Communicating science 2.0

Peter Kerkhof

Dept. Communication Science

VU University Amsterdam

LASA, 25 nov. 2014

❏ Power to the scholars ❏ No interference by others

❏ Editors

❏ Reviewers

❏ University communications

❏ Fast, interactive, personal and fun!

❏ Different audiences ❏ Media

❏ Professional

❏ Academic ➝ more and more!

Science communication 2.0

Traditional channels

❏ Academic audience

❏ Low reach outside academia

❏ Slow

❏ Copyright

Journal publications

❏ Academic audience

❏ Low reach outside academia

❏ Slow

❏ Interactive

Conferences

❏ Limited control

❏ Limited possibilities

❏ Important for dept. /faculty instead of for individual scholars

University website

❏ Aims at press

❏ Selective

Press release

❏ One-way

❏ Slow

❏ Limited control: some else decides

Limitations of trad. channels

Social media channels

❏ Started april 2009, now > 2700 followers

❏ Interaction

❏ Following relevant accounts /content /keywords

❏ Refer others to relevant content (RSS feeds!)

❏ Promote own blog /presentations

❏ Interact at conferences

❏ Personal + business

Twitter

❏ Since august 2009

❏ Research related

❏ CV, publications, media

❏ Fast & flexible

❏ > 140 characters

Weblog

Weblog

❏ CV

❏ Collects tweets, blogposts, presentations, etc..

❏ Interactive (if you want to)

LinkedIn

❏ A second life for presentations

❏ Content for blog, twitter, LinkedIn

Slideshare

❏ Professional audience

❏ Large reach

Other blogs

❏ Group based

❏ More authors

❏ More content

Other blogs

Other blogs

❏ Google search results

❏ Reputation as an expert

❏ External network ➝ Access to

valuable resources (research

opportunities, data, guest

lectures)

❏ Media attention

❏ Lectures for professional

audiences

❏ Valorization paragraph no longer

a problem

Results

❏ Mixing work – private

❏ No out-of-office on Twitter

❏ Differences in speed academic – non-academic world

❏ No quality control

❏ Lack of control ❏ Too much attention

❏ Unwanted attention

❏ Time-consuming and distracting

To think about….

❏ Decide what your goal is: who do you want to reach, with what reason

❏ Pick your audience & know your audience ➝ monitor! ❏ Google Analytics, Statcounter, Retweets

❏ Be relevant & interesting for this audience, choose your content carefully

❏ Interact with your audience

❏ Show who you are, make it (somewhat) personal

❏ Read other blogs ➝ RSS feeds

❏ Have fun!

Some advice