In Not Exactly Lying: Fake News and Fake Journalism in American History, Andie Tucher explores how journalistic practice has often pivoted on disinformation throughout US history. This is a first-rate study that will give readers a greater understandin…
Category: Public Engagement
UK in a Changing Europe: injecting social science into a polarised political debate
Reflecting on seven years of UK in a Changing Europe, Anand Menon and Jill Rutter discuss how the project has brought social science insights into the mainstream of a polarised public debate. Highlighting how this mode of engagement falls outside of or…
The true costs of knowledge exchange – a checklist
Planning and budgeting knowledge exchange activities can often be a black box exercise, with activity occurring in an ad-hoc and un-costed fashion. Drawing on case studies of successful knowledge exchange projects, Denis Karcher and Chris Cvitanovic pr…
Who Uses Open Access Research? Evidence from the use of US National Academies Reports
A fundamental principle of open access is that publication technology enables the widest possible audience for research findings. However, the extent to which open research is used outside of academia is often underexplored. Drawing on a dataset coveri…
From science to stanzas – The role of poetry in research communication
Poetry can be perceived as the antithesis of science, indicative of a non-rational mode of thought, and famously banished from Plato’s ideal republic. However, as a form of communication poetry presents a unique way of engaging audiences and empowering…
A step-by-step guide for using Wikipedia for research communication
The Wikipedia community has become a source of information for a broad and global public. Paul Börsting and Maximilian Heimstädt argue that contributing to the encyclopedia as a scholar can be a powerful way of achieving a strong societal impact of the…
COVID-19 has increased trust in science: Can it do the same for the social sciences?
While many politicians have experienced declining levels of public trust during the pandemic, faith in science has generally held up well. However, as Christina Boswell argues, there are a number of reasons why social sciences may struggle to achieve s…
An alternative approach to measuring community engagement in higher education
Universities across the globe are increasingly being called on to contribute to their surrounding communities and regions, especially so as they are mobilised in response to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Reflecting on these emerging demands with…
Are we all social scientists now? The rise of citizen social science raises more questions about social science than it answers.
Citizen social science, whereby members of the public participate in the investigation and analysis of social phenomena, is becoming an increasingly common research method, especially to address localised social issues. In this post, Alexandra Albert¸ …
The epistemological chaos of platform capitalism and the future of the social sciences
Networked digital platforms have destabilised and reconfigured long-established forms of knowledge production and communication, changing the ways in which we consume media and engage with the public sphere and expert knowledge. In this extract from th…