This session is being recorded by ABC Radio National for the Big Ideas program
When
Monday 3rd Feb, 5:00 pm
Where
Auditorium
Hashtag
#M15
Category
Insight
Producer
Ian McDonald
Chair
Natasha Mitchell
Expert Judges
- Elizabeth Finkel
- Will Grant
- Chris Cassella
Affirmative Team (that social media is a HERO for science, not a villian)
Negative Team (that social is a VILLAIN for science, not a hero)
Abstract
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram – social media has landed in our lives, transforming the way we communicate and connect with new and larger audiences. But it’s also a world occupied by anonymous trolls, aggressive flamers and short attention spans. Now everyone’s got an opinion and a soap box to spruik it on. Is social media a hero for science communication – better allowing communicators to connect, share research, and promote open public dialogue and debate? Or is it a villain – tempting us to oversimplify, get distracted by flame wars, and lose sight of wider audiences?
Six savvy science communicators will go tweet to tweet in a debate for our times!
In the media…..
- http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/social-media-masking-lack-of-science-breakthroughs-sir-andre-geim-says/story-fnb64oi6-1226682963705#mm-premium
- http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/08/13/social-media-puts-science-centre-stage
- http://theconversation.com/its-time-for-scientists-to-tweet-14658
- http://theconversation.com/social-media-is-shaping-dialogue-between-scientists-and-journals-14939
- http://bridge8.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/social-media-for-scientists/
- http://m.smh.com.au/comment/welcome-to-the-abbottoir-20130915-2tsrm.html
What do you think? Post your thoughts below – has social media helped your organisation or does it just add an extra task to your already busy schedules?
@auscicomm
ASC on Facebook
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Post your thoughts here – just sign up to the discussion function
#M15 Lesson for me on social media is to STICK with publicly-available information and NEVER express personal opinion when representing an employer agency
Where
Auditorium
Oh great, now I’ll just narrow it down from Australia’s ?few thousand¿ auditoriums… Wolfram Alpha can’t tell me how many.
WideEyedPupil – it is apart of the ASC conference being held at the Brisbane Convention Centre – so when we say Auditorium – we mean the auditorium in the Brisbane Convention Centre…hope that helps.
Intrigued – can you explain ‘do it properly’ thanks
#M15 Hero because we can be informal in our communication about science, even be a bit silly, and engage less academic audiences. Villain because it is so time consuming if you do it properly.
Intrigued – can you explain ‘do it properly’ thanks
Tahnks for the Q Ian. Doing it properly means crafting interesting posts, monitoring others’ posts on the topic, responding to comments and questions, working out who to follow, checking for trolls! Our social media team expend lots of time and energy on our organisation’s social media but the result is engagement with new audiences with new stories in new ways. Our dragons News@CSIRO blog post in Jan and what followed is evidence for that! They’re still recovering 😉
Great thanks…and 100% agree – our organisations media officer also monitors social media and it can take up a lot of her day