Using 'new' internet media

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Podcasting, blogging, 'Web 2.0' etc offer the potential to engage very wide audiences about science. How can we use them effectively?

Members: 5
Latest Activity: Aug. 24, 2009

According to a recent report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (2008), 87% of internet users in the US go online to find out about science.

With the explosion of "user generated" content on the internet, the traditional media are no longer the gatekeepers of mass communication (and as a result, "You" were Time magazine's person of the year in 2006!).

"New media" tools such as blogging, podcasting and social networks (like this one!) offer the potential to engage very wide audiences about science. But how can we use these tools effectively - or even just find out how to get started? This group is the place to ask questions, share ideas and experiences.

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Comment by James Logan on August 24, 2009 at 1:43pm: Yeah - that's a good point. I don't talk about any results until they are published - still, you can write about what you are doing when it's appropriate.

Comment by Jon Copley on August 24, 2009 at 1:25pm: Hi Andrew - yes, the institution where I work has started using Twitter (twitter.com/nocsnews) to post links to its news stories and other outreach activities. I've also used Twitter myself for outreach from a marine science expedition, but we ran into an interesting snag: if I tweeted what we actually found, with some journalists following the feed, it would blow our chances of publishing our findings in Nature (whose policy is to reject papers that have received any pre-publication publicity). Nature recently published an editorial in praise of scientists blogging, yet their policy on this point remains unchanged...

Comment by James Logan on August 24, 2009 at 11:35am: Yup - I use Twitter a lot (@scientist_no_1) - many official organisations (e.g. New Scientist, Wellcome Trust, Natural History Museum, BBSRC, newspaper science correspondents, etc) post "tasters" of science stories with links to full stories. Other "independent" scientists, like me, post their own sciency diaries, etc. It is a very good way of keeping up to date with scientific stories and communicating with other scientists and science communicators - as well as non-scientist members of the public...

Comment by Andrew Sier on August 24, 2009 at 11:31am: Has anyone tried using Facebook or Twitter for science communication? I have only recently joined Facebook to find out what it is all about. I am keen to explore its potential for communicating about science, but haven't quite figured out how that might be done. Everyone is talking about Twitter, but again, I am not really sure how it might be harnessed for science communication purposes. It would be really good to explore ideas via a group like this as I can't help feeling we are missing a trick.

Comment by Claire Ainsworth on January 20, 2009 at 2:48pm: I've just added a video and a blog post about the Pulse Project, an online source of science lectures delivered by academics. Do go and have a look!