTI). He started his role as an award-winner only from the 8th. edition, which took place at Quinta da Boa Vista, in the Imperial District of São Cristovão, although I had already visited the event since its 6th edition (2012). Scientific documentaries on DVD and Blu-ray were usually donated to winning exhibitors, coming from the disposal of the blog administrator's own video library. This practice ended in the 12th edition (2018).

Structure

edit

The current conception of the blog is organized into sections of posts, tabs, post archives, highlights, sub-blogs, nearby blogs with which it dialogues and social networks in which it is intentionally present.

Its portfolio of sub-blogs is distributed in:

- Cienauta Notícias – lists links to recent news on Science and Technology collected in various online newspapers and other news outlets;

- Cienauta-Robótica – archive of news links specialized in Robotics;

- Cienauta Parques Tecnológicos – gathers data from several Brazilian technology parks (name, address, telephone numbers, e-mails and websites);

- Cienauta Exposição Virtual – delivers the artistic-informative visual exhibition "Os Extintos - A Paleontologia Ilustrada";

- Cienauta Lentes – oriented to be a repository of images in Science, Technology and Innovation produced by Cienauta and released under the Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0);

- INCUCAR - Incubadora de Ciência e Arte – collection center for the distribution and enjoyment of digital didactic material in Science, Technology and Innovation, initially specialized in the production of images in PNG and SVG format;

- Cienauta Artigo-Ênfase – exposes scientific articles highlighted by Cienauta;

- Cienauta Homenageados – gathers links about people who stood out in Brazilian Science (in memoriam);

- Cienauta Periódicos Científicos Online - displays a table of online scientific journals, mostly Brazilian, containing the appropriate web locations, publishers and host institution

- Cienauta Ciencia Cidadã – connects initiatives on Citizen Science;

- Cienauta Memórias – groups sub-blogs and sections from previous Cienauta layouts.


Internally, the Cienauta blog forms tabs distributed in this way:

- Bibliotecas Digitais/Repositórios – displays digital libraries from universities and institutions in Brazil and abroad as well as software repositories;

- Campanhas – shows virtual campaigns whose theme involved Science and Technology as well as government documents;

- Mídia – brings information about scientific films in internet encyclopedias of collectively written content and video sharing platforms;

- Enciclopédias – works only alphabetically ordered encyclopedias;

- Espaços e Centros de Ciência – points Science Spaces and Centers located in Brazil and abroad;

- Instituições científicas – presents scientific corporations in Brazil and abroad;

- Jogos educativos – lists several websites concerning educational games;

- Máquinas de busca em ciência – presents several alternatives for information retrieval systems specialized in the scientific area;

- Prêmios/Concursos – displays most of the photo and video award websites, but reserves some room for other modalities such as projects and revealing personal talents;

- Projetos – lists projects developed around the world in Chemistry, Neuroscience, Conservationists, Genetics, Physics, Astronomy, Entrepreneurship, among others;


References

edit

Science, Technology and Innovation Fair of the State of Rio de Janeiro (FECTI)

Projeto Ciência Fact Sheet 2015 - Branching the science communication: Multimodal initiatives

edit