Post on 13-Aug-2015
THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE BLOGGINGAND #OPENSCILOGSPaige Brown Jarreau
FIRST-THINGS-FIRST: WHAT IS A BLOG?
• A piece of software / platform?• “a hierarchy of text, images, media objects and data, arranged
chronologically, that can be viewed in an HTML browser.”• Comments (?)
• The “unedited voice of a person” (?)
• “less formal, more conversational, often with no traditional reporting (but never without research), and aimed at a small but passionate audience.”
• Blog = an online tool for publishing one’s thoughts, stories, news, links, visual materials, etc. in an extended form, on an ongoing basis
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/whatmakesaweblogaweblog.html
Dave Winer, Scripting News
https://medium.com/@dankennedy_nu/blog-like-a-journalist-8a4acac100c0
Mike Licht (CC-BY)
THE BLOG RESISTS DEFINITION
“[B]logs are now diverse and ubiquitous, and have hit the mainstream.” – Mary Garden, Defining blog: A fool’s errand
or a necessary undertaking, Journalism 2012
The uses and genres of “web blogs” have become so diverse that they have become broadly a “socio-technical format, whose convenience and general utility support a variety of uses.” - Herring et al., Weblogs as a bridging
genre, 2005
WHAT IS SCIENCE BLOGGING?
• a blog featuring primarily content that disseminates, explains, reports, comments upon, investigates, aggregates or otherwise deals with science, scientific research, science communication, science policy, science in society and/or other science-related concepts or events (Wilkins, 2008).
WHERE HAVE WE COME FROM?
• Early 2000’s – Early blogging, ‘Fighting Pseudoscience’, Culture Wars, Dover Trial
• ~2008 – Diversification of blogging genres – ResearchBlogging
• 2011 – Rise of blog networks at traditional media organizations (Scientific American, Discover, PloS, etc.)
• 2012 – Social networks for community building
• Today – Blog as the writer’s 'home' online• More attention to the journalist /
blogger as 'personality‘ • ‘Need for Niche’
• Openness and Spreadability
• Open Access
• Spreadable and Creative Commons models
• Blogging styles that are conversational and open to feedback
TRENDS IN SCIENCE BLOGGING
Science bloggers are increasingly handing conversations and content over to others, as well as asking for feedback via social media.
• Rise of a science blog ecosystem
• Increasing role of science blogs and social networks (Twitter) in science communication and science news
500 recent tweets mentioning “SciLogs”
Conversations based on blog content have
moved to social media
“Today, quick updates, links etc. are done mainly on social media and
many bloggers use the traditional
blogging software only for longer, more thorough,
one could even say more ‘professional’
writing.”
– BoraZ, 2012
We can see different “communities” here
TRENDS IN SCIENCE BLOGGING
• Professionalization
• Science journalism
• Science blogs are where we are working out the kind of science, scientific publishing and science news we want in the future.
• Traditional functions• Debunking• Expert opinions• Media Criticism• Community building among scientists• Translation of scientific research
• New functions• Science journalism• Sources of science news • Curation• Critical analysis• Discussion of science missing from mainstream media• Opening up the science research process • Citizen science, etc.
• Adding value and advancing the conversation around scientific issues
xkcd.com/386/
"I spend way [emphasis] more time correcting misinformation
than I would like to." #MySciBlog
"SOME OF THESE SCIENCE BLOGGERS [...] THEY'RE BASICALLY
DOING WHAT A JOURNALIST DOESN'T EVEN HAVE TIME TO DO ANYMORE.“
- #MYSCIBLOG RESEARCH INTERVIEW
WHAT ARE WE BLOGGING ABOUT?
http://www.scilogs.com/from_the_lab_bench/science-blogging-got-comments/
Data from Merja Mahrt and Cornelius Puschmann:
44 bloggers at SciLogs.de
WHAT ARE WE BLOGGING ABOUT?
http://www.scilogs.com/from_the_lab_bench/science-bloggers-and-the-long-tail-of-science-writing/
Science bloggers and the long tail of science writing:
Bloggers’ strategic choices to deep dive into the under-reported science stories of the
week are having far reaching implications for the impact of science blogging.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Flickr.com
EXPLOSION OF ALTERNATIVE COVERAGE OF SCIENCE
BLOGGING SOMETHING DIFFERENT
BLOGGING SOMETHING DIFFERENT
“[But] "if there's something that everyone else is talking about, and they're doing a good job with, I'll avoid that.”
