March 13, 2007
by Andrew McGregor
There is a school of though that in order to learn one needs to suffer with a text book.
An interesting debate going on about the difference between informing the public and educating them. Whatever its grumblings, science journalism does fill the role of educator to the public and not just informer, and it is not journalism in the ‘man bites dog’ sense of daily reporting on humanity’s failures. Also, communal complaint at this conference has been the inexorable justifying of science journalism’s existence to editors.
What the future multi-media components can do is to evoke that childhood sense of wonder shared by the sports pages. The sensation when one first sees an eclipse or imagines what it would be like to win the Super Bowl. This is all interesting because it is making news a videogame experience. Want to learn about how Tsunami’s work? Well, here’s a video simulation of what Malibu will look like underwater.
I personally grew up playing Sim Earth, Sim City and Sim Ant and I think that these videogames greatly enhanced my intellectual life. For example, Sim Earth had a detailed explanation of the nitrogen cycle one could read before using it on a planetary scale.
In this example the visual and interactive experience fused to provide something wholly worthwhile, informative, and educational.
In terms of journalism, well…there is already a problem with the use of graphics as the major networks happily paraded representations of high-end US military technology before and during the current Iraq War. The same thing happened when North Korea declared a successful nuclear test: hundreds of computer-animated depictions of ICBM’s streaking towards America from Asia popped up online and on television.
In both cases the rubric of accuracy implicit in journalism was sacrificed for the benefit of a visual illustration. The current War in Iraq was not going to be decided because of high-tech considerations and North Korea cannot currently send a missile across the ocean. In both cases the graphics distorted what the real concerns with both of these stories were and are.
So, in terms of science reporting, the interactive element can be very beneficial when a younger version of me is playing Sim Ant and managing my own colony and doing these kinds of things. Yet, there are going to be problems with scientific coverage that also have policy ramifications. A graphic illustration has no wiggle room, so in terms of science coverage with political consequences it is likely going to say nothing and be inoffensive to everyone or be completely accurate and offend a certain percentage of the population…or be completely inaccurate but very viewable.
Still, if journalists can maintain their integrity and fruitfully collaborate with scientists the internet’s ability to indefinitely display an interactive science feature and allow for limitless amounts of text could allow for the best of both fields in a shared world.
By Andrew McGregor, 03/13/07 at 12:12 pm
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March 13, 2007
Rebecca Perry spoke yesterday not only about the use of images in science journalism, but also the use of images in science, as data.
Understanding the purpose of an image is important because if this is misunderstood, the image itself can seem to convey different meanings.
Researchers these days produce much of their data as images. Molecular biologists look at fluorescent microscope images of cells to determine how a protein’s concentration, location or expression is changed in response to manipulations. Similarly, astronomers and physicists peer into the universe with techniques that have become increasingly complicated.
The images produced by these methods are much different than something we can see with our own eyes, even with the aid of a microscope or telescope. Scientists use complicated processing and modification to produce representations of something that was previously invisible.
As science journalists, it’s important to understand how these images are generated, what one is looking at, what it means and whether the evidence is likely to be reliable. This involves the same fact checking, reporting and research that science journalists have always done.
By Katherine Leitzell, 03/13/07 at 12:06 pm
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March 13, 2007
Larry Gonick, creator of the Cartoon History / Cartoon Guide explanatory comic books, discussed the value of image in narrative this morning.
“Image is not about making a page pretty,” he said. “The images should serve narrative ends.” He disparaged the idea that a cartoon figure pointing to the most important equation on a page served any useful purpose.
This message could—should—have strong consequences for the presentation of science online. Gonick pointed out that the most visually salient thing on one of the web pages in a previous presentation was one of the ads. Which should not be the case.
“We’re in the business of capturing readers’ eyeballs,” he said.
Gonick uses human figures in his comic book illustrations to drive points home. He also shamelessly anthropomorphizes. It’s intuitively obvious that putting people into images makes them easier to relate to. But there’s probably a deeper neurological reason for this.
Visual cortex dwarfs other sensory processing regions; we’re visual creatures. And significant parts of that processing structure are devoted to understanding human / biological motion and human facial expressions. Adding lifelike figures to a graphic serves two purposes: It makes the image “pop” and it gives a reader’s brain another handle on a difficult concept.
By Mark Lescroart, 03/13/07 at 11:59 am
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March 13, 2007
A recent poll said that over half of Americans reject evolution. The cause of this dismal state of scientific ignorance is, as we all know, complicated. But where in this muddled mess of confusion do science writers fit in? Is an attempt to educate futile? According to Michael Lemonick, “we’re kidding ourselves if we think we can convince that 50% of the population.”
Of the rapture, Larry Gonick wondered if they believed that their bodies will physically ascend to the heavens. And if so, he’s been “wondering how to make a bet on that. The problem is that I won’t be able to collect when I win.”
Money-making schemes aside, what, if any, is our duty as science writers in education? As people chimed in around the room with their take on this, I sensed an old argument re-surfacing. “We are not educators,” Tom Siegfried said.
Someone else mentioned that we can’t be burdened by being the “explainers,” and trying to change the culture is hopeless. It is simply too hard.
The fact remains that the science stories in newspapers, on-line, and on the radio do educate the public, regardless of what we’d like our role to be. So how much (if at all) does this impact the day-to-day work of a science writer? Have you successful science writers learned to ignore this educational burden? Or do you simply do the best you can?
By Laura Sanders, 03/13/07 at 11:53 am
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