Exploring the role of digital scholarship and storytelling to support science communication

1. How might we prepare contemporary
scholars for science communication in the
digital age?
Dr Erinma Ochu
e.e.ochu@salford.ac.uk

2. Science Communication is “’The appropriate use of skills,
media, activities and dialogue to produce one or more of the
following responses to science…
Awareness, Enjoyment, Interest, Opinion forming and
Understanding (AEIOU)
“May involve science practitioners, mediators, and other
members of the general public, either peer to peer or between
groups”
Burns, T.W., D.J. O’Connor, and S.M. Stockmayer (2003)
Science Communication: A contemporary definition. Public
Underst. Sci. 12: 183 – 202 DOI: 10.1177/09636625030122004

3. Why communicate?

8. How of Science Communication
• The deficit model - one way
• The contextual model - two way dialogue
• The public engagement model – wide public participation
• The lay expertise model – acknowledges limitations of science
alone
LeeAnn Kahlor & Patricia Stout (2009). Understanding and communicating
science: new agendas in communication. Routledge, Taylor and Francis
Miah, A. (2017). Nanoethics, Science Communication and a fourth model
for Public Engagement. Nanoethics 11: 139-152.

10. Digital Scholarship is “research and teaching that is made
possible by digital technologies, or that takes advantage of them
to ask and answer questions in new ways”
Ayers. "Discovery in a Digital World," video (36:00 mark),
EDUCAUSE 2012 Annual Conference, November 9, 2012
Schlosser (2013) "Defining Digital Scholarship," blog post, Digital
Scholarship @ The Libraries, Ohio State University Libraries,
March 11, 2013.

11. Science and Storytelling

12. Why storytelling?
“You’re never going to kill storytelling because it’s built into the human plan.
We come with it”
--Margaret Atwood, poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental
activist.
“Sometimes reality is too complex. Stories give it form.”
– Jean Luc Godard, film director, screen writer, film critic
”There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."
--Maya Angelou, poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist
“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of
experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.”
― Graham Greene, novelist and author

14. • Locate three key moments on your path to becoming
interested in wildlife & conservation
• Construct those moments into 3 hops that you’d be happy
to share with others
• Think carefully about what you want to keep to yourself
and what you want to share with others
• Share and listen in pairs
3 moments

15. • Who, What, Why, When, Where….
• Why
• Elevator pitch
• If you get stuck, finding an image can help
Pick a topic…

20. Hot topics?
• Gene drives – implications for conservation?

21. Other platforms…

22. Digital Tools: supporting writing
googledocs, slack, trello, evernote

24. Further Resources
Scicomm Space
https://scicomm.space
Science Media Centre
https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/
Manchester Science Festival
http://www.manchestersciencefestival.com/
National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement
https://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/
British Science Association
http://britishscienceassociation.org
Science not just for scientists
http://notjustforscientists.org/100-ideas/
Storythings
https://storythings.com/
Media Diversified
https://mediadiversified.org/
Massive Science
https://massivesci.com/
Mosaic
https://mosaicscience.com/
Keck Futures Initiative
https://www.keckfutures.org/awards/2018section/2018home
page.html
Science writing tips
https://www.theguardian.com/science/science-writing-prize