29 October 2021
Media interest in research has never been greater due to the global impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and Climate Change, among other topics. How research is communicated varies from an international scale down to local level, as also reflected in the quality of coverage from in-depth news features to poorly referenced, click-bait churnalism. Join us for this online seminar that takes place over one day - Wednesday 8th December.
How research is communicated should be of the greatest importance to academics, their organisations, funders, journals and the media organisation. Ultimately it should be of the highest importance to policy makers and society. Yet, in a world where research is increasingly published Open Access there is still a failure to include all of the relevant pieces of information, such as links to the research paper, especially on a local level.
Those working in the publishing, media communications, library and journalism sectors share common ground and would benefit from a greater understanding of how they could benefit by their greater collaboration. Librarians and journalists both work to analyse and deliver factual information, yet that is undermined by missing out key elements that can underpin a news story, such as an article or funder link.
Academics looking to capture pathways to impact miss out on evidence if there is no audit trail relating to the coverage due to the lack of proper media coverage. Whilst Altmetrics can help this, it often fails to pick up mentions, due to the aforementioned problems. The lack of substantial evidence within a news story has the potential to generate fake or poorly reported news, which can have a damaging impact on research communication. It is much harder for a journalist to apply bias or cherry pick a piece of research if they have to cite a freely available research article or lay summary.
Our thanks to Andy Tattersall, chair of the Programme Committee.
View the programme and see the registration details here.