Sci Comm: The Next Generation

Hi everyone! As always it's been a while. Sorry. There's been a lot of conferences lately and I'm currently house hunting, which means this place and my PhD have both been feeling a little neglected. First I'd like to congratulate NASA for another successful shuttle launch today and second, I have an exciting new post for you.

This is all about a one day conference that was held here in Cambridge last Wednesday for a select group of people from sicence media, predominantly including journalists and film makers, all of whom have extensive and well developed online personas. Several of us from BlueSci where very honored to be asked to attend too, as the focus was squarely on the future. Where we at BlueSci, as aspiring science writers could take the field in the coming years.

The day was full of exciting and controversial bits of debate and we got to hear lots from many different view points about what science journalists should be doing and how we should be interacting with academics and the public. Here I have outlined the major topics discussed, more details are available elsewhere (see the end). Whilst I dod find some opinions difficult to agree with, it was interesting to hear what everyone had to say and I feel I have gained a lot from the experience.

Also I'll hopefully be posting again soon as following this conference I saw Simon Singh again, along with Ben Goldacre and Brian Cox on their Uncaged Monkeys tour here in Cambridge, so stay tuned for that.

The crest of Jesus College

What is the future of science media and science journalism in the 21st century with all of this new media and the shift of communications onto the Internet? This was the focus of a one-day conference hosted by John Cornwell at Jesus College, Cambridge.
 
The day took the form of a series of open discussions with two leaders providing focus to the discussion. After a warm welcome by John Cornwell, John Naughton opened the first session by discussing the opportunities and challenges involved in adopting new media. He focused on how newspapers have become news organisations, with the paper being one of many media products. Science journalism was effectively compared to a developing ecology where a few large dinosaurs are being replaced by a myriad army of journalistic, blogging termites with a corresponding increase in productivity. The reduction is media size was also highlighted; people buy tracks not albums, read stories not papers and posts not blogs. He asked the questions: How do we add value to a story amidst such competition? And who pays for good journalism when so much of it is free online?

SOS: Save our science - Good Science or good publicity?

So this is the second part of my ramblings, and probably the most important bit. This part is all about accurately reporting on science in the media. I’m going to write about science stories that have got people talking, the ones that actually make it into the mainstream. I’m going to write about them in a pragmatic (and possibly occasionally cynical) manner that cuts to the truth of the matter without all the overblown revolutionary claims that are usually applied to these stories.

It seems appropriate to start with this one; I should say before I begin that I do strongly believe in NASA and hope they get the shuttle program back on track soon. But as far as overblowing things goes, I thought this was pretty good.

(Ed. Since this whole story is rapidly collapsing into random mud slinging I would like to point out that this post was written to highlight the way in which science can be distorted by the media, and is not meant as a personal affront to anyone directly involved).

Good science or good publicity?

Good Publicity

Big news! NASA has found aliens living in California (like we didn’t already know) and everyone is getting excited that we’re not alone in the universe. But is it really that big a deal, or has NASAs publicity department just been very clever in distracting everyone from the fact they still haven’t managed to get the shuttle off the ground?

To start with, I’m going to assume that the science underlying all of this is actually correct, and we’ll look at the actual implications and meanings of such a discovery and how it can be blow out of all proportion by the press. Later, I will briefly look at why this work seems to have very little sound scientific foundation and does not really demonstrate anything important.