The list is a very useful way for people in our business to keep in touch.
People involved in science communication should be on it and should use it
communicate ideas and initiatives. I don't think we should be too
prescriptive about how users to do this, however.
As Mike says, many press releases wouldn't be very welcome, but if an
organisation is putting out a release that they think would be relevant to
us, then they should bung it on.
I agree that the Media Centre is a much more important thing for us to be
talking about, as it goes to the heart of how the science community
interacts with the rest of society.
I naturally agree with Sallie that the centre is no substitute for all
scientists being more proactive when it comes to communication. My own
opinion is that it sends all the wrong signals out about how we deal with
public mistrust of science. There have been no shortage of authoritative
figures been lined up in the media on GM food, BSE and depleted uranium who
have succeeded in generating even more suspicion that the public isn't being
told the whole truth.
There must be lots of other things worthy of discussion too, e.g. Science
Year and setnet/satro merger.
Alun
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From: David Steven <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: the authoritative psci-com?
Date: Tue, Jan 30, 2001, 5:14 pm
>I was under the impression that this list was *not* for
>scientific bodies to post their press releases and event
>notices. We already have a good web centre - AlphaGalileo -
>for that.
Clearly, most of the press releases on AlphaGalileo would be way-of-topic
for this list (i.e. Successful Conclusion to Angiography Project at DESY or
Pin-pointing Black Holes;: Upgraded European Network Of Radio Telescopes Has
Sharper Vision Than Hubble of Distant Galaxies from today's front page), but
there are a number of recent initiatives that have direct relevance to the
science communication community which, as far as I am aware, have not been
announced on this list.
At a minimum, I would suggest that major new projects from the Royal
Institution, Royal Society, British Association, COPUS should be announced
here - along with anything coming out of the science communication bits of,
for example, OST, Wellcome, the British Council, ESRC etc. etc.
I think Louise's offer to do something about this is very useful - it will
be interesting to see how the situation changes.
David
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