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…
Category: research communication
Storylistening: why narrative evidence matters for public reasoning and how to use it
As the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated narratives, qualitative or quantitative, can shape, guide and make sense of public policies. However, the way in which the listeners and readers of these narratives receive and engage with them is often taken a…
What or where is the ‘Global South’? A social science perspective
The ‘Global South’ has become a popular meta category in the practice and study of world politics. Exploiting its analytical potential, Sebastian Haug argues, requires explicit engagement with definitions, meanings and the implications of taken-for-gra…
Policy relevant, multidisciplinary, disruptive: What kind of research do economists want?
Based on a global survey of almost 10,000 academic economists, Peter Andre and Armin Falk explore what economists perceive to be worthwhile research in their discipline. Finding many economists think that economic research should become more policy rel…
By ignoring tacit knowledge, we can tell less than we know about research impact.
Impact case studies, such as those produced for the UK’s research excellence framework, often present neat linear impact narratives that reflect the transmission of explicit knowledge from the world of research to the world of practice. Vincent W Mitch…
Rethinking the research seminar for a post-COVID world with Cassyni
Research seminars are a foundational part of academia and an important medium for communicating new ideas and research. However, national lockdowns and social distancing regulations have required research seminars to be translated at speed into digital…
Book Review: What Do We Know and What Should We Do About Fake News? by Nick Anstead
In What Do We Know and What Should We Do About Fake News?, Nick Anstead explores what we mean by fake news and possible ways to address it. Situating fake news in its historical context and providing clear and brief summaries of the current scholarly w…
Book Review: The Anthropocene in Global Media: Neutralizing the Risk by Leslie Sklair
In The Anthropocene in Global Media: Neutralizing the Risk, editor Leslie Sklair brings together contributors to explore how the Anthropocene is reported in mass media globally. Full of rich empirical details and insightful discussions, this enlighteni…
Book Review: The Public and their Platforms: Public Sociology in an Era of Social Media by Mark Carrigan and Lambros Fatsis
In The Public and their Platforms: Public Sociology in an Era of Social Media, Mark Carrigan and Lambros Fatsis explore the discipline of sociology at a time when public life is increasingly shaped by social media platforms. Published in the context of…
9 tips for effective collaborations between journalists and academic researchers
In this cross-post, Clark Merrefield discusses the collaborative work of reporter Rachel Dissell and academic Professor Rachel Lovell and draws out nine insights for how journalists and academics can work effectively together. In 2013, Timothy McGinty…