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Summer 2009
From the Chair
New members
Sci Comm news
Eurochat
Feature: The day CERN was more popular than NASA
Feature: Biding time
Feature: The importance
of good design
Feature: From around the world
Event Report: The
numbers game
Event Report: When lives are on the line
Event Report: The new media officers
Event Report: Achieving global coverage
Interview: Ian Sample,
The Guardian
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Stempra newsletter
EVENT REPORT: The new media officers
Speakers: Dr Alan Cann (University of Leicester), Pamela Agar (Imperial College London), Lucy Goodchild (Imperial College London) In the past, press officers would send press releases (hard-copy, in the post) to journalists, who would then write the stories to be published in newspapers. Today, we are writing press releases and sending them by email, uploading them to our websites, podcasting, making videos for stories and then discussing them on our social networks.
News sources are changing – we don’t just get our daily fix via TV or the morning’s papers – we have gadgets on our iGoogle pages that suck in the stories we want to read, as soon as they go online. What’s more, the public can now control the news agenda, thanks to social bookmarking. The process of publicising research is no longer a top-down one; it is a conversation.
Dr Alan Cann, from the University of Leicester, talked about Twitter – a mini-blogging, social networking site which asks ‘what are you doing?’ Many institutions already use Twitter as a broadcast medium, by posting links to stories online. But Alan suggests a better use is to have a conversation – he even says it can become a personal learning network. You can search the site for names (of scientists, for example) or keywords, to find people you want to talk to. During the session, Alan conducted a live experiment – he Tweeted a question and we watched as his network of Twitterers responded. Several others at the conference were also Tweeting about the talks – something Alan says is a plus point as it means people who could not attend can get the main messages in real time.
We then heard from Pamela Agar, Head of Digital Media and Marketing at Imperial College London, about what the Communications Division is doing with videos. Many news stories benefit from added video content, especially gadgety engineering stories that can be very visual. Imperial has a YouTube channel as well as embedding videos in stories on the website. Recently, the college invested in some Flip Video Camcorders, which are simple, cheap one button record and stop video cameras, which press officers can take with them when they meet scientists. Pamela showed some examples of videos produced this way. Although not broadcast quality, they are great for the website and for YouTube, and they are simple and quick to produce. Pamela also talked about iTunes U, an area of iTunes that is specifically for universities. Many US universities have a presence on iTunes U and Imperial is planning to go live soon – so watch this space!
A lively discussion followed the talks, with one of the main points being ‘but we’re press officers – why should we be communicating with the public?’ Perhaps as we move further into the digital age we need to rethink the way we see our positions. If the role of a press officer is just to publicise stories to journalists, then would it be accurate for us to maintain the title when we’re doing so much more? A talking point for the future, perhaps!
Lucy Goodchild
Press Officer, Imperial College London
and Stempra committee member
Lucy@stempra.org.uk
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