The Future of ISE--The Impact of Media on Science Itself
From Media and Informal Science Learning
A basic fact of the media landscape is that media consumption continues to increase for virtually every demographic around the world.[1] Most of this article is focused on trends in media and technology that could impact science education, but in our research, we've also been struck by the many ways in which media now seems to be influencing the practice of science itself. For some fields, like ornithology, new media has helped greatly enhance an already long and rich tradition of citizen science. The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology stands at the apex of lay participation in generating real scientific data and research, and programs like Project Feederwatch, eBird, The Great Backyard Bird Count, NestCams, the House Finch Disease Survey, and many more can serve as models for other disciplines. New technologies such as flip camcorders and cell phone applications are rapidly expanding the scope of what citizen scientists can achieve. Beyond this, citizen science seems to be moving, as it were, from animal model to human trials in a variety of ways.
Beyond this, citizen science seems to be moving, as it were, from animal model to human trials in a variety of ways. For example:
- Google searches are now being used to predict and track flu outbreaks (local rises in specific search terms have proven accurate in identifying outbreaks earlier than other epidemiological measures[2])
- Stanford's folding@home project enlists the computers of thousands of volunteers (each of whom has downloaded an applicable piece of software) to create one of the world's largest supercomputers to help solve protein folding problems.[3]
- Cure Together is gathering personal health data from thousands of volunteers in order to create vast research databases to help scientists find cures from chronic diseases.[4]
- Other examples?
But in some respects, citizen science is the proverbial 'tip of the iceberg' where the impact of media on scientific practice is concerned, some influences positive, others perhaps not so:
- Press release research: top academic journals appear to be increasingly choosing what articles to publish based on judgments of the newsworthiness of the findings or, more specifically, the likelihood that the research can be converted into a 'story' that significant portions of the consumer news media are likely to report.[5]
- With universities pushing researchers to commercialize their findings in order to generate additional revenue for their institutions, scientists are increasingly compelled to develop entrepreneurial skills in order to turn their research labs into viable businesses[6]; many of these skills-such as marketing and public relations-interface directly with, and are influenced by, the media in all forms.
- Scientists are increasingly using video journals at sites like BioAlive and Jove to communicate information-such as complex laboratory procedures-that formerly could only be communicated in person, and more generally making visible wide realms of tacit knowledge.[7]
- As print subscription prices skyrocket and online self-publishing proliferates (by some estimates, 90% of research findings in some disciplines are available in online pre-publication archives), some of these fields, such as high-energy physics (see the Scoap3 initiative), are looking at new methods of research dissemination such as open access publishing that would make academic research more widely available free of charge.[8]
- On the flip side, multiple studies have come to the conclusion that the proliferation of information via new media is leading, ironically, to more conventional scientific thinking as scientists are compelled, due to the volume of information available, to limit their literature reviews to top journals and only the most recent issues of same.[9] Though in fairness, these findings have not gone unchallenged.[10]
- A group of prominent scientists, including several Nobel Laureates, recently submitted an open letter to the Financial Times arguing that the system of peer review, set up to winnow the growing volume of funding proposals and papers, has come to stifle real scientific advance, which, as they point out, has often occurred at the margins of scientific inquiry.[11] But as the volume of scientific proposals and submissions and materials purporting to be scientific continues to increase (due to globalization, if nothing else, and thanks to new media as well), it seems likely that peer review will only become more stringent, particularly since, again, new media makes it even easier and more powerful. At least one prominent journal, for example, has begun requiring that all submissions include a peer-reviewed Wikipedia page.[12]
- Some traditional academic funding sources, such as foundations and social equity funds, are moving from a model of funding top individual academic researchers to solve problems of interest to an open innovation model (based on the open source movement) in which applicants (both inside and outside academia) submit ideas that others can add to (via wikis or other formats) over time. From these collaborations, winning concepts/solutions are chosen and funded.[13]
Implications for Informal Science Education
Many of these changes and forces impacting scientific practice could have implications for informal science education as well; at a minimum they may redefine-more broadly-what it means to be a scientist. Question to the group: what might other implications be?
References
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This original draft of this article was written by Tom de Boor, Principal Analyst, Grunwald Associates. For the full Future of Informal Science Education article as delivered at the March 11-12 kick-off event for this virtual conference, please click here.
