Proposed AAAS 2010 panel on new/social/online media for science communication: Call for Interest and Ideas

A couple of other science journalists and I have been twittering amongst ourselves about holding a panel on new media/social media/digital media for communicating science at AAAS 2010.

The media industry is changing dramatically, and journos are rapidly getting into online media. Last month Science Writers of New York held a great panel on social media for science writers, which converted me But I suppose my own latest inspiration comes from attending the Media Coverage of Climate Change panel at AAAS this year, which I felt presented many of the same points as what I’ve heard at previous “communicating science”/”media coverage of science” AAAS panels – except with the added point of “but the news industry is in a really bad state…so things are really bad.” People did also talk about how science journalism is one of the first things to be cut, at least at non-science news organizations often. Nobody seemed really to offer a way forward, which was depressing.

I think it would be awesome if we could explore non-conventional ways of communicating about science to the public – which I think is one of the most fundamental goals of probably most science journalists, as well as one of many scientists. Those ways, I imagine, could mean anything from traditional news and science organizations adopting multimedia and social media… to new internet science communication ventures starting up (along the lines of http://Spot.us, which is not about science) (and on Sunday a couple of classmates and I talked with Mike Lemonick, who told us of his new nonprofit climate change communcation-focused media organization http://climatecentral.org/ – these are just examples – but I need to do more research).

We’ve thrown out a couple of ideas, one of which was to try to find people who have done research on the topic. I suppose the discussion does not have to be focused on science communication – but if it is, it would be better, of course, because it will be AAAS. Other ideas were to invite media expert people or people from scientific organizations that have done innovative online communications stuff (e.g. NSF’s yet-to-launch www.science360.gov site which will be a “multimedia portal” for all things science).

Any ideas for resources for probing deeper into this subject, potential people who might be helpful for this venture, ideas for the panel itself, or if you have any interest in joining in on possibly assembling such a project, I would very much appreciate your input! Thanks!

Follow the budding discussion via my twitter profile if you’re interested @anniejourno (and a new group convo! @newscij)

Update: A number of people have expressed interest in the idea individually.  We will be starting a group discussion soon via email.  Please contact me if you would like to be added.

Note: this message is adapted from an email I sent a University of Wisconsin researcher to ask about resources. The following paragraph was taken out from above, but here it is, in case anybody is interested in seeing my inquiry about finding research in particular (specifically at the University of Wisconsin in this email):

On the topic of research, I wanted to ask you if you knew of any people at University of Wisconsin who have looked at new/social/online media for communicating science in particular. I ask because I know you (the JComm and life sciences comm departments, if not others as well) have done a lot of research on science communication, and I have also gotten a couple of glimpses of JComm faculty blogging/teaching (and perhaps also a conference at the school?) about online media. So I was wondering if there was any chance researchers at UW have combined the two.