The team at Psych-Your-Mind is at the annual meeting for the Society of Personality and Social Psychology in New Orleans, LA bringing you the latest news from the conference!
At
this morning’s symposium on science in the media called “How to Get Your
Message Across,” two public relations experts discussed some of the strategies
that researchers can use to be more effective in their communications with the
media. I attended this symposium with great interests because my research has
gone rogue in the media before, and so I came with the intent of learning
something new about the ways to communicate with reporters and journalists.
The
first speaker was Lisa Munoz, the public information officer from the Society
of Personality and Social Psychology. Munoz discussed the fundamental tension
between scientists and reporters: Scientists want to discuss the background and
the details of the research. In contrast, reporters want to get to the bottom
line—what, in particular, the researchers found in their study. From Munoz’s
perspective the primary goal of discussions between scientists and reporters is
to disseminate research to a broader audience. Thus, Munoz stressed the
importance of talking to the press frequently, and looking for opportunities
when the press will be particularly receptive to your research (e.g.,
relationship research close to Valentine’s Day).
The
second speaker was Claudia Hammond from the BBC. Hammond provided several tips
to facilitate communication between researchers and reporters. Importantly, she
stressed the need to “sound human” with reporters, saying “Chat about your
research in a way that you would if you were chatting about it with your mum.” Interestingly,
Hammond downplayed the competing goals between reporters and scientists saying
of reporters, “All they want is for you to say interesting things.”
All
of this information was well and good, but I would have liked to hear more
about how to prevent your findings from being reported inaccurately. On that
topic, Hammond argued for flexibility, saying “Accept a certain level of
simplification, but not so much that it’s wrong.” Munoz suggested that losing
the details of your research is sometimes inevitable—particularly as a press
release spreads to more and more media outlets. When discussing media coverage
of a study examining links between Terror Management Theory and well-being,
Munoz quipped that “When the story spread to other media outlets, the details
were lost.”
Thanks very much for coming to the session and for your feedback. We're sorry to hear that you came out of the session feeling less excited about talking with the media. The hope was to give you a better understanding of how press interactions work so that you would feel more comfortable.
ReplyDeleteWhile it is inevitable that some journalists may inaccurately report your work, most of them are genuinely interested in the research and want to share it with others. During the session, we highlighted a few ways scientists can minimize the potential for inaccuracies: taking control of the interview, sticking to talking points, and being upfront about what the research does and does not show. We appreciate your feedback and will cover this issue more at future sessions.
Hi Lisa, Thanks for speaking at this symposium. I think it was a helpful look inside the science to news process from the perspective of the media.
DeleteYou're right that the session did cover some ways in which researchers could minimize inaccuracy in reporting. One of the challenges is that I'm not sure exactly how a researcher "takes control of an interview." After all, there isn't any training for that sort of maneuver. I've tried to stick to talking points in interviews before, and I wasn't effective because I was simply too excited to have my research featured in the news! It's not easy, and so I think a certain amount of wariness is healthy when talking to the media.
Thanks!
Yay, I'm here too! Great conference.
ReplyDeleteIndeed!
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