“[P]eople aren't going to come to my blog for the news. They're going to go to a news outlet… So, if I'm going to write about
something that's current, it'll only be [if] I can explore something, different about it."
"I couldn't really find out the facts myself, from reading the news, so I thought, I'll go ahead and kind of dig it out..."
"[I] go through lesser-known journals...for little hidden jems...that wouldn't have made it into the news"
“[L]ooking at the other blogs...I think it's important that we cover kind of smaller things that aren't always picked up on"
"I really don’t feel like I’m a slave to the news cycle."
"If I wasn’t going to have all of those crazy resources [and be able to] interview multiple people [...] it had to be
DIFFERENT."
#MySciBlog Interviews
“THE FREEDOM OF A BLOG, AND WHY BLOGS ARE SO MUCH FUN TO READ, IS, THAT YOU GET TO KNOW A LITTLE BIT MORE OF THE PERSONALITY OF THE PERSON WHO’S WRITING IT, AND WHAT
THEIR THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS ARE, AND THAT THEY KIND OF INTERPRET THINGS, A BIT MORE.”
- #MYSCIBLOG RESEARCH INTERVIEW
SCIENCE BLOGO-JOURNALISM
Interviewing
Editing
Fact-checking
Social responsibility
News values
Shareability
Scientific values
”I’ve sort of developed a gut feeling for what I can turn into a blog post, and which ideas won’t work.” – science blogger Signe Cane
• breaking out of traditional roles of criticizing/complimenting science journalism from a corner of the internet
• Not replacing science journalism, but it’s increasingly a vital component of science journalism.
• The science blog is increasingly the journalist’s path into science, the scientist’s path into journalism, etc.
• Science bloggers are the new gatekeepers?
EXPERIMENTING WITH SCIENCE BLOGS
Multimedia / Lives of Scientists
Experimenting with content – Science Book A Day
“TO ME, SCIENCE ISN’T ABOUT BEING TOLD BY SCIENTISTS THAT
‘THIS IS SCIENCE’ BUT FOR PEOPLE TO BUILD AN UNDERSTANDING AND
ENGAGEMENT WITH SCIENCE IN THEIR OWN WAY.”
- SCIENCE BLOGGER GEORGE ARANDA, AKA @POPSCIGUYOZ
EXPERIMENTATION IN SCIENCE BLOGS
Blogging driven by visuals
AND SO, ON A BLOG WHERE YOU HAVE EDITORIAL FREEDOM…THERE’S NOTHING MORE EXCITING AS A WRITER, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
YOU CAN DO ALL OF THESE WONDERFUL EXPERIMENTS, YOU CAN TELL STORIES IN
INTERESTING WAYS… I MEAN YOU STILL HAVE TO DO RESEARCH, AND YOU STILL HAVE TO BE – I’M
A JOURNALIST, SO, MY STUFF IS VERY RESEARCHED AND VERY FACT-BASED, BUT THEN THERE’S THIS UNBELIEVABLE OPPORTUNITY TO
JUST WRITE. - #MYSCIBLOG RESEARCH INTERVIEW
THE POTENTIAL OF SCIENCE BLOGGING:FOR SCIENTISTS
How do scientists write blogs that are taken as seriously as the blogs of professional science journalists?
•Rise of networked scientist bloggers • More community-based feedback, fact-checking, editing and collaborative data blogging?
