Presentation for Etmaal van de communicatiewetenschap #ECW15

1. 1
Esther De Smet - AMRP workshop - 28
January 2015

2. There seems to be a new punch line in academia: Publish or Perish has become Be
Visible or Vanish.
From funding to citations to digital footprint and media exposure: research seems to be
about getting noticed and making an impact.
If you are serious about being a researcher in today’s context of science for society,
online academic tools and high impact and visiblity,
It might be interesting to pay attention to this talk and get a few pointers on how to
approach this in a strategic way.
Goodier and Czerniewicz adapted the functional building blocks of social media (‘Social
media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media’ by Jan
H. Kietzmann, Kristopher Hermkens , Ian P. McCarthy , Bruno S. Silvestre in Business
Horizons, Volume 54, Issue 3, May–June 2011, Pages 241–251) and applied them to the
networked scholar.
Your digital identity online, defined as ‘the extent to which others can identify you online
as a scholar’, is central. This is why it is critical to become
aware of your online presence and to shape and maintain this presence.
Esther De Smet - AMRP workshop - 28
January 2015 2

3. According to the authors there are 4 steps in assessing and improving your online
presence.
One – look at your current digital footprint. Yes people, google yourself.
Esther De Smet - AMRP workshop - 28
January 2015 3

4. Having an online presence is a time commitment. Online profiles that are not
maintained or updated do not create a good impression.
Think about how much time you can commit to keeping your profile(s) current and then
decide if you should
have just one profile with links from other services, or whether you should replicate
your profile on a number of services.
Esther De Smet - AMRP workshop - 28
January 2015 4

5. ‘Improving your outputs’ availability’ is about making your scholarly outputs reach as
many people as possible.
While you may publish prolifically, if people can’t discover your content online, they are
much less likely to read it.
Some say that if it’s not online it does not exist; we think if it’s not findable online it
might not exist. This step involves
assessing what publications and other outputs of yours are already online and then
sharing everything else you are able to.
You are also encouraged to share all your scholarly outputs, including teaching resources
and
‘popular or informal’ resources in a variety of formats.
Esther De Smet - AMRP workshop - 28
January 2015 5

6. Once you got the basics, it is time to start communicating and interacting. And I cannot
stress enough that both aspects are equally important.
With social media you are in effect using media that thrive on interaction. If you just
broadcast what a great researcher you are
Esther De Smet - AMRP workshop - 28
January 2015 6

7. How I see it, to take you to the next level you need to look for productive interactions.
Choose tools that fit your character, your talents and your research.
Re-use all this scientific and non-scientific knowledge that you’re amassing but be sure
to adapt it the fit your specific aim and tailor it to your audience.
PRODUCTIVE INTERACTIONS means looking for partners within your university.
- Communication Office
- Unit for Science Communication
- Research Communication (incl. scholarly communication)
- Faculty Communication
- Dedicated person with research group
It also means identifying external stakeholders:
- Of your research: general public and specific target groups
- Of your communication: media
When it comes to social media: FIND YOUR INFLUENCERS
Esther De Smet - AMRP workshop - 28
January 2015 7

8. Before I turn to the wide array of tools at your disposal I would like to turn your
attention to a useful competence in your bag of communication tricks.
STORY-BOARDING – why not try story-boarding your research project?
• It helps envision, or picture in miniature, and long in advance, a finished product.
• Storyboarding is a kind of low-cost prototyping, a way of making more concrete
what will happen.
• Because concepts are fleshed out and made concrete in an accessible way, a
storyboard can help generate resources and commitment from external source.
• The storyboard (and later the screenplay) generate a detailed, common vision that
can be shared early on by many different actors in complex production teams.
Link: https://medium.com/advice-and-help-in-authoring-a-phd-or-non-fiction/story-
boarding-research-b430cebd5ccd
STORY-TELLING – that in turn will help when you try your hand at story-telling.
The risks that come with communicating your research to wide audiences are great.
Rigorous researching and attention-grabbing storytelling are very different trades.
However, by finding that point of connection in your research and by maintaining control
of your media relationships, you will be better placed at mitigating those risks.
Link: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2014/08/27/academic-storytelling-
risk-reduction/
Esther De Smet - AMRP workshop - 28
January 2015 8

9. TOOLS
And let’s stress again: RE-USE CONTENT BUT ADAPT TO AIM AND TARGET AUDIENCE
- Website: news items
- Opinion pieces for all kinds of media
- Reddit
- Ik heb een vraag
- Wikipedia as a means to open up science:
https://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2014/10/using-wikipedia-to-open-up-science/
- Infographics: http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcblog/2014/08/11/the-power-of-
pictures-how-we-can-use-images-to-promote-and-communicate-science/ > the
importance of visuals (academic poster becomes infographic)
- Online book reviews including popular books based on science:
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/category/disciplines/media-studies/
- Blog
- Explanimation
- Ted talk (start locally with TedX)
- Podcast
9
Esther De Smet - AMRP workshop - 28
January 2015

10. Esther De Smet - AMRP workshop - 28
January 2015 10

11. Besides the obvious benefits:
- Connect with peers and building a scholarly network
- Reputation management
- Dissemination
Conferences:
- Back-channel: (capture content & provide feedback) share questions and resources
- Connecting and networking
- Virtual participation
- Reading tip: http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-
network/blog/2012/oct/03/ethics-live-tweeting-academic-conferences
Esther De Smet - AMRP workshop - 28
January 2015 11

12. Esther De Smet - AMRP workshop - 28
January 2015 12

13. There’re great benefits to integrating social media into your research – not just as a way
to communicate but also as a means to become
a better scholar.
Although it can be great fun and many of the social media look flighty (eg. half-life of a
tweet is 18 minutes) it should not be taken lightly
but approached in a strategic and professional manner.
It’s all about finding the right balance:
- Not overthinking it but using it to your advantage
- Getting into the spirit of sharing while keeping focus in your own research and not
losing yourself in procrastination
- Giving it a natural place in your time management and approaching it so you feel
comfortable with it
It might even offer you some release to the incessant publication and promotion
pressure (although the current academic system
is not yet in tune with outreach and online activities)
13
Esther De Smet - AMRP workshop - 28
January 2015

14. Esther De Smet - AMRP workshop - 28
January 2015 14

15. Esther De Smet - AMRP workshop - 28
January 2015 15

16. 16
Esther De Smet - AMRP workshop - 28
January 2015