Navigating the media as Early Career Academics

Background

The pressure for academics to appear in the media is fostered by motives as diverse as increasing expectations for public engagement, the individual desire to promote research findings to a wider audience, beyond the academic community, and career advancement opportunities tied to visibility and reputation. Media appearances by academics have a range of advantages: they enhance the visibility of academic research and expertise, thereby helping bridge the gap between academia and the broader world. Media engagement may also enable academics to contribute to the public discourse on critical issues and societal challenges. Additionally, media exposure has a representational dimension insofar as it impacts the public perception of research, and of researchers. However, there are also risks for academics when engaging with public-facing media. For instance, the simplified and engaging communication of complex scientific concepts may be judged negatively by an academic’s peers. It can also be difficult for researchers to communicate on politically sensitive or emotionally charged subjects. Scientific knowledge may be misunderstood, misrepresented or sensationalized by journalists or media organizations. At their reception, the message of academics may be misunderstood or instrumentalized politically. Moreover, female scholars and academics from marginalized backgrounds are disproportionately affected by discrimination and harm, both in relation to media appearances themselves and regarding potential public reactions after media exposure.

It is therefore no surprise that academics, especially those at an early stage of their career, often feel unprepared and left alone to navigate the contemporary media landscape. Scientific communication training is usually not included in academic curricula (see Recommendation 2 of the Expert Group “Communicating Sciences and Arts in Times of Digital Media”), and the topic is rarely addressed outside of specialized communities such as communication and public engagement circles. Currently, in Switzerland, common ways to learn about science communication and media engagement consist in learning-by-doing, informal exchange with peers, and ad hoc participation in outreach events for researchers, such as “FameLab” or “3 minute thesis”. Although media trainings are offered and/or supported by various institutions, they are often geared towards the optimization of individual communication and do not deal with the systemic issues at stake.

This project therefore wants to offer a platform for members of the Swiss Young Academy to engage in dialogue, discussion, and critical reflection regarding their relation to the media, provide the opportunity for hands-on training for those interested, as well as collect and share the learnings gained on these systemic issues.

Objectives

The goal of this project is to explore the systemic challenges faced by early career academics in the media, such as:

• Representational biases, marginalization, imposter syndrome, and similar obstacles;
• Criticisms within, but also beyond, the scientific community in connection to one’s presence in the media;
• Risks for early career researchers and particularly those from marginalized backgrounds and/or working on controversial and highly politicized topics;
• The issue of institutional support, or lack thereof, knowing that institutional support is especially necessary, and also especially tricky, at the beginning of an academic career;
• The question of whether, and how, the media can support academics (and not just the opposite).

Moreover, the project aims to help SYA members familiarize themselves with the media (print, radio, TV, but also other formats, such as social media, podcasts, etc.) and reflect upon the following issues:

• Specificities of different media formats;
• Responses to media requests, including considerations like timeframes, text review, and off-the-record responses;
• Techniques for dealing with (live) media interviews, especially regarding politically charged or controversial research topics;
• Links between systemic and individual challenges such as imposter syndrome, precarity, institutional support etc., and useful strategies to overcome them.

Activities

The project consists of two activity streams, which are interlinked throughout the year.

The first stream of the project will be oriented towards a critical reflection and discussion of what engaging with the media means for academics, especially early career academics and particularly those from marginalized backgrounds and/or working on controversial and highly politicized topics. Through literature research and gathering best practices, the project will explore the systemic issues involved and provide the media training retreat with background material. It will also take up the inputs provided from the retreat that relate to structural conditions and synthesize the learnings in an appropriate form.

The second stream of the project consists in organizing a two-day media training retreat, which will provide tailored media training and an overall focus on systemic issues linked to media appearances (cf. first activity stream). Hence, the retreat will be distinct from existing offers, whose primary aim is to optimize individual communication, as it will also create space for critical reflection on media appearances themselves. The retreat will combine theoretical knowledge and hands-on tips, as well as practical exercises for those who would like to address specific skill sets or issues.