Reaching the Right Audience

by Michael Tobis     Department: Correlations

Wired Science is an effort to reach a broad audience with science. This is a very important mission.

Science is inherently democratic. It is objective. Just as you can't fool Nature, you can't fool the study of Nature either. Truth wins in the end. It's not a pure meritocracy, but when it works right, talent prevails. On the other hand, it's difficult to get the right skills. As schools become more superficial and more about keeping students busy and pacified rather than interested and adept, the number of young people who "get it" goes down. Ultimately there is a risk that science will run in families. Science can work as an intellectual elite, but not as a heriditary elite. There's not much power in science unless it's appreciated.

Along these lines, some young NASA insiders have been trying to make NASA feel more relevant to the younger generation. An article on the Bad Astronomy blog discusses this, and links to a breezy and interesting presentation that they produced.

I'm a bit torn about this, as I am about Wired Science itself. In the end, we not only have to convey that the products of science are "cool" or interesting or worth digg-ing. The objective needs to be to convey that there is something cooler than breezy-cool. There is deep cool, a sort of cool that can be obtained only by careful contemplation, whose rewards are greater the deeper you go.

I think we actual scientists having a hard time with this. It doesn't match the perceived coolness values that  our young NASA enthusiasts are promoting. Wired Science fits right into that mold: there is a coolness factor with the results, but no attention paid to the process that produces the results.  Athletic persistence is valued but intellectual persistence  is basically regarded as vaguely silly. Only the end results, those that make for good television, are seen as cool.

We aren't running out of recruits in science, really. Lots of people keep showing up from less scientifically developed countries with great ambitions, and there's a steady stream of people from academic families. The lack of indigenous American participation is pretty scary though.

I'm not sure that capitulating to the demons of marketing is the right approach. In the end we are mental athletes. We train hard for our work and compete hard for its prizes and its glories.  The result is more than just entertainment. Selling it as entertainment, perhaps, sells it far too short. This may have a lot to do with why our political culture seems incapable of distinguishing the shams from the real thing.

If there's one thing we need to sell, it's long attention spans. We can't entirely succeed in a     space that celebrates the quick take and the barrage of impressions of hot media. Science is about being deliberate and patient. There's only so much you can dress that up as rock and roll.

Tags: communication

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