I came across this blog post referencing a British Journal of Educational Technology article (actual article is published in the May issue) complaining that academics do not take advantage of social media to make findings available to the public. The journal article is pretty much a review, but it does reference publications with data. I wrote a post some weeks ago on this same topic. The general concern is that academics would do well to explain the significance of the work to the public who often are asked to support their work.
The blog post (not necessarily the article cited) laments the low statistics on academic professional tweeting (15%) and Facebook use (39%).
Greenhow finds that “troubling,” she said in a statement, since universities are trying to increase access to publicly funded research. “Only a minority of university researchers are using free and widely available social media to get their results and published insights out and into the hands of the public, even though the mission of public universities is to create knowledge that makes a difference in people’s lives,” she said. “Simply put, there’s not much tweeting from the ivory tower.” (the excerpt from the article appearing in the post).
Hmm. – first, I think there are notable exceptions. For example, in my interest area (technology and education), I would point to the blogs of Daniel Willingham and Larry Cuban as counter examples. I also hope some consider my comments as serving a useful purpose.
It occurs to me that Twitter and Facebook are not well suited to bringing scientific advances to the attention of the general public. As one commenter suggested in response to the post I am referencing, Twitter can not bring scientific findings to the attention of readers in that links to significant papers would be blocked by journals expecting readers to pay for access. Aside from the potential of steering readers to useful explanations via links, I find the limited commentary allowed in a tweet to make Twitter pretty much useless for meaningful discussion or explanation. In general, the “friend”-based approach of Facebook makes this social service of limited value for general presentations.
I propose that blog posts or Google+ posts would offer more practical benefit for public exposure to scientific discussions. While I would not be optimistic that these outlets serving the intended purpose, I also do not understand the focus of the blogger and the researchers on Twitter and Facebook.
