Why scientists can’t tell stories

Adam Franks from the University of Rochester teased out a key issue in his talk - the role of scientists as gatekeepers.

What he means he how scientists themselves communicate, or rather, fail to communicate, the meaning of their work. Why is this? Partly, said Franks is that there is a sense among scientists that appearance of seeking too much media attention is bad. This is despite the fact that grants tend to have an outreach component. In other words, how is the scientist going to tell the world about their work?

But then the other issue that comes up is that scientists don’t understand narrative.  They tend to adopt an expository approach in writing. The aim is to expose information.  In contrast, journalism is about telling stories through narrative writing. 

This divide illustrates one of the big challenge scientists and journalists face in communicating about science.