Stepping out of the academic echo chamber

Science needs to be shared for a more informed and engaged society

Even if the media landscape is changing, the public needs to be made aware of our research and expertise.

Last week, I spent two days in a media training course for scientists run by the Science Media Centre here in NZ. This got me thinking, how much effort should we, as academics, be placing on communicating our science in the media?

Until recently, I was more inclined to stay in my lane and focus on doing the best science I could as I felt that was the way I could best contribute. Media work is best left for those of you who are more eloquent, entertaining, and charismatic, right? I also felt that there was somewhat of a trade-off between honing our scientific craft and being a good scientific communicator.

Now, though, I have a different perspective.

Clearly this was already shifting, given I decided to go on the course and the fact I started this newsletter a few weeks ago, but I’ve now solidified this perspective shift. I think we can, and should, be both.

Why?

Well, this motivation can be fuelled by many different things depending on your situation. But for me, primarily it’s because of the urgency of the issues I tackle in my research (and this newsletter) — biodiversity loss, climate change, and how we manage water in a changing world. I’ve realised these issues can only benefit from having more scientists voice their concerns, share their cool solutions, and spread their stoke about science with the public. The very large majority of our work will never come close to even being seen by public eyes. This needs to be fixed. I’m deeply concerned by the topics I write about in this newsletter — the public deserves to know, and they deserve to know there are solutions.

To be honest, we’re also duty bound as academics to be the ‘critic and conscience of society’. Many of our scientific colleagues outside of academia don’t have the freedom to speak freely to the media. So that leaves us. Yet, so far, other than a few scattered media appearances for a variety of different things, including both my own research and commenting on broader issues, I haven’t played this role as well as I should have.

Put another way, the public deserve to know! Much of our research is taxpayer funded. If it stays behind paywalls, we’re not helping to foster a more informed and engaged society.

Admittedly, some things more easily pique the public interest than others. For instance, a flooding river destroying human infrastructure is going to be a much easier sell than solving a new mathematical proof, but there are ways to be creative here.

The obvious question is: how do we fit it into an already overloaded schedule of research, teaching, admin, admin, admin, and admin (not to mention the pressure we face to publish and get money). Well, I think we need to get over the feeling that we need to be 110% prepared and rehearsed to avoid making a fool of ourselves. We’re better off being ourselves than to be robots who’ve memorised a script. By doing so, we are more relatable with our audience. So, perhaps we don’t need to spend 5 hours to prepare for a 1-minute news segment with a 10-second soundbite from us? This is easier said than done, I know, but practice makes perfect.

Regardless, increasing our science communication efforts provides benefits to us directly. We tend to get stuck in our lanes in science and forget we speak in our own very complex language. This takes effort for sure, but forcing ourselves to distill and simplify our message increases its likelihood of having impact (e.g. on policy or management). If you can’t describe your work to a taxi driver in one minute, you don’t understand it well enough, let alone anyone else.

Communicating our work more broadly also helps with creativity. The modern world is becoming more and more of an echo chamber where we are repeating the same ideas to each other repeatedly in our small groups, strengthening our narrow perspectives of the world. Communicating clearly and broadly opens our audience up and helps to bring new and diverse ideas and perspectives that could benefit our research.

Suffice to say, I’m more committed than ever to getting the word out there. We’ll see how I go, I guess!

I hope I’ve managed to convince some of you that we should do more to share our work.

What do you think? Have you thought much about sharing your science and the trade-off we all feel with doing so? For the non-academics, is this perceived trade-off something you were aware of? I’d love to get your thoughts and for you to share this with your friends / on the socials. If you’ve not already subscribed, please do.

PS: The course was fantastic — all NZ scientists should do it (Link here)!