Micro-blogging as micro-storytelling: Lessons learned using social media to engage audiences and bring science down to Earth, from space to the village and elsewhere
Abstract
While the respective character limits for popular social media platforms Twitter and Facebook range from 280 to 63,206 characters respectively, in general, one might not consider those platforms as prime storytelling media. Nevertheless, given the extensive reach of both - with Twitter having 275 million active users, and Facebook boasting a user base of 2.41 billion active users - they have proven useful as alternative means of conveying messages about science. For instance, NASA's main Twitter account has a following of 32.1 million users at the time of this writing, and the NASA ESD Twitter account has a following of 1.4 million users, compared to 21.8 million Facebook followers for the former, and 10 million Facebook followers for the latter. In terms of helping to communicate the results of the work NASA is doing - particularly sharing research outputs - there are a wide range of social media channels being implemented by NASA programs, sub-programs, and projects. Although they rarely attain audiences in the magnitude of NASA's main social media accounts, the channels operated by the programs, sub-programs, and projects nonetheless help to amplify messages (e.g. by re-posting stories and helping reach targeted groups of social media users). Importantly, they also have the potential to engage the public at large, helping to "bring science down to Earth." One way of engaging the public is storytelling via the use of "threads" which allow for circumventing character limits, creating narratives, and illustrating data graphically in ways which captivate users. This talk will therefore explore some of the lessons learned through the social media exploits of SERVIR, in pursuit of the program's mission to "connect space to village." One example of engagement pertains to how humor (e.g. memes) were used to draw interest in the recently-released SAR Handbook (published in partnership between SERVIR and SilvaCarbon), how social media views in turn translated to thousands of downloads of the document, and how the Handbook's editorial team is planning to use those tactics along with NASA "open innovation" approaches to get useful feedback from the thousands of individuals who have started using the Handbook. It is hoped that the outcomes conveyed can be of use for science communication in the broader Earth science community.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMPA11A..08C
- Keywords:
-
- 0850 Geoscience education research;
- EDUCATION;
- 9820 Techniques applicable in three or more fields;
- GENERAL OR MISCELLANEOUS;
- 6620 Science policy;
- POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES;
- 6699 General or miscellaneous;
- PUBLIC ISSUES