EHS 796: Communicating Science through Social Media

University of Michigan School of Public Health, Department of Environmental Health Sciences

Winter 2012

• Overview
• Eligibility
• Competencies
• Grading
• Course Format

Overview

This course is designed to teach participants how to connect effectively with a non-expert audience when conveying complex science-based information that is relevant to public health, using the medium of a public science blog (http://mtsg.org).

In today’s data-rich and hyper-connected world, the gap between access to information and informed decision-making is widening.  It is a gap that threatens to undermine actions on public health as managers, policy makers, consumers and others struggle to fish relevant information from an ever-growing sea of noise.  And it is a gap that is flourishing in a world where anyone with a smart phone and an Internet connection can become an instant “expert”.

To bridge this gap, the next generation of public health professionals will need to be adept at working with new communication platforms, and skilled at translating “information” into “intelligence” for a broad audience. These skills will become increasingly relevant to communicating effectively with managers, clients and customers.  But more broadly, they will be critical to supporting evidence-informed decisions as social influences continue to guide public health activities within society.

The course will use the public science blog http://mtsg.org as a forum where participants can develop and hone their communication skills through experience and public and peer feedback.  For ten consecutive weeks, each participant will select a recent publication or emerging area of scientific interest related to public health, and post a weekly blog on the website aimed at a non-expert and non-technical audience.  As the ten weeks progress, participants will be encouraged to respond to comments and critique and to develop their own style.

The blog posts will be evaluated in the most brutal way possible – by the audience they are written for.  As the posts will be in the public domain, comments and critiques on each blog will be encouraged, and author responses expected.

Course participants will also meet face-to-face each week.  These meetings will draw on the posted articles, as well as examples from other successful science bloggers, and will examine successful communication techniques.  They will also address how the lessons learned through writing a science blog are transferable to other situations where audience-relevant communication of complex information is necessary.

This course is not designed to teach the art of science blogging (although inevitably this will be a by-product).  Rather, through the medium of the blog, it is designed to teach participants how to collate, synthesize and translate scientific evidence into information that a non-expert audience can access, understand and can act on. It is not an easy option – posting one article per week for ten weeks is a tough challenge.  Yet it will be invaluable for developing skills that support communicating complex public health issues to diverse audiences, including colleagues, management, customers, funders, policy makers, stakeholders, and members of the public.

Eligibility

This course is open to first and second year University of Michigan School of Public Health Masters of Public Health students.  Acceptance on the course requires a commitment to post one article per week to http://mtsg.org on a designated morning/afternoon, for ten straight weeks.

Competencies

Students taking this class are expected on its completion to be able to:

• Synthesize and translate complex scientific information for a non-expert audience.
• Communicate complex information to a non-expert audience in writing in a style that engages and connects with the reader.
• Tailor their public health communication content and style to different audiences by understanding where their audience is coming from and what they are looking for.
• Use social media to engage effectively with stakeholders on public health issues.
• Use blogging platforms such as WordPress to develop and maintain an on-line communication and engagement presence.

Grading

Pass/fail.

 

Course Format

Classes:  The class will meet for one hour each week.  The first two weeks will cover the mechanics of writing, posting and maintaining a blog, and will examine different approaches to science blogging.  In weeks 3 – 12, classes will focus on critiquing participant posts, and examining approaches to improving content and style, and increasing readership.

Blogs:  Each participant will be assigned a week day and time (morning or afternoon) when they will post their weekly article.  For each post, participants will be required to select a recent public health-related scientific publication, area of public health interest, or developing public health story in the media, and write a piece in their own style that synthesizes the scientific information and presents it in a form that is accessible to a broad audience.

Each post should:

1. Refer to and build on published research related to public health, either as the central focus of the piece, or as supporting material for the piece;
2. Be relevant and understandable to a non-expert audience;
3. Connect with the target readership; and
4. Not be offensive!

Apart from these requirements, there are very few hard and fast rules. Posts can be long or short; serious or amusing; sophisticated or simple.  One of the aims of the course is to allow participants to experiment with different approaches and styles, and to find what works best for them.  That said, participants will be encouraged to identify and develop their own style and area of focus.

The blog will run for 10 consecutive weeks, starting January 16.  Posts will be public, and students, faculty, experts in the field, other science bloggers, members of the public and other interested parties will be encouraged to read them and comment on them.  Participants will be expected to respond to comments.

An important aspect of the course will be raising awareness of the blog posts and increasing page hits and comments.  Participants will be expected to explore the use of social media to grow their readership, and to bring their posts to the attention of a wider audience.

The blog posts will remain accessible on http://mtsg.org as a permanent record of the participants’ achievements.