The generational divide around media consumption is an opportunity for universities to upend how they engage with audiences.
Whenever I speak at conferences, inevitably a middle aged scientist will put up their hand and ask me whether it is worth going on social media given there is trolling. An important question, but I can’t help thinking the concern and perceptions of one generation is potentially holding back younger generations and our communication creatives.
Don’t get me wrong, trolling is a serious issue and it is highly gendered, but it is not the most important question when it comes to thinking about communicating with audiences.
I have worked in the media for 30 years and my overarching concern is whether I am telling the stories people want to read, not whether I will be trolled. I can put all the problems in front of me, but then I would never have launched COSMOS Magazine, G: The Green Lifestyle Magazine and more recently, The Brilliant.
We need to think seriously about communication from a generational perspective. Across traditional and social media, it’s very clear the difference between how generations create, consume and share news and entertainment is widening.
The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2022 found that for those under 30, there is much less interest in connecting directly with news media, different views on what journalism ought to look like, and a much heavier reliance on social media platforms than previous generations. And the generational difference doesn’t stop at under 30s. The 18–24 group, which has grown up with social media, is not just different but is more different than the one that came before.
Science content and communication strategies need to consider this. While younger people learn their scientific craft from older generations, when it comes to content creation, it is much more of a two way street. There is much we can learn from the young, particularly around how they communicate across social media platforms. Spend some time on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram or Twitch and then tell me there is a uniform approach to communicating across generations.
It’s very clear that the creatives amongst us are far more adept at absorbing technology advances than the STEM sector is at learning and adopting best practice in the arts and creativity. Film and video games have been transformed by technology but has the STEM sector absorbed the best of the creative field?
That’s a hard no!
As I wrote about in an earlier opinion piece, communication at universities has barely shifted since the 90s with a largely PR approach still dominating its activities.
I was trained in print media but, as the internet emerged and evolved, like many publishers I had to learn on the job how to build audiences for my brands online. Even as experienced as I am in creating digital media brands, the learning never stops. I know how critical it is to tap into the expertise of younger generations who are born into an era where – for example – creating videos is something they have been doing from a young age. They walk between science and creativity with ease. They don’t have to choose to just do science or communications. Technology advances have made things like video and podcast creation accessible to all. All they lack at work is time, the ability to experiment and institutional support.
When I hear people diss TikTok videos, I cringe. Just because you don’t consume or understand a platform or mode of communication, doesn’t mean it isn’t of value to someone else. The technology genie is out of the box – we all need to move forward with the times and match audience needs.
My challenge to people over 40 is to make space for young people to come up with science communication approaches that engage their peers and younger generations.
And the need to communicate science is even more pressing. Biodiversity loss and climate change pose much greater existential threats than anything else faced by humanity. We just don’t have time to take the old-fashioned, top-down approach to communications. We need to shift from the predominance of media relations in communications to engaging with people on whatever platform they are using … and now.
So I say, liberate the young people in your team in a way that hasn’t happened in previous generations.
And don’t just make space for them, clear the way for them to be able to safely and confidently experiment, fail and iterate. Explore ideas, discuss your institution’s strategic and audience objectives so they can plan around that, work out how much time they need to put aside each month, and discuss how you will measure success over the next one to three years. Building audiences takes 18 months plus, it needs attention and time. Give them the encouragement, allow them to grow. And critically find a way to reward communication, not just academic publishing.
A couple of years ago I interviewed Dr Becky Smethurst. While holding down a full-time career as an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford, she has built over 500,000 subscribers on YouTube, As a Royal Astronomical Society Research Fellow at Christ Church College at Oxford University, she has eight hours available for teaching, which she uses instead to make her videos. “They’re supportive of that, they recognise that there are so many different roles people can take up as part of the wider responsibilities of an academic career,” she said.
One person, one day a week, 500,000 YouTube subscribers.
Embrace the discomfort of not being the expert and together let’s enable a generation of science communicators who will create new and bigger audiences for science and technology.
Start the conversation with your younger scientists and communicators today.
Opinion by Kylie Ahern, Publisher of The Brilliant and CEO of STEM Matters
Comments are closed.