View From the Cupola: Caroline Smith

December 14, 2018 • By Caroline Smith

When we launched Seeker Universe a little over a year ago, we also established an exciting partnership with the ISSInternational Space Station National Lab, as a way to lean in on the content that is most popular with Seeker’s online viewers. Of our more than 200 million monthly video views, roughly a third are space related. Our audience just can’t get enough of space.

The world today has a deficit of relatable science communication. What currently exists is frequently too technical, dry, or lofty, and public perception is often that science must be nerdy. At Seeker, we focus on science, curiosity, and innovation in a way that inspires and entertains. We humanize the world of science, shedding light on the minds that push boundaries and invent bold new solutions to make our world better. The public has an appetite to understand how the world works, and we feed that in a way that is relatable and attainable.

Working with the ISS National Lab, we are able to bring untold space stories to life across a variety of content formats, including short, socially-optimized video, mid-form documentaries, and re-publishing of articles from Upward. Our storytelling arc needs to capture audiences specific to the platform where they’re consuming Seeker content. Across the board, regardless of platform, viewers are keen to understand how the work onboard the ISS will directly influence life on Earth. In this issue of Upward, for example, readers can learn about how the ISS is improving our ability to make advanced materials and to transmit data using exotic optical fibers, which will have a substantial impact here on Earth.

Drawing this connection to the real world is particularly important, because when it comes to space, our audience is particularly fascinated by how activities in space affect our everyday lives. They want to understand how space exploration affects them today. Our partnership with the ISS National Lab allows us to profile science experiments in space in a way that makes very clear the impact they will have on the Earth—on the lives of our viewers today and the lives of their children.

In addition, one of our goals at Seeker is to inspire the next generation of leaders in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). To do this, we’ve made a conscious effort to broaden the public’s awareness of how every aspect of our world can be viewed through a lens of science. In this issue of Upward, several stories focus on the ways that the ISS National Lab is addressing the urgency of supporting science literacy in today’s youth.

Read on to learn more about the current, relevant research going on in space, and to see more of what our audience at Seeker craves, visit www.seeker.com.