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A case study in serendipity: Environmental researchers use of traditional and social media for dissemination

Wilkinson, Clare; Weitkamp, Emma

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Abstract

In the face of demands for researchers to engage more actively with a wider range of publics and to capture different kinds of research impacts and engagements, we explored the ways a small number of environmental researchers use traditional and social media to disseminate research. A questionnaire was developed to investigate the impact of different media as a tool to broker contact between researchers and a variety of different stakeholders (for example, publics, other researchers, policymakers, journalists) as well as how researchers perceive that their use of these media has changed over the past five years. The questionnaire was sent to 504 researchers whose work had featured in a policy-oriented e-news service. 149 valid responses were received (29%). Coverage in traditional media (newspapers, broadcast) not only brokers contact with other journalists, but is a good source of contact from other researchers (n=47, 62%) and members of the public (n=36, 26%). Although the use of social media was limited amongst our sample, it did broker contact with other researchers (n=17, 47%) and the public (n=10, 28%). Nevertheless, few environmental researchers were actively using social media to disseminate their research findings, with many continuing to rely on academic journals and face-to-face communication to reach both academic and public audiences. © 2013 Wilkinson, Weitkamp.

Citation

Wilkinson, C., & Weitkamp, E. (2013). A case study in serendipity: Environmental researchers use of traditional and social media for dissemination. PLoS ONE, 8(12), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0084339

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Dec 13, 2013
Deposit Date Dec 18, 2013
Publicly Available Date Apr 1, 2016
Journal PLoS ONE
Electronic ISSN 1932-6203
Publisher Public Library of Science
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 8
Issue 12
DOI https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0084339
Keywords environmental researchers, science communication
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/925005
Publisher URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0084339
Related Public URLs http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0084339

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