WORKSHOP ON SCIENCE JOURNALISM AND DIGITAL STORYTELLING
PROGRAMME
23 November 2011
9.30 • Welcome and Introduction by Nico Pitrelli (SISSA)
9.45 • Nicola Bruno (effecinque, Genova), The Post-Journalist’s Toolbox - Trends in Digital Storytelling
Digital journalists interested in telling more engaging stories now have at their disposal an expanding set of tools: mashups, interactive timelines, video in motion-graphics, news-games, live-coverage, data apps and other multimedia features. Starting from the pioneer experimentation of independent developers and ending with the initiatives of big news organizations, in my lecture I will present some interesting case-studies of news stories reported in innovative ways. I will examine what's the distinctive feature of each tool and what are the mistake to avoid in promoting the interaction with the users.
10.15 • Richard Holliman (The Open University, Milton Keynes), Telling science stories in the new media ecosystem
The globalised digital media ecosystem can be characterised as both dynamic and disruptive. Developments in digital technologies relate closely to emerging social practices. In turn these are influencing, and are influenced by, the political economy of professional media and user-generated content, and the introduction of political and institutional governance and policies. Together this wider context provides opportunities and challenges for science communication practitioners and researchers. The globalised digital media ecosystem allows for, but does not guarantee, that a wider range of range of contributors can participate in storytelling about the sciences. At the same time, new tools are emerging that facilitate novel ways of representing digital data. As a result, researchers are reconceptualising ideas about the relationship between practices of production, content and consumption. In this lecture I will explore whether storytelling about the sciences is becoming more distributed and participatory, shifting from communication to conversation.
10.45 • Coffee break
11.00 • Alice Bell (Imperial College, London), Avoiding the generational "drag" - telling stories about science to, with and by young people in a digital age
As many scholars have argued, so-called "children's media" is largely made and controlled by adults. Even writers aiming at a ‘child-centered’ approach will draw on their own childhood; the memories of which may well, in turn, have been influenced by their own ideas of what childhood is, means and should be. David Buckingham, riffing off Jacqueline Rose, talks about a form of generational drag; adults acting as if they were children, based on an adult conception of what a child is. Projects which invite young people’s content often do so within tightly constrained perimeters. This talk will take several case studies to reflect on the tensions involved in writing about science for young people online, compared to taking a step back and providing spaces for them to talk to one another.
11.30 • Jenny Molloy (Open Knowledge Foundation, Oxford), Science Journalism: All in the Data?
The field of data journalism, where stories are unearthed in large data sets e.g. government spending, has grown in importance and popularity, particularly with recent major investigative projects. Data is the currency of science so traditional science journalism encounters many of the problems of data journalism in terms of weaving numbers and statistics into a captivating narrative and striving to offer insight into the figures. What can the two learn from each other and is there scope for real 'data driven' science journalism? In addition, science journalists who become 'data wranglers' will find themselves using many of the same skills as scientists in examining data, thus giving insight into the scientific process but also blurring the boundaries between scientific and journalistic analysis. How will scientists, developers, journalists and others join forces to utilise data and the new web in order to tell compelling stories and engage people with scientific information?
12.00 • Maximilian Schäffer (SPIEGEL), Fact Checking and Science Journalism
Science journalists working for general interest media face a dilemma: science in the 21st century is usually a complex undertaking that requires a large amount of previous knowledge to understand contemporary topics and results. To capture the attention of the general public and convey the message, science journalists have to simplify, to embed facts into a captivating story – and to understand the meaning of research results themselves. The process of fact-checking tries to ensure that “the facts” are not distorted in the process of simplification – without making the story dull or incomprehensible. I’ll talk about how we try to achieve this at DER SPIEGEL. I’ll also go into problems specific to media diversity, in which, in our case, there’s no longer only DER SPIEGEL as a print product but also our Web site, SPIEGEL ONLINE, and app-versions of these products featuring interactive graphics and video.
12.30 • Discussion