Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Talk - Communicating Science: Easy But Impossible

7pm, Thursday 26th November
Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, Fitzwilliam Street, Cambridge.
Despite a growing interest among scientists in engaging with the public and
the media, we still lacks a genuine science communication culture. While
communication of every kind is on everyone's lips, we are still far from the
genuinely 'intelligent' communication promised by the advent of the
'knowledge society'. Technologies may be partly responsible for this
paradox. Having pervasive 'means' of accessing and exchanging information
creates the feeling that we are communicating better. While this is no doubt
true in so far as society is spontaneously generating new and creative
initiatives, much remains to be done when it comes to the various levels in
established institutions and organizations. We will discuss other challenges
science communication is facing today such as:

- Do we need science journalists?
- New technologies: friends or foes?
- Turning science into "mediascience"
- Promoting the science-society dialogue

About the speaker:

Michel Claessens is currently Deputy Head of the Communication Unit in the
Research Directorate-General at the European Commission. He is also the
editor-in-chief of the research*eu magazine of the European Commission. A
scientific journalist and writer, Michel Claessens has published 250
articles and 8 books on several aspects of modern science and technology. He
is also professor of science communication at the Free University of Brussels.

http://ec.europa.eu/research/research-eu/index_en.html
www.michelclaessens.net
Free to BlueSci members otherwise £2.

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