Voice of Young Science Media Workshop

I initially signed up to the VoYS media workshop because I'm interested in the public communication of science and one important aspect of this is how scientific topics are portrayed in the media. The day was arranged into 3 panel discussions with plenty of time for discussion with the floor which turned out to be a really good format allowing for lots of input from the workshop participants.

The first discussion session was led by scientists who had been involved with working in the media and it was really interesting to hear what they had done, how they had been invited and how well it had gone. They stressed the importance of being prepared and reminded us that our job was to provide informed comment – we’re not TV presenters!

During lunch we discussed the good and bad points about how science was portrayed in the media. We all started off pretty negative, listing examples of misinformation and badly weighted debates. However, after more discussion, we came to the conclusion that it wasn't all that bad! TV and radio shows are beginning to make science more of a mainstream topic, and we all agreed that this was a good thing. After discussing these issues amongst ourselves, we heard from journalists who wrote for a range of audiences which allowed us to discuss the points we had thought of with them. They stressed how important it is to consider the reporter when you’re giving them information: do they understand? If not, they will be more likely to convey the wrong final message to their audience.

Me giving feedback from our group discussion

After an impromptu move to the local pub following an evacuation of the original building we began a session that offered practical guidance. We discussed in groups the barriers that we found as young researchers considering approaching the media and then put these concerns to the panel. Our group decided that we’d just never got the chance to speak to the media, and that we’d all be wary of talking about our research without consultation with our supervisors.

We were encouraged to get to know our university press office, but be conscious that not all cutting edge research is actually interesting to everyone! The final part of the day was a discussion focussed on challenging claims made by companies. There were a number of people in the room who gave, in some cases quite upsetting, examples of the media portraying misleading information. However, the ask for evidence campaign was introduced and this seems like a really easy way to find out what scientific evidence any advertising claim is based on.

The whole day was very interesting, involving a lot of discussions with each other and the invited panellists. I left feeling enthused about engaging with the media and ready to ‘ask for evidence’!