Alumnus wins prestigious science journalism award
Yunanto Utomo, an Indonesian science journalist, has been awarded a silver prize in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Kavli Science Journalism Awards.
Yunanto led a team of Indonesian journalists and graphic artists who created an online comic book style series called Virion. The three-part series, aimed at 11-14 year olds, describes the biology around the novel coronavirus which triggered the current global pandemic.
The series explains how coronaviruses were first identified, its impact on humans, and how science itself has been changing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The series includes an interactive game encouraging readers to devise the best strategy for developing a COVID-19 vaccine.
The series is Yunanto’s creative practice in journalism, and responded to the lack of information regarding COVID-19 for young audiences. The news game (the third episode of Virion) formed part of Yunanto’s master dissertation at Loughborough University London. In his dissertation, Yunanto compared the engagement and memory retention of news game and traditional text article.
Yunanto has recently completed his MSc in Digital Creative Media at Loughborough University London as part of the 2019-2020 cohort.
Congratulations to Yunanto.
The AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards honour professional journalists worldwide for distinguished reporting on the sciences, engineering, and mathematics. To find out more about the AAAS Kalvi Science Journalism Awards, please visit their website.
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