Scientific Divulgation Through Social Media Times
Written by: Santiago Andres
During the months of July and August, a ship with over 30 researchers from CONICET and other public universities from Argentina lived on a ship, while conducting research off the Argentine coast, near Mar del Plata. The research was executed with the help of Schmidt Ocean Institute, which provided the technology not only to extract living creatures from over 3,000 meters below water level (deeper than the size of the Eiffel tower), but livestream it to YouTube during the whole time.
The ship was filled with different specialists regarding marine biology, some specialized in species like mollusks, others specialized in geology to study the soil at 4,000 meters below sea level. All these researchers had different objectives for this, some of them regarding new species to discover and collect, others wanted to review the findings they had from previous expeditions through the collection of samples, but there was a common objective among all, and it was that scientific knowledge was spread around the country through their expeditions. One way of measuring this reach was achieving the highest peak of concurrent viewers in the livestream compared to other expeditions, which was around 800 to 900 viewers.
In the first days of the expedition, the livestream was averaging around 100 concurrent viewers. Numbers that were neither low nor something that would reach mainstream media. Until there was some kind of word-of-mouth generated through social media by content creators who talk about science, or even memes and social media posts showing impressive species such as the starfish with its famous ass that was shown everywhere (even in the New York Times).
Once the traction started, the livestream started averaging 10,000 concurrent viewers in the second week of the expedition. This did not stop there, but as these viewers started sharing with their families, friends, and peers the expedition, the concurrent viewers started increasing exponentially, reaching a peak of 92,000 concurrent viewers on the last day. This has caused not only huge internet exposure for all researchers, but also created interest among young people for marine biology and science in general. Videos arose on social media of kids playing to capture sea species, like in the livestream, or even conversations between youth and their parents on what to study to be like these researchers.
Leaving aside the scientific impact that an expedition like this has, like discovering 40 new marine species or reaching almost 4,000 meters below sea level, the media impact the expedition had was crucial for this specific moment in Argentina’s history. While these 30 researchers were living on the ship and showing their findings to millions of Argentinians, there was a group of scientists striking against the cut of funding of the government towards science. Due to the decrease in budget, more than 1,400 scientists left their jobs (they were fired, or they left because of the really low salaries).
The expedition concluded with over 18 million total views in their livestreams, with new species discovered, and hundreds of samples taken to further research over the next years, but most importantly, it was an amazing opportunity to showcase how scientific divulgation can be amplified by social media, and also answer to the question president Milei asked back in 2023 when talking about funding towards science: “What is their productivity? What have the scientists created?”
For more information, you can refer to the following links:
https://www.infobae.com/politica/2025/08/03/con-un-paro-y-vigilia-se-reactiva-la-protesta-en-el-conicet-en-medio-del-furor-por-el-streaming-submarino/
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/world/americas/argentina-starfish-milei-conicet.html
