The Next Generation of Science Media conference #nextgen11

Last week, science journalists, book authors, bloggers, documentary makers and all those interested in science media, gathered at Jesus College Cambridge to attend the Next Generation of Science Media conference.

The aim of the conference was to promote conversation about the future prospects of science journalism. It was a day dedicated to the discussion of science communication in the 21st century, including the opportunities and challenges it offers, as well as its impact on society.

Held on Wednesday 11th May, the one day conference hosted several sessions with guest speakers from a variety of disciplines. The diverse programme proved to encourage debate amongst attendees and stimulated dialogues across a spectrum of science media related topics.

The programme included:

• Session 1 – Science Journalism in an Era of New Media: Opportunities and Challenges

John Naughton (OU and The Observer) and Lou Woodley (nature.com)

• Session 2 – Popular Interest in Science: the Next ’Big Stories

David Adam (Nature) and Connie St Louis (City University)

• Session 3 – Impact of Science Journalism on Culture and Society

Andrew Brown (The Guardian) and Dennis Alexander (The Faraday Institute)

• Session 4 – Ethics and Science Media: Constraints and Dilemmas, Accuracy and Honesty

Simon Singh (author) and Adam Wishart (Livetv)

• Session 5 – Prospects for Science Books: Markets E-publishing, Academic versus Non-Academic

Peter Talack (Sciencefactory) and Christopher Potter (author)

Unable to attend…?

For the fortunate folk present, this conference provided an opportunity for like-minded people to get together, network and talk about the future of their profession. However, if you were unable to attend and would be keen to find out more about these sessions, why not read Leila Battison’s summary of the day in her blog post, The next generation of science media: termites, saplings and sense-makers. Her summary was written for the ABSW features website and has also been incorporated into a large piece with contributions from young journalists at BlueSci Magazine (the Cambridge Science Magazine). You can find this feature here.

Meanwhile, blogger Richard Elwes also gives us his thoughts on the conference in his summary post, Science Media: The Next Generation. He details the lessons he learnt from the session, focusing on libel law and ethics:

Lesson 3: People, things, and ideas. The most controversial moment of the day was when Andrew Brown declared that “People are more interested in stories about people than they are in stories about things”.

You can also read Clear Sci blogger, Jonathan Lawson’s report of the conference in his latest blog post. In his review you can see pictures from the event, as well as a concise break down of the sessions, including the interactive talk given by Lou:

Lou Woodley continued the session with an exercise in connectivity getting everyone up and active to demonstrate how we all communicate through multiple media and how everyone is connected in the small world of science media.

Considering the conference in a new way is Scientific Oxonian blogger Nicola Davis. In her summary post, Trekking Across Universal Appeal: The Next Generation, she focuses on the controversy and mischief:

Firstly there is a huge difference between being a scientist who writes articles for the public and a journalist who happens to cover some science stories. You would be forgiven for thinking that both are science journalists, but you would still be wrong — as David Adam, former environment correspondent for The Guardian put it ‘being a journalist is about causing mischief’.

Finally, in order to summarise the talks given at the conference we have compiled a Storify, gathering all of the tweets taken at the event. You can find our two part Storify here, or search #nextgen11 on Twitter to find out more.

If we’ve missed your blog post or you subsequently write one, do let us know and we can add it to our commentary here and share it on Twitter too.