• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.14 no.10
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• pp.399-406
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• 2016

As the paradigm of science education has been changing from offering scientific knowledge to 'Public Understanding', ways of communication through visual tools in science education has become increasingly important. In this study, I considered 'Pataphor' as a visual tool for scientific communication, and suggested its functions and forms. By studying the notion of pataphor, which was used an overlapped image of virtual reality and reality in literature, in the perspective of contents design, I defined 'Pataphor' as a visual way of deducing or making the metaphysical similarity with the reality based on scientific imagination. Also, I deduced the functions of pataphor as a visual mediacy and suggested its types as "Pataphor of duplicated reality", "Pataphor of reflected reality", "Pataphor of metamorphosed reality", and "Pataphor of artificial reality". Through this study, it was found to be necessary to study in detail the ways to use pataphor depending on contents producing media's and learners' awareness process of contents so there will be a follow-up study on the ways to use pataphor.