This paper explores and examines how science museums with nuclear technology exhibits and Promotion Centers at Nuclear Power Plant Sites, both referred to here as “Nuclear Museum,” deviate the concept of Modern Museum into something different yet already accepted by the public. Through examining characteristics of science communication for Nuclear Museum, it attempts to locate Nuclear Museum as inevitably rhetorical, not as a warehouse, with noting that it is subject to acting upon audience in order to permeate its mission and message, while changing itself and its contents.

Furthermore, this paper provides two primary reasons for the deviation. First, it argues that the exhibits at Nuclear Museum immerse visitors into the landscape of industrial city wherein nuclear technology is inherently essential. Second, it argues that exhibits at Nuclear Museum attempt to allow visitors to see the invisible, radioactivity, through installations such as reactor models and others, and at the same time, that these installations urge them to accept the risk of nuclear technology without coercion. By critically interpreting materiality embedded in the installation at Nuclear Museum, this paper concludes that Nuclear Museum has to stop its “enlightenment” as civic museum, as it is interested solely in commercial promotion of nuclear science and technology, not in serving to the public interests.

Public speaking skills are considered as an important ability in today’s society; however, it is not easy to make persuasive speeches. This research aims to identify characteristics of persuasive Japanese public speaking by analyzing Bibliobattle speeches. Bibliobattle is a social book review game, where each participant gives a five-minute speech on his/her favorite book in an attempt to persuade as many people as possible to read it, and the best book is elected based on the vote of all participants. Using speeches from All-Japan university Bibiliobattle tournament, including 25 speeches from the final games, 25 from the semi-final games, and five beginners’ speeches, we analyzed the kind of speech that can gain support from the audience, lead the vote, and succeed in persuasion. An analysis of the content of and strategies employed in the speeches was made based on the two concepts of “context sharing” (Yamaji et al., 2014) and “metadiscourse theory” (Hyland, 2005, etc.). Context sharing is a kind of speaker’s action when it attempts to form a common comprehension base for facilitating the audience to accept the contents presented by the speaker later. For that purpose, the speaker makes mention of common experiences or recognitions shared with the audience in the speech’s introduction section. Metadiscourse refers to interpersonal strategies for organizing a discourse or the speaker’s stance toward either the content or audience. From the analysis, the following results can be drawn. In the data from the final games, i.e., from the most persuasive speeches, most speakers tried to conduct context sharing in the introduction section and developed their speeches using the shared contents. The speakers also used metadiscourse expressions for persuading the audience effectively. It may be possible to apply these findings to types of public speaking other than Bibliobattle.