Haken analyzes how these emerging forms dissolve traditional boundaries between academia and the public while showing how they can still uphold the methodological standards of scientific practice. In doing so, she introduces the concept of “double reflexivity”: scientific content must not only be based on valid disciplinary methods, but its popular-cultural presentation must also be analytically transparent and methodologically grounded.

An empirical example is the project “Projektbiografien” from the CRC “Affective Societies.” This project developed formats such as scrollytelling and graphic novels to convey complex interdisciplinary research in accessible ways—without sacrificing analytical depth. Materials like field notes, interviews, and audio sequences are used both as sources of insight and as markers of academic credibility.

Haken argues that popular-cultural formats are not indicative of “low education” but are instead “widely accessible, aesthetically mediated, and creatively designed.” They help distinguish “real” scientific knowledge from so-called “alternative facts” and contribute to the ongoing redefinition of scientific authority in today’s mediatized society.