The value of generative AI is often dismissed after it fails to produce coherent academic responses to single prompts. Mark Carrigan, argues that careless use of generative AI fails to engage with more interactive ways in which it can used to supplemen…
Category: Academic communication
Threads may offer users greater flexibility and control, but concerns over privacy are increasingly mainstream
The recent launch of Threads, Meta Platform’s (formerly Facebook) answer to X (formerly Twitter), highlights how social media is undergoing a period of reinvention. However, drawing on a recent study of Meta’s corporate messaging around the launch of t…
Can AI help with the heavy lifting of research communications?
Considering the key skills required for effective research communication, Andy Tattersall, discusses how he has used AI tools to augment his work and what this might mean for academics and professionals looking to engage wider audiences. Depending on w…
Building an alternative to academic twitter relies on centring the experiences of lurkers
As Twitter, now ‘X’, the preferred social media platform for academics, undergoes a period of change, Gina Sipley argues that part of what made the platform and may make new social media platforms attractive to academics, were the benefits it afforded …
Anti-Racist Scholar-Activism
In Anti-Racist Scholar-Activism, Remi Joseph-Salisbury and Laura Connelly explore how anti-racist scholar-activists navigate the challenges and leverage the opportunities of the university in pursuit of social justice. Illuminating the complicated, oft…
How to make academic book reviews sustainable in a pay to publish environment
Book reviews, let alone academic book reviews, have received many premature notices of their demise. However, as Christina Lembrecht and Vassiliki Gortsas, discuss alongside a crisis in authorship, reviews also run the risk of being excluded from fundi…
Does anyone learn anything new at conferences? Measuring serendipity and knowledge diffusion at academic conferences
The rise of digital networking and conference platforms in recent years has led many to question the value of conferences on environmental and accessibility grounds. Yet, one frequently cited example of their value is the opportunity for serendipitous …
Will Threads be the new academic Twitter?
With over a 100 million new users, the launch of Threads has a real potential to unseat Twitter as the default platform for academic social media. Taking stock of Threads, Andy Tattersall, examines the positives and negatives of the platform and sugges…
Embodying social science research – The exhibition as a form of multi-sensory research communication
Interest in and recognition for communicating academic research in creative ways that reach different audiences is growing. Deborah Lupton reflects on how adopting the role of curator enabled her to bring together different skills, people and ideas to …
Book Review: OK by Michelle McSweeney
In OK, Michelle McSweeney charts the history of the word ‘OK,’ from its origins in the steam-powered printing press through inventions like the telegraph and telephone and into the digital age. McSweeney illustrates how the linguistic creativity accomp…