• Journalism/Media training for scientists•Opportunity to open up the process of science via blogging
THE POTENTIAL OF SCIENCE BLOGGING: FOR JOURNALISTS
• Blogs remain (and grow as) an integral component of science journalism • Building one’s portfolio• Opening up the journalism process• Enhancing amount of diversity of science news coverage, and web traffic, at legacy media outlets (National Geographic, newspapers, etc.)
“EVERYTHING IS CHANGING. THE SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING INDUSTRY IS
CHANGING. VERY TRADITIONAL PUBLICATIONS ARE EMBRACING
SOCIAL MEDIA, AND EVIDENCE IS PILING UP THAT THIS METHOD OF COMMUNICATING SHOULD SOON
SEEM TRADITIONAL TO SCIENTISTS.”- DOMINIQUE BROSSARD
PROBLEMS IN SCIENCE BLOGGING
How can we bring scientists and journalists together while at the same time paying for more in-depth science blogging and fostering public engagement?
OPENSCILOGS
CROWD-FUNDED PARTICIPATORY, OPEN NOTEBOOK SCIENCE REPORTING
Paige Brown Jarreau & Pratiti DiddiManship School of Mass Communication
CROWDFUNDING INVESTIGATIVE / IN-DEPTH
SCIENCE BLOGGING
• Wiki Journalism
• Citizen Journalism
• Spreadability
• Changing Traditional Media Business Model – Crowd Funding
• Open Notebook Science
#OPENSCILOGS1st project:
2nd and current project:
OPENSCILOGS DESIGN BRIEF
• Target Audience: A broad science-interested audience, as well as other science bloggers, journalists, educators, students
• Tone: Open to new ideas and directions, transparent, participatory
• Platforms: SciLogs blog posts for updates and final story; Google docs or other document file sharing for raw materials, notes, references, links etc.; Social media / Wiki for audience engagement
• Content: In-depth, critical analysis of a scientific issue or topic that deserves more attention, that readers express an interest in, etc.
• Conversation: The goal is to spark conversation and participation in the ongoing story, to spread materials, quotes, and story ideas
OPENSCILOGS CONCEPTS
1. Crowd-funding of in-depth “open notebook” story project by one SciLogs blogger every 30 days.
2. Selected blogger, once funded, begins the reporting phase. For each story project, the funded blogger provides all raw data, notes, source information and source contact information (if permission granted from source) in a public Google Doc (or similar public document sharing tool), on an ongoing basis.
3. For each story project, the selected blogger is strongly encouraged to have another blogger, journalist or editor fact-check (for a share of the funding or authorship.)
4. For the duration of each story project, the lead blogger posts weekly short blog updates.
5. Anyone can contribute story ideas, story content and/or multimedia to each OpenSciLogs story project, and are encouraged to claim partial authorship.
FUTURE OF OPENSCILOGS• Topics of wide public interest?
• Getting input from audience on what stories they want to see about science in the media
• Collaboration on science blogo-journalism and investigation of scientific topics across different languages?
• Crowd-funding of research paired with science communication?
CAN CROWD-FUNDING OF BLOGGING BE SUCCESSFUL?
• Targeting the right audience is key• Who will help fund?• Who will participate?
• Finding media partners
• Targeted social media promotion is key • a significant portion of the time and effect in a crowd-
funding campaign – Need 100 views for 1 donation
SCIENCE BLOGGING PRACTICES – TAKE THE SURVEY!
http://bit.ly/MySciBlog
Images Credits:
Feature image: Will Lion: extreme sports and blogging. Flickr.
Original Illustration Logo Credit: Lindsay Cade
News values, Quizlet
Blue Linckia Starfish CC BY-SA 3.0, Richard Ling
xkcd.com/386/
Magnifying Glass – PublicDomainPictures
Tucker Martin - Science & Technical Writing
Shutterstock – SciLogs.com License
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Flickr.com
Mike Licht (CC-BY)
Illustration: Dusan Petricic for The Scientist
Gideon Burton (Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
Will Blog for Money, Voxeros, Flickr.com
Crowd, PartiallyHere, DeviantArt
ImagesBuddy