I apologise in advance if I ironically (and unintentionally) stimulate a bun-fight.
When prehospital care started to become professionalised, it was quickly realised that ambulance crews were going to need to be able to give medicines to patients, and that such drugs would have to be given without prescription and without direct supervision by qualified physicians; this was seen to be a threat to the medical profession's monopoly (enforced by legislation) on prescribing drugs. Ultimately, various pragmatic changes have been made to prescribing laws, and todays ambulance crews carry a range of life-saving and pain-relieving drugs which are routinely given to patients without direct clinical supervision.
It strikes me that much of the discourse about whether blogging is "legitimate", and whether the conversations generated by their output are of sufficient value seem to be rooted in a similar fear. If, as report after report has said, we accept that science needs to better engage with its public(s), I wonder if we should be criticising the ways in which the publics engage with the science, and the ways in which people are experimenting in relatively new ways of reaching out to them? I'd certainly like to see research exploring what works and what doesn't work, but it often seems to me that such discussions descend into "oughts" and "shoulds" after starting from "is" and "did".
Just as a paramedic would not take over prescribing on a busy hospital ward, I feel that different communication skills are needed when working in different media and with different audiences. And dynamic engaging blogs are qualitatively different from traditional static, passive newspaper articles, they draw in different audiences, and they engage with different streams of discourse in society. And the fact that different people are getting engaged in different ways can, to me, only be a good thing.
However, I'm only an MSc student so I'm ready to be corrected ;-)
David
On 13 Jan 2011, at 19:25, Francis Sedgemore wrote:
> Bob
>
> I seem to recall reference to the story on at least one of the TV news broadcasts to which I half paid half attention. As for your published whinge about the relative lack of media coverage, the Grauniad's Comment is Free and associated online opinion forums are a moral and political cesspit. I should know, as I used to be a regular paid contributor!
>
> By writing for the Guardian's online forums all you do is feed the trolls and raise their temperature, and undermine the NUJ's hard-won freelance agreement with the publisher. While the story has some editorial import, its scientific and statistical significance is minor. The NOAA/NASA press release certainly warranted reporting by the media, but not in hyperbolic tones designed to stimulate an online bun-fight. I admit that it can on occasion be fun to poke the trolls with a rhetorical stick, but it's best kept for the largely unread political blogosphere.
>
> best,
> Francis